Whitewalling: Art, Race and Protest - A conversation with Aruna D’Souza and Merray Gerges 

Alongside Canadian Art editor Merray Gerges, art critic and activist Aruna D’Souza will discuss her recent book Whitewalling: Art, Race and Protest in Three Acts (2018) and the reparative potential of art criticism. The conversation will be an opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue about the intersections between art, arts institutions, technology, and politics. D’Souza and Gerges will discuss how they address structural racism, diversity and inclusion in their own practices and, in particular, how they have mobilized digital and social media platforms for serious criticism and scholarly debate. 

In the critically acclaimed Whitewalling: Art, Race and Protest in Three Acts, D’Souza examines the entangled histories of art and race in the United States through three exhibitions: the 2017 Whitney Biennale, “The Nigger Drawings” (Artists Space, 1979), and “Harlem on My Mind” (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969). Looking at the exhibitions themselves as well as the protests that erupted around them, D’Souza shows how the concepts and practices of artistic freedom and freedom of expression are both inflected and disrupted by politics of race.