Conversations

Amiri Baraka & Kellie Jones

  • to This is a past program

Now Dig This! curator Kellie Jones and her father—renowned poet, playwright, and activist Amiri Baraka—discuss their collaboration on Jones’s book EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art, which investigates various perspectives on art making throughout different generations. Jones is associate professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Her writings have appeared in NKA, Artforum, Flash Art, Atlantica, Third Text, and numerous catalogues. Baraka is the author of more than 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism. The former Poet Laureate of New Jersey, he has received numerous honors including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and an Obie Award for his play Dutchman (1963). A book signing will follow the conversation.

In conjunction with the exhibition Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980.

All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from the Dream Fund at UCLA.

Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, The Brotman Foundation of California, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, and all Hammer members.