Symposium Dates: Friday-Saturday, April 25-26, 2025
Location: University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
REGISTER HERE
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
- Seamans Center 1505 (Stanley Auditorium)
103 South Captiol Street
Public parking available in the Capital Street Ramp (220 South Capital Street) - Stanley Museum of Art
160 West Burlington Street
Parking available on the museum's lower level
Schedule
Click on the titles for abstracts and brief speaker biographies.
Friday, April 25
Seamans Center 1505
2:00: Welcome from Maura Pilcher, Director, Grant Wood Art Colony and Derek Nnuro, Curator of Special Projects, Stanley Museum of Art
2:30-3:30 p.m. Session 1: American Regionalism Beyond the Midwest
- Maya Harakawa, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Toronto
"Benny Andrews and the Problem of Regionalism" - Erika Schneider, Professor of Art History, Framingham State University
"Inclusive Regionalism: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s Water Boy"
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
“Antonio E. García: South Texas Regionalist” - Gina Palacios, Artist, Associate Professor, and Interim Director - Center for Mexican American Studies, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
“Frontera Regionalism: Art from the Borderlands” - Liz Kim, Lecturer, Texas A&M University-Kingsville
“Regionalist Views of Amado M. Peña’s Chicano Movement Posters”
6:00 p.m. Film Screening & Artist Conversation
- Chris Harris
- Cameron Granger
Saturday, April 26
Seamans Center 1505
9:00-9:15 a.m. Coffee
9:15 a.m. Welcome from Joni Kinsey, Grant Wood Art Colony National Advisory Board
9:30-11:00 a.m. Session 3: The Region Shapes the Nation: Place and Identity in the American Scene
- James Denison, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
"Beyond Midwestern Realism: Racialized Regionalism in Comparative Perspective" - David Ehrenpreis, Professor of Art History, James Madison University
“'Savage Iowa:' Grant Wood’s Vision of Native America” - Christopher Atkins, Curator, Sioux City Art Center
"Reimagining Rural America: Grant Wood’s Corn Room"
11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Session 4: Navigating Terrains: Race and Region Today
- Paulo Morales, Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography, Department of Art & Art History, Bucknell University
"Memphis Tulips and Flowering Dogwood: Exploring Racialization of the Photograph through Encounters as an Asian-American" - Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Associate Professor of Dance Theory and Praxis and Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies
"Performing Christian Nationalism in the Midwest: Race, Ritual, and the Other"
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.