Past Event: An-My Lê, Marie Watt and Olu Oguibe

Distinguished Artist Colloquium

Internationally renowned artists An-My Lê, Olu Oguibe and Marie Watt will be in dialogue, followed by a question and answer. A colloquium moderated by Meleko Mokgosi, Director of Graduate Studies. Sponsored by the Belonging at Yale Grant & the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale. 

About the Speakers

An-My Lê was born in Saigon, Vietnam. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She was educated at Stanford University and at Yale University and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art (2024); MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2012); the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2009); and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1997). Lê is currently the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York.

Her work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017) and the Taipei Biennial (2014 and 2006). Solo exhibitions of Lê’s work have been presented at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2020); Sheldon Art Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska (2017); Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, Sweden (2015); Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2013); Dia: Beacon, New York (2008); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (2008); and MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York (2002). Between Two Rivers/Giữa hai giòng sông/Entre deux rivières, a 30-year survey of her career, including her forays into film, textiles, and installation opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in November 2023.

Marie Watt is an interdisciplinary artist whose work draws from history, biography, Haudenosaunee protofeminism, and Indigenous teachings; in it, she explores the intersection of history, community, and storytelling. Through collaborative actions, she instigates multigenerational and cross-disciplinary conversations that create a lens and conversation for understanding connectedness to place, one another, and the universe. Visit the Marie Watt Studio website.

Olu Oguibe is an award-winning multimedia artist and writer whose work often straddles minimalist formalism and engagement with global social issues. Oguibe has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world and has participated in several international biennials and triennials, including the Venice, Havana, and Busan biennials. He has also created permanent public works in many countries and curated or co-curated several significant international exhibitions.

His writings on art, literature, and cultural theory are widely published. He has been a fellow of the Smithsonian Institution, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, and Open Society Foundations, among others. His many honors include the Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award for excellence and lifetime achievement in 2013 and the 2017 Arnold Bode Prize for his work in documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany. In 2017, Oguibe left his position as professor of painting at the University of Connecticut to concentrate on making art. Portrait photo courtesy of the artist. Visit Olu Oguibe’s website.