Body and Form: Diverse Beauty

In honor of Black History Month, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is proud to host Body and Form: Diverse Beauty, a panel discussion focusing on depictions of the Black body in art. This panel will be headed by lead humanities scholar Dr. Jacqueline Trimble, Department Chair of Languages and Literatures at ASU and accomplished author whose work focuses on race and gender in popular culture. She will be accompanied by Michelle Browder, the artist behind Mothers of Gynecology, a statue in downtown Montgomery that features three enslaved women subjected to brutal torture in the name of “scientific advancement.” Dr. Linda J. M. Holloway, award-winning children’s book author and associate professor of Counseling at ASU will act as moderator. Also participating is ASU art professor Cleve Webber, a practicing artist whose work focuses on the human figure and motion.

Together, this panel of experts will bring their thoughts and experiences to the forefront, tackling questions such as how is the Black body depicted in art?; How does art perpetuate those perceptions in society by establishing or maintaining them?; How do those perceptions, in turn, affect people in everyday life? The accompanying exhibition, Figurative “Real”ity will feature Carrie Mae Weems, Not Manet’s Type from 2001, alongside several other works by Black artists from the permanent collection.