Conjure: Art and the Black Supernatural

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Daniel Ramos

A close-up of Bridget Cooks.

Bridget Cooks

University of California, Irvine professor Bridget Cooks is a scholar of African American visual art and an acclaimed museum curator (for an example of her work, view the 2021 exhibit “The Black Index,” which won the Association of Art Museum Curators 2022 Award for Excellence). As part of the UW Center for Research on Gender & Women’s colloquium series, Cooks will speak on the topic of “Conjure: Art and the Black Supernatural,” which examines the place of expressions of faith and magic in African American culture. The Sept. 25 event begins with a reception, followed by the lecture at 6 p.m. Cooks will also participate in a panel discussion, “Lifting the Veil: a Conversation on Race and the Museum Now,” on Sept. 26 at the Chazen; register at eventbrite.com.

media release: Special Lecture: “Conjure: Art and the Black Supernatural”

Dr. Bridget Cooks, University of California, Irvine

Monday, September 25th, 2023 | Reception: 5:00–6:00pm | Lecture: 6:00–7:15pm

Chazen Museum of Art | 750 University Ave. Madison, WI

Biography

Bridget R. Cooks is a scholar and curator of American art. Her research focuses on visual art by African Americans, Black visual culture, and museum criticism. She serves as Chancellor’s Fellow and Professor of African American Studies and Art History at the University of California, Irvine. She is core faculty in the PhD Programs in Visual Studies and Culture and Theory. Her books, articles, and essays can be found widely across interdisciplinary academic publications and art exhibition catalogues. She is most well-known as the author of the book, Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum (UMass, 2011) which received the inaugural James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History.

Cooks’ first career was in museum education. In this capacity she worked at the Oakland Museum of California, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cooks has curated several exhibitions including, Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California, (2018) at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective at the California African American Museum (2019) (CAAM), The Black Index (four venue national tour), Dissolve (Langson IMCA, University Art Gallery, UC Irvine) and Lava Thomas: Homecoming (2022) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.

She has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships from organizations including the Ford Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, Getty Research Institute, and California Humanities.

Sponsors

In addition to the Department of Art History, this lecture is sponsored by: The Chazen Museum of Art, Art Department, Center for Design and Material Culture, Center for the Humanities, Center for Research on Women and Gender, Center for Visual Cultures, Department of African American Studies, Division of the Arts, Institute for Research in the Humanities, Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives.