Please join us in New York for a Conversations/Conversazioni: From the American Academy in Rome, featuring a discussion between two important figures in contemporary art: Robert Storr and Lyle Ashton Harris (2001 Fellow) at the New School. In addition to discussing Harris’s creative process as a visual artist, the audience will also hear about his current and in-development work.

Storr and Harris will also speak about Nero su Bianco, the Academy’s upcoming exhibition which explores radical shifts in perceptions of Afro-Italian identity, subjectivity, and agency in contemporary Italy. The exhibition will feature work by an international group of artists taking the cultural, social, and political temperature at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and is curated by Storr, Harris, and Peter Benson Miller. Nero su Bianco opens in Rome on May 26 in the AAR Gallery.

A professor and dean of the Yale School of Art since 2006, Storr is considered to be one of the most influential Americans in the art world. He was curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, from 1990 to 2002, where he organized exhibitions which enhanced the prominence of artists such as Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Max Beckmann, Tony Smith, and Robert Ryman. From 2002 to 2006, Storr was the first Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He has written numerous catalogues, articles, and books, including Philip Guston (1986), Chuck Close (with Lisa Lyons, 1987), and the forthcoming Intimate Geometries: The Work and Life of Louise Bourgeois. Storr was the commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennale, the first American invited to assume that position.

For more than two decades, Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photographic media, collage, installation, and performance. His work explores intersections between the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the 52nd Venice Biennale. Harris’s work has also been acquired by major international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.