Photo:
Steve Locke — Ross Collab
LaToya Ruby Frazier — Luigi De Palma

Art Speaks is delighted to present a conversation between LaToya Ruby Frazier and Steve Locke

Drawing on their recent exhibitions—LaToya Ruby Frazier’s at MoMA and Steve Locke’s at MASS MoCA—these two politically engaged American artists will reflect on how in their works they negotiate racial, social, economic, and artistic structures of power.  With shared interests in history, justice, racism, systemic violence, education, queer rights and health care, both consider their works as platforms from which to speak to the issues in the world that demand our attention.

The conversation will move from the macro to the micro, evoking their personal backgrounds, as well as the role of the artist, the writers that inform their thinking (James Baldwin in particular), their quite different relationships to portraiture, and their respective memorials for Breonna Taylor and Freddie Gray. By investigating labour conditions or the violence and policing enacted upon Black or queer people, Ruby Frazier and Locke lament injustices, acknowledge the victories gained in spite of continuing oppression, and examine the complex social relationships resulting from shared histories of marginalization, oppression and solidarities.

_
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work documents American post-industrial cities and their intersecting narratives of labor, gender, and race. A consummate activist and storyteller, her intimate photographs make visible the lives and resistances of working people in the face of environmental racism. Growing out of the legacy of Social Documentary, Frazier’s work reclaims dignity for her collaborators, offering insight into the human cost of industry. She teaches us how art is a powerful tool for social transformation.

LaToya Ruby Frazier has received numerous awards including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the ICP’s Infinity Award for Best Publication in recognition of her first book The Notion of Family. Her work is shown and collected globally, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and The Museum of Modern Art in New York where she just just closed a extensive survey exhibition titled Monuments of Solidarity.

Steve Locke is an artist working across painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. His practice critically engages with the western canon to interrogate the connections between desire, identity, violence and memory. His practice asks us to confront and critically engage with a complicated present and painful past by reexamining relations between and among men, or how racism is intertwined with American culture.

Locke’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and most recently at MASS MoCA, where, in August, he opened an expansive survey show titled The Fire Next Time. His works are collected by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, AKG Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., among others.

_
ART SPEAKS is dedicated to presenting a platform of international artists and thinkers to provoke and stimulate thought.

artspeaks.ca
@artspeaks_mtl

• LaToya Ruby Frazier and Steve Locke Wednesday October 30, 2024, 7pm Cinéma du Musée 1379-A Sherbrooke St. W, Montreal In English Free admission, no reservations Presented by ART SPEAKS
• Momus Talks:Charting an Inflection Point in Art Criticism and Publishing Friday, April 12th, 2024, 6 PM Plural Art fairGrand Quay, Port of Montreal200 de la Commune W. St.In EnglishEntrance included with a ticket to the fair, no reservationsPresented by Momussupported by ART SPEAKS
• David Wallace-Wells & Amitav Ghosh: A Climate Talk Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 6 PM Théâtre Outremont 1248, Avenue Bernard West, Outremont In EnglishFree admission, no reservations Presented by ART SPEAKS
• Helen Molesworth in Conversation with Jarrett Earnest Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 6 PM Cinéma du Musée1379-A Sherbrooke Street WestIn EnglishFree admission, no reservations Presented by ART SPEAKS
• Lucas Zwirner in Conversation with Tau Lewis and Woody De OthelloWednesday April 12, 2023 6 PM Amphithéâtre GESÙ 1200, rue BleuryIn EnglishFree admission. No reserved seatsPresented by ART SPEAKS
• Art and the Defiance of Viral CirculationJason FaragoMonday, May 16, 2022 at 6 pmMaxwell-Cummings AuditoriumMontreal Museum of Fine Arts1379-A Sherbrooke Street WestIn EnglishFree. Reservations required (service charge applies)Presented by ART SPEAKS and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• flow / form conversationsManuel Mathieu and Curtis Talwst Santiago in ConversationTuesday, September 14, 2021 at 8 PM on IGTV@artspeaksmtl | artspeaks.ca
• Catherine Opie & Robin Coste LewisWednesday, November 13, 2019, 7pmCinéma du MuséeMontreal Museum of Fine Arts1379-A Sherbrooke Street WestIn EnglishPresented by Art Speaks
• サモアについてのうた(Samoa ni tsuite no uta)A song about SāmoaA keynote lecture with interdisciplinary artist Yuki KiharaThursday, June 13, 20195:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.Concordia University1515 St. Catherine WRoom EV.1-615In EnglishFree Admission, No reserved seatsPresented by GAX 2019
• Art First; All Else Follows A Talk by Jerry SaltzWednesday, April 3, 2019, 7pmThéâtre Outremont1248 avenue Bernard WestIn EnglishFree Admission, No Reserved SeatsPresented by Art Speaks
• What does art have to do with the price of fish? A Talk by Zita CobbMonday, November 12, 2018, 7 PMDB Clarke TheaterHenry F. Hall Building1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. WestIn EnglishFree Admission, No Reserved SeatsPresented by Art Speaks
• THE BLACK MADONNAA TALK BY THEASTER GATESTuesday March 20, 2018, 6:30 pmMontreal Museum of Fine ArtsMaxwell-Cummings Auditorium1379A Sherbrooke Street WestIn EnglishPresented by Art Speaks and DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art
• Thelma GoldenWednesday, November 29, 2017, 7 pmMusée d’art contemporain de MontréalIn Englishpresented by ART SPEAKS
• Hajra WaheedIntimate ConversationsOctober 4, 2017In Englishpresented by ART SPEAKS
• Frances StarkThursday November 17, 2016Maxwell-Cummings Auditorium1379A Sherbrooke street WestMontreal Museum of Fine ArtsIn EnglishPresented by ART SPEAKS
• Du modernisme au contemporain:la place du papier dans le musée d’art contemporainSunday, April 24, 2016Presented at Papier16In FrenchPresented by ART SPEAKS