Radius Books invites you to celebrate the U.S. launch of Debi Cornwall: Necessary Fictions. Cornwall will be in conversation with Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at the Tate Modern, and Makeda Best, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museums, along with several special guests, in a talk moderated by David Chickey. Panelists will answer questions from the audience at the end of the event.
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Watch the complete recording here:
Debi Cornwall, Conceptual Documentary Artist and Filmmaker
Debi Cornwall returned to visual expression in 2014 after a 12-year career as a civil-rights lawyer. Marrying dark humor and empathy with structural critique, she employs photographs along with archival material, testimony, sound, and video to examine American state-created realities in the post-9/11 era. Cornwall studied photography at RISD while completing a degree in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. After working for photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Sylvia Plachy, as an AP stringer, and as an investigator for the federal public defender’s office, she attended Harvard Law School and practiced for more than a decade as an attorney. Exhaustive research and negotiation were critical to her advocacy and remain integral to her work as an artist. Her first book, Welcome to Camp America (Radius Books, 2017) received numerous awards and honors.
Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator of International Art (Photography), Tate Modern
Yasufumi Nakamori is Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at the Tate Modern, London. Originally from Osaka, Nakamori initially studied law at the University of Wisconsin and practiced in New York City before undertaking a second career in art history following 9/11, going on to obtain his PhD in art history from Cornell University. Prior to joining Tate Modern, Nakamori was head of photography and new media at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. From 2008-2016 he was curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where his exhibitions included Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (2010) and For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979 (2015). His award-winning catalogue Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, traces the collaboration between photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto and Pritzker prize-winning architect Kenzo Tange.
Makeda Best, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museums
Makeda Best is the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums. Her previous exhibitions include: Time is Now – Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin’s America (2018) and Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art (2019). Her upcoming exhibition is Devour the Land: War and AMerican Landscape Photography since 1970. She also teaches courses in the history of photography at the university. She has written for numerous catalogs and journals, most recently for the National Gallery of Poland, the Kunsthalle Mannheim, The Archives of American Art Journal, The James Baldwin Review and the Rhode Island School of the Design’s Manual. Her forthcoming book is Elevate the Masses – Alexander Gardner, Photography and Democracy in Nineteenth Century America (2020). She is co-editor of Conflict, Identity and Protest in American Art (2016). Her research has been supported by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She holds an MFA in studio photography from the California Institute of the Arts and a PhD from Harvard University.
David Chickey, Publisher, Radius Books
David Chickey is Publisher, Designer, and Editorial Director for Radius Books, a non-profit publishing company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 2007, Radius Books’ mission is to encourage, promote, and publish books of artistic and cultural value. Radius titles have received national recognition, including multiple awards from AIGA, American Association of Museums Publishing, and best book nominations from The New Yorker, TIME, PDN, Independent Publisher, and The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation. Chickey also owns a private design firm, with clients including Aperture, Abrams, Harvard University, The Lannan Foundation, SITE Santa Fe, and David Zwirner, among others. He is the former board chair of the Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, and a graduate of Sussex University, England, and UNC, Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.