Gene Siskel Film Center Virtual Cinema
Closed captions available
Join scholars Delinda Collier and Leslie Wilson as they discuss the artists and ideas behind Collier’s new book Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020). A sweeping study of technological media centering Africa, Media Primitivism examines film, digital art, and electronic music produced by African artists in relation to other modes of transfer and transmutation. A related program of films and videos is on view in the Gene Siskel Film Center’s virtual cinema from October 11 – 17.
ABOUT
Delinda Collier is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism and Interim Dean of Graduate Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her research interests are in old and new media in Africa, Luso-African Art, and Cold War modernisms. She is the author of Repainting the Walls of Lunda: Information Colonialism and Angolan Art (University of Minnesota, 2016) and Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke, 2020), among many articles, essays, and reviews.
Leslie Wilson is Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Art at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art and Assistant Professor of Art History at Purchase College, the State University of New York. Her research focuses on the global history of photography, modern and contemporary arts of Africa, the African diaspora, and America, and museum and curatorial studies. Her writing has been featured in Manual, FOAM Magazine, and African Arts, among others.
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RELATED SCREENING
Transfer and Transmutation
October 11-17
Gene Siskel Film Center Virtual Cinema
Featuring work by Wangechi Mutu, Sammy Baloji, Tabita Rezaire, CUSS Group, Listening at Pungwe, Ralph Borland, and Julian Jonker, this program explores the transfer and transmutation of ideas, culture, material, and memory.