Tour of the American Folk Art Museum’s closing exhibition
“Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North”
Friday, March 15 & Friday, March 22, 2024
5:00 p.m.
2 Lincoln Square, New York City, NY 10023
$30 per person
Alumni are invited to join AFA for a special, farewell tour of the critically acclaimed exhibition, “Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in Early North America,” led by exhibition co-curator Emelie Gevalt, Curatorial Chair for Collections and Curator of Folk Art, at the Folk Art Museum. Attingham alum Jason T. Busch ’01, the Becky and Bob Alexander Director and CEO, will greet our group before we closely consider 125 remarkable works that challenge us to confront anti-Black racist narratives in the visual and material culture of Pre-Civil War New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
Gevalt and her co-curators, RL Watson, Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies, Lake Forest College; and Sadé Ayorinde, Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, explore themes of enslavement, resistance, community-building and memory-making to deepen our understanding of the experiences of Black individuals and, critically, the reasons why their stories have often gone underrepresented. More information about the exhibition can be found here. You can also download the free digital guide on Bloomberg Connects here. A 300-page scholarly catalogue features contributions by many notable authorities, including Attingham alum Jennifer van Horn, ’03, and is available for purchase in the gift shop or online (click here).
Capacity: Each group is limited to ten people, due to the small size of the AFAM galleries.
Registration: Registration is required via Eventbrite only. Regrettably, registration by phone or mail and payments by check cannot be accommodated.
Transportation: Please consult the instructions provided by the museum on their webpage, “Location and Hours” (link here) and kindly review the “Visitor Guidelines” (link here) to ensure we all share a successful visit. The museum is easily accessible via the 1-train and the 66th Street/Lincoln Center station.
Attire & Accessibility: Please wear comfortable shoes, as the tour requires some physical stamina and the ability to stand for prolonged periods
Can’t make it? Plan to visit the exhibition at it’s next venue, Historic Deerfield, where it will be on view from May 1 to August 1, 2024. Please contact Attingham alum Amanda Lange ’96, Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interiors at Historic Deerfield, for additional inquiries.
We expect this program to sell out. Please register and purchase your ticket today.