Friday, March 15, 2019, 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 is the first national museum exhibition to examine the contemporary impact of the Vietnam War on American art. The show brings together nearly 100 works by fifty-eight of the most visionary and provocative artists of the period, who reimagined the goals and uses of art and affected developments across multiple movements and media: painting, sculpture, printmaking, performance, installation, documentary art, and conceptualism.
During the Symposium, a distinguished group of scholars and artists offer insight into the intersection between the Vietnam War and art practice in the United States.
Program Schedule
9:00-9:30 a.m.
Doors open
Morning Session
9:30 a.m.
Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Welcome
9:40 a.m.
Melissa Ho, exhibition curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Introduction
10:15 a.m.
Mignon Nixon, professor of modern and contemporary art, University College London
What's Love Got to Do, Got to Do With It? Feminist Politics and America's War in Vietnam
10:45-11:00 a.m.
Break
11:00 a.m.
Chon Noriega, professor, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television director, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
"People who mess up the public streets should be shot": Protesting Vietnam on East and West Coasts
11:30 a.m.
Fred Ritchin, dean emeritus, International Center of Photography
Vietnam Inc.: An Excoriating Look at War
12:00 p.m.
Discussion with morning speakers
Moderated by independent scholar Katherine Markoski
12:30 -2:00 p.m.
Break for lunch
Afternoon session
2:00-3:30 p.m.
Artist panel I: Art in California
Harry Gamboa Jr., Rupert García, and Martha Rosler
Discussion with panelists moderated by Thomas Crow, Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
3:30-3:45 p.m.
Break
3:45-5:30 p.m.
Artist panel II: Art in New York
Judith Bernstein and Hans Haacke
Discussion with panelists moderated by Julia Bryan-Wilson, professor of modern and contemporary art, University of California, Berkeley
5:30-7:00 p.m.
Artists Respond exhibition open for viewing
The program takes place in SAAM’s Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. The auditorium is fully accessible from the Eighth and G Streets NW entrance of the museum.