In-Person and Virtual Lecture*
Advance registration is required
Join us for the 2025 Annual Paul Lott Lecture, which features the work of esteemed art historians, who are among the most respected curators and museum professionals in the industry. We are honored to welcome Thelma Golden, Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, to be in conversation with Erich Kessel Jr., Assistant Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts.
Thelma Golden is the Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual arts by artists of African descent. She began her career in 1987 as a fellow at the Studio Museum, then joined the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. Golden returned to the Studio Museum in 2000 as the Deputy Director for exhibitions and programs and was named the Director and Chief Curator in 2005. Golden serves on the board of directors for the Barack Obama Foundation, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Mellon Foundation. In 2010, she was appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House by President Barack Obama. She holds a B.A. in Art History and African American Studies from Smith College.
Erich Kessel Jr. researches and teaches theoretical and historical approaches to the relationship between antiblackness and the visual, with a focus on art and media since the 1970s. His work engages questions of slavery; political economy; aesthetics; art historical method; gender and sexuality; psychoanalysis and libidinal economy; and mediation. Assembling tools from a range of disciplines, his current writing explores how the racial violence of representation has shaped the concept, production and social function of the image. Kessel completed a PhD in History of Art and African-American Studies with a certificate in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. In addition to receiving a fellowship from the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fund, his work has been previously supported by the Whitney Independent Study Program’s Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies Fellowship and the Mellon Mays Fellowship Program. He received a BA in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania.
*The program will be presented onsite at the James B. Duke House and live-streamed. Please note we have transitioned from Zoom to a new, web-based live-streaming platform for our events. You can now access our public programs directly through your browser. Kindly RSVP below to receive the link.
This program is made possible with generous funding from the Paul Lott Lectureship.