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Symposium Dates: Friday-Saturday, April 25-26, 2025
Location: University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

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Tyanna Buie, In Celebration, 2017
The Grant Wood Art Colony is hosting the 8th Biennial Symposium focusing on the intersections of racial identity and American Regionalist art April 25-26, 2025, at the University of Iowa. 

As one of the leaders of American Regionalism, Grant Wood characterized what he knew about the Midwest by exploring themes like the rural, the quotidian, and the domestic, and encouraged his students to do the same. His graduate student, Elizabeth Catlett, recalled the artist’s instruction at the University of Iowa: “First he said, ‘What are you going to do? It should be something you know most about.’ I decided to do a little Black girl ironing; I knew a lot about ironing.” Wood’s artistic output and teaching elevated a sensibility for everyday intimate moments encapsulating life in the heartland.

LOCATIONS

Schedule

Friday, April 25
Seamans Center 1505

2:00: Welcome
2:30-3:30 p.m. Session 1: The Power of Regionalism
  • Maya Harakawa, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Toronto
  • Erika Schneider, Professor of Art History, Framingham State University
3:30-5:00 p.m. Session 2: De Generación En Generación: Regionalism of South Texas Chicano/a Artists Across Three Generations
  • Carey Rote, Professor, Art History, Pre-Columbian, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
  • Gina Palacios, Artist, Associate Professor, and Interim Director - Center for Mexican American Studies, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • Liz Kim, Lecturer, Texas A&M University-Kingsville
6:00 p.m. Film Screening
  • Chris Harris
  • Cameron Granger

Saturday, April 26
Seamans Center 1505

9:00-9:30 a.m. Coffee
9:30-11:00 a.m. Session 3: Racialized Conceptions of Place
  • James Denison, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
  • David Ehrenpreis, Professor of Art History, James Madison University
  • Christopher Atkins, Curator, Sioux City Art Center
11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Session 4: Working Artists Exploring Race and Place Today
  • Paulo Morales, Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography, Department of Art & Art History, Bucknell University
  • Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Associate Professor of Dance Theory and Praxis and Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies
12:30-2:00 p.m. Break

The Stanley Museum of Art

2:00-3:00 p.m. Refreshments and Exhibition Visit – it’s a fine thing

it’s a fine thing is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional funding was provided by the Members Special Exhibition Fund and Dr. John J. Tanja.

3:00-4:15 p.m. Keynote: Katherine Simóne Reynolds, exhibition curator

Symposium Planning Committee: Jacqueline Banigan, R. Tripp Evans, Ashley Howard, Derek Nnuro, and Maura Pilcher.