Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Hear from the interpretation partners for Irving Penn. This talk features Papua New Guinea scholar, artist, and curator Dr. Michael Mel, local San Francisco photographer Baidi Kamagate, philosopher, political science, and art critic Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina, and curator and scholar Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar. The program will be moderated by director of interpretation Abram Jackson and curator of American art Emma Acker.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation, and in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Featured speakers
Dr. Michael Mel, Papua New Guinea scholar, artist and curator
Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina, philosopher, political scientist, and art critic
Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar, curator and scholar
Baidi Kamagate, local San Francisco photographer
Moderated by
Abram Jackson, director of interpretation
Emma Acker, curator of American art and coordinating curator for Irving Penn
About the speakers
Curator and scholar Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar is an expert in the rich photographic tradition that existed in Cuzco, Peru prior to Penn’s arrival.
Baidi Kamagate is a photographer residing in the vibrant city of San Francisco, and responds to Penn’s work through his unique lens as a local artist.
Philosopher, political scientist, and art critic Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina offered a response to the photographs Penn made in Morocco.
Dr. Michael Mel is from the Mogei community in the Mt. Hagen area of Highlands in Papua New Guinea. A performance artist, lecturer, curator, and teacher, he is currently director of the Melanesian Institute for Arts and Culture at the University of Papua New Guinea.
About the moderators
Emma Acker is curator of American art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the coordinating curator for Irving Penn. She recently served as installation curator for Sargent and Spain (2023). In 2018, she organized Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art, which was identified by the Washington Post as one of the top two surveys of American art that year.
Abram Jackson joined the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as inaugural director of interpretation in June 2022. Jackson utilizes ethnic studies theories and DEIA practices in partnership with staff to incorporate more inclusive narratives into didactics. One of his contributions to this effort is the interpretation partners program, which incorporates local voices into the interpretive framing for special exhibitions with themes connected to lived experiences of local and global communities.
Sponsors
Major Support
The Bernard Osher Foundation
Learn more about the exhibition: famsf.org/exhibitions/irving-penn
Subscribe to our channel: https://dey.ng/our-channel
Don’t miss our upcoming programs! Sign up for our newsletter: https://dey.ng/newsletter
Hear from the interpretation partners for Irving Penn. This talk features Papua New Guinea scholar, artist, and curator Dr. Michael Mel, local San Francisco photographer Baidi Kamagate, philosopher, political science, and art critic Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina, and curator and scholar Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar. The program will be moderated by director of interpretation Abram Jackson and curator of American art Emma Acker.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation, and in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Featured speakers
Dr. Michael Mel, Papua New Guinea scholar, artist and curator
Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina, philosopher, political scientist, and art critic
Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar, curator and scholar
Baidi Kamagate, local San Francisco photographer
Moderated by
Abram Jackson, director of interpretation
Emma Acker, curator of American art and coordinating curator for Irving Penn
About the speakers
Curator and scholar Dr. Andrés Garay Albújar is an expert in the rich photographic tradition that existed in Cuzco, Peru prior to Penn’s arrival.
Baidi Kamagate is a photographer residing in the vibrant city of San Francisco, and responds to Penn’s work through his unique lens as a local artist.
Philosopher, political scientist, and art critic Dr. Seloua Luste Boulbina offered a response to the photographs Penn made in Morocco.
Dr. Michael Mel is from the Mogei community in the Mt. Hagen area of Highlands in Papua New Guinea. A performance artist, lecturer, curator, and teacher, he is currently director of the Melanesian Institute for Arts and Culture at the University of Papua New Guinea.
About the moderators
Emma Acker is curator of American art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the coordinating curator for Irving Penn. She recently served as installation curator for Sargent and Spain (2023). In 2018, she organized Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art, which was identified by the Washington Post as one of the top two surveys of American art that year.
Abram Jackson joined the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as inaugural director of interpretation in June 2022. Jackson utilizes ethnic studies theories and DEIA practices in partnership with staff to incorporate more inclusive narratives into didactics. One of his contributions to this effort is the interpretation partners program, which incorporates local voices into the interpretive framing for special exhibitions with themes connected to lived experiences of local and global communities.
Sponsors
Major Support
The Bernard Osher Foundation
Learn more about the exhibition: famsf.org/exhibitions/irving-penn
Subscribe to our channel: https://dey.ng/our-channel
Don’t miss our upcoming programs! Sign up for our newsletter: https://dey.ng/newsletter
![[Day 1] Bridges: Social Engagement in Artists’ Books/ 2021 Reva and David Logan Symposium](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rEsYg-nNJCo/mqdefault.jpg "[Day 1] Bridges: Social Engagement in Artists’ Books/ 2021 Reva and David Logan Symposium
As potent tools for understanding, books can bridge disparate cultures. This year’s Logan Symposium brings together six powerful and courageous voices, artists who have traveled the world, and traveled within themselves, to bring back visual and poetic testimony.
About the Speakers
Dana Gioia (Keynote): Creativity, Collaboration, & Community
Dana Gioia is a poet and critic with numerous awards to his credit and a long history of collaboration with letterpress printers and artists. His 1992 book Can Poetry Matter? was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. He is a former Poet Laureate of California and from 2003 to 2009 was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. For nine years Gioia was the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at USC. He now divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California. (danagioia.com)
Nigel Poor: Stories from San Quentin
Description
Nigel Poor, an artist, and photographer is a Professor of Photography at CSU Sacramento and is widely known as co-host and co-creator with Earlonne Woods of the celebrated podcast Ear Hustle. Her book The San Quentin Project (Aperture, 2021), based on classes she has taught at San Quentin on the theory and history of photography, documents the work of incarcerated students. Her fine art has been widely exhibited and collected. (nigelpoor.com)
Philip Zimmermann: Delirium
Philp Zimmermann founded his imprint, Spaceheater Editions, in 1979, and has since published several dozen editions of his mostly photo-based book works, with thirty-eight editions currently in print. A recent work, Delirium, a striking evocation of the contagions of 2020, both medical and political, was selected by the professional design association AIGA as one of the fifty best-designed books of the year. Recently retired as a professor of design at the University of Arizona, he lives in Tucson. (spaceheat.com)
Andre Bradley, Dark Archives, 1–41
Andre Bradley’s Dark Archives, 1–41, was shortlisted for the Photo-Text Book Award at Les Rencontres de la Photographie and the Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award, both in 2016. His work is in public and private art collections and libraries including the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Scripps Colleges Ella Strong Denison Library. Bradley holds MFA degrees from Ithaca College and the Rhode Island School of Design, where he received the T.C. Colley Award for Photographic Excellence. He lives and works in Philadelphia. (elanaschlenker.com/dark-archives/)")
