In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing

In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Genevieve Gaignard, a Los Angeles-based artist whose mixed-media practice explores the intersections of race, class, and femininity within the United States. While thinking through the notion of home as an impossible or privileged construct, Genevieve reflects on her experie...

In this first episode of Season 2 of In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing , Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Darby English, the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. In this conversation they discuss Darby’s early affinity with Dutch seventeenth-century painting, his beli...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Michael Ann Holly, the founding director of the Research and Academic Program. Michael describes what initially drew her art history, what interested her in historiography, and the importance of critical theory to her work. Caro and Michael discuss her cont...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Mieke Bal, a cultural theorist, critic, and video artist. Mieke's work focuses on gender, migratory culture, psychoanalysis, and the critique of capitalism. In this conversation, Mieke discusses her early influences and reflects on what drew her to fil...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Brigid Doherty, Associate Professor in the Departments of Art and Archaeology and German at Princeton University. Brigid’s research focuses on the interdisciplinary study of twentieth-century art and literature, especially relationships among artistic pract...

In this episode of In the Foreground , Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Svetlana Alpers, a specialist of Dutch Golden Age painting and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. In this conversation, Svetlana shares how literary criticism influenced her early encounters with art and reflects on her intellectu...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Kirsten Scheid, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the American University in Beirut. In 2019–2020, while the Clark/Oakley Humanities Fellow at the Clark Art Institute, Kirsten worked on an ethnography of aesthetic encounters in contemporary Palestine,...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler speaks with Lisa Lee, Associate Professor of Art History at Emory University and Florence Gould Foundation Fellow at the Clark in spring 2020. While a fellow, Lisa worked on a project tentatively titled “Thomas Hirschhorn’s Real Abstraction, 1984–94,” which focuses on a critical period in the life of the Swiss artist, who is known for his work in c...

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler speaks with Steven Nelson, who in March 2020 was named Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). Prior to that appointment, Steven served as Professor of African and African American Art History at UCLA. Steven’s broad interests in design, travel, and histories of the African diaspora are reflected in his path toward a caree...

In this episode of In the Foreground , Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with art historian Gabriele Finaldi, who since 2015 has been Director of the National Gallery in London. A specialist of Renaissance and Baroque art, Gabriele previously served as Deputy Director of the Prado for over a decade. In this conversation he describes...

In this episode of In the Foreground , Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with C. Ondine Chavoya, Professor of Art History and Latina/o Studies at Williams College. They discuss what shaped Ondine’s interest in Chicanx art and his role in establishing the program in Latina/Latino Studies, the first of its kind at a liberal arts colle...

In this episode of In the Foreground , Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Dell M. Hamilton, an artist, scholar, writer, and independent curator. They discuss how Dell’s long affiliation with the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University shaped her perspective as an artist, and the impact o...

In the inaugural episode of In the Foreground , Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with María Magdalena Campos-Pons, a multidisciplinary artist and the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University. Magda recounts her early progressive education and the importance of the exchange of ideas with her mentors a...