VenueCathedral of Learning 

Date02/06/2017 

Time3:00 PM - 4:00 PM  

Event TypeOther 

GenreMultigenre 

SponsorHumanities Center at University of Pittsburgh, Center for African American Poetry and Poetics 

Cost $0.00
 

Description and Reader Names: In the span of a few years, there have been an unusual number of international exhibits of the work of Haitian-Nuyorican-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 2014, the city of Paris named a public square in its 13th arrondissement after Basquiat. In the aftershocks of the extrajudicial killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland and countless others, Basquiat’s iconic paintings 'Irony of a Negro Policeman' (1981) and 'The Death of Michael Stewart' (1983) frequently appeared in social media. What do we make of this moment of Basquiat’s major global 'revival'? What has been erased from the criticism, curation and consumption of Basquiat’s global legacy? What might we re-vision in Basquiat’s work if we rightfully reframe him as an erasurist? Basquiat's visual critique simultaneously tests limits and asks us to think across boundaries. He embodies interdisciplinarity as resourcefulness or even a kind of love; the act of collecting and drawing on anything available in the name of survival.

Discussion led by Christian Campbell, a Trinidadian-Bahamian poet, essayist and cultural critic who has lived in the Caribbean, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. He is the author of Running the Dusk (2010), which won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was a finalist for the Forward Prize for the Best First Collection and the Cave Canem Poetry Prize among other awards. The book was also named one of the best books of the year by the Caribbean Review of Books, Horizon Review and Poetry International. Running the Dusk was recently translated into Spanish and published in Cuba as Correr el Crepúsculo (2015). Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa calls Running the Dusk 'the gutsy work of a long-distance runner who possesses the wit and endurance, the staying power of authentic genius.'

Primary Contact PersonLauren Russell 

Primary Contact Emaillmr65@pitt.edu 

Telephone412-383-5954 

Websitehttp://caapp.pitt.edu 

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/africanamericanpoetry/ 

Twitterhttp://twitter.com/caapoetics 

Number of readers on program 

Is this an open mic event? No 

Is this a book signing? No 

Will author's books be for sale? No 

Address 1526 CL - English 

Address 24200 Fifth Avenue 

Address 3526 CL - English 

CityPittsburgh 

StatePA 

Zip15260 

Days/Hours of Operation 

Primary Contact Person 

Primary Contact Email 

Telephone 

Websitehttp://www.pitt.edu 

Facebook 

Twitter 

AuthorLauren Michelle Russell 

Websitehttp://caapp.pitt.edu 

Facebook 

Twitter 

Short bio: The Center emerged in a brainstorming session between Pitt poetry professors Terrance Hayes, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Yona Harvey.