Beyond Categories: New Models for Identity Today
The Yale University Art Gallery hosted a multidisciplinary conversation titled “Beyond Categories: New Models for Identity Today,” anchored by Jess Fan’s exhibition “Just Fan Unbounded.” Curator Margaret Euing introduced the show, which traces Fan’s decade‑long practice of merging abstract sculpture with biological materials to interrogate the porous, mutable nature of identity. Speakers highlighted how Fan’s work—injecting urine, melanin, synthetic testosterone into glass, casting body parts, and 3D‑printing CT scans—exposes identity as a plastic, technologically mediated construct. Pamela Lee framed identity as “plastic,” arguing that historical and contemporary art continuously reshapes gender, race, and species boundaries, while Al Steiner and Tavian Nyango connected these ideas to colonial medical portraiture and current biopolitical debates. Lee’s opening remark, “I am a ghost coming back from the 1980s,” underscored the persistence of identity politics from the culture wars to today’s DEI backlash. Examples ranged from 19th‑century Chinese medical portraits to Gen‑Z wellness memes that commodify “Chineseess,” illustrating how identity can be both a site of oppression and a viral cultural commodity. The discussion signals a shift toward interdisciplinary analysis—melding art history, science‑technology studies, and Black queer theory—to rethink categorization. For institutions, it underscores the urgency of addressing identity’s fluidity in curatorial practice, academic research, and public policy, especially as political forces weaponize identity narratives.
Fabricating Large-Scale Sculpture at Lippincott, Inc.
The evening program at Yale University Art Gallery celebrated the reinstallation of Klaus Oldenburg’s iconic “Lipstick Ascending on Caterpillar Tracks,” highlighting the pivotal role of Lipincot, Inc. in fabricating the work and overseeing its recent conservation funded by a Bank...
Archetypes and Outcasts in the Work of August Sander
The Yale University Art Gallery hosted a lecture by Columbia professor Noam Elcott on August Sander’s monumental portrait series, People of the 20th Century, currently on view. The exhibition displays over 600 photographs taken between the 1890s and early 1950s,...