Artist Bethany Collins and poet, author, and performer Duriel E. Harris will take part in a conversation at noon, Saturday, March 23, at the University Galleries, 11 Uptown Circle #103, Normal.
“In Conversation: Bethany Collins and Duriel Harris” is organized in conjunction with A Pattern or Practice, the most comprehensive presentation of Collins’ work to date. The exhibition is on view at University Galleries through March 31, and features 30 works addressing the critical intersection of race and language.
This event is co-sponsored by @Salon and Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, a biannual journal edited by Harris and published by the Publications Unit at Illinois State University. It is also supported in part by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Harold K. Sage Foundation, and the Illinois State University Foundation Fund. The exhibition and conversation are organized by University Galleries’ Director and Chief Curator Kendra Paitz.
Bethany Collins bio
Bethany Collins’ work has been exhibited at: The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Locust Projects, Miami; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Hudgens Center for the Arts, Duluth, Georgia; and The Center for Book Arts, New York, among others. Her work is included in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; Birmingham Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, among others. Collins was the 2015 recipient of the Hudgens Prize at the Hudgens Center for the Arts in Duluth, Georgia, and a 2018 recipient of the Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship. She has also received grants, awards, and residencies from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Hyde Park Art Center, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Artadia, and the Rural Alabama Initiative, among others. Collins was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and currently lives and works in Chicago. She received her MFA at Georgia State University and her B.A. at University of Alabama. She is represented by Patron Gallery, Chicago, and Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago and New York.
Duriel Harris bio
Poet, sound artist, and scholar, Duriel E. Harris is author of three print poetry collections including No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (2017), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. Current undertakings include the solo performance project Thingification, which has been featured at the Greenhouse Theater (Chicago), the Wild Project (NYC), and Babylon Cinema (Berlin). Recent writing is featured with Harriet Blog (The Poetry Foundation), the Academy of American Poets, and Letters to the Future: Black WOMEN/Radical WRITING (Kore Press 2018). The 2018 Offen Poet, Harris is an associate professor of English in the graduate creative writing program at Illinois State University and the editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.
University Galleries
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, Noon-4 p.m.
Free curator-led tours and workshops are available by appointment throughout the exhibition. Contact gallery@ilstu.edu or (309) 438-5487.
