Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture Solar Ethics by Huey Copeland
Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture: “Solar Ethics” by Huey Copeland
Monday, April 4, 2016
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Since his death in 1993, the musician, writer, and composer Sun Ra—a self-styled intergalactic prophet hailing from Saturn by way of ancient Egypt—has become a frequently referenced touchstone for cultural producers of various stripes. In this lecture, art historian Huey Copeland explored Ra’s representations of space-time and their implications for contemporary artists, such as Edgar Arceneaux, Glenn Ligon, and Mai-Thu Perret, who identify with his utopian aspirations and who have subsequently taken up the challenge thrown down by his life and work. While commentators have made much of Ra’s brilliant troping on black alienation, particularly his embrace of outer space, equally important to his intellectual project was a radical rethinking of the logics of Western temporality. Ultimately, Copeland argued, Ra’s thinking points us toward new criteria for the evaluation of recent art that take seriously both the recursiveness and simultaneity of time as it unfolds within, beyond, and across the black world.
Photos: Chad Heird
For more information about our Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture series, visit www.guggenheim.org
Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture Solar Ethics by Huey Copeland
Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture: “Solar Ethics” by Huey Copeland
Monday, April 4, 2016
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Since his death in 1993, the musician, writer, and composer Sun Ra—a self-styled intergalactic prophet hailing from Saturn by way of ancient Egypt—has become a frequently referenced touchstone for cultural producers of various stripes. In this lecture, art historian Huey Copeland explored Ra’s representations of space-time and their implications for contemporary artists, such as Edgar Arceneaux, Glenn Ligon, and Mai-Thu Perret, who identify with his utopian aspirations and who have subsequently taken up the challenge thrown down by his life and work. While commentators have made much of Ra’s brilliant troping on black alienation, particularly his embrace of outer space, equally important to his intellectual project was a radical rethinking of the logics of Western temporality. Ultimately, Copeland argued, Ra’s thinking points us toward new criteria for the evaluation of recent art that take seriously both the recursiveness and simultaneity of time as it unfolds within, beyond, and across the black world.
Photos: Chad Heird
For more information about our Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture series, visit www.guggenheim.org