5101 Montrose Street
Houston, TX 77006
USA
The Core Program’s public lecture series presents a wide range of leading artists, critics, curators and art historians. In addition to delivering lectures, visitors engage with Core residents during individual meetings and group discussions.
October 17, 2019: Clarissa Tossin, artist
October 24, 2019: Jack Halberstam, critic
November 21, 2019: Helen Molesworth, curator
December 12, 2019: Anand Patwardhan, filmmaker
January 30, 2020: Tania Bruguera, artist
March 26, 2020: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, artist
April 2, 2020: Hammam Aldouri, critic
April 23, 2020: Darby English, art historian
All lectures are free of charge and open to the public. All are held in Favrot Auditorium, The Glassell School of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston except for Helen Molesworth, held in Brown Auditorium, Law Building, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
Also upcoming:
December 13, 2019–February 16, 2020
Anand Patwardhan: Ways of Struggle
Leslie and Brad Bucher Gallery, The Glassell School of Art
Organized by second-year critical studies resident Will Harris
Anand Patwardhan: Ways of Struggle surveys four decades of filmmaking by one of the world’s foremost documentarians and one of contemporary cinema’s most singular voices. Since the 70s, Anand Patwardhan has been making committed, intimate portraits of Indian movements for social justice. Following the destruction of Ayodhya’s Babri Mosque in 1992, Patwardhan began chronicling the rise of Hindu nationalism, whose driving passions have now acquired global relevance, from Duterte’s Philippines to Erdoğan’s Turkey, Bolsonaro’s Brazil to Trump’s America. Patwardhan’s films offer an invaluable portrait of this moment, which Pankaj Mishra has dubbed “the age of anger.” By bringing together the full scope of Patwardhan’s work—rarely seen in the US—Ways of Struggle contrasts the worlds of left and right political feeling, offering through the prism of a globalized and neoliberal India an oblique history of the present, at once richly localized and far-reaching in its implications.
December 12, 7–9pm: Public lecture by Anand Patwardhan, Favrot Auditorium, Glassell School of Art
December 13, 6–8pm: Screening of In the Name of God (1992), Favrot Auditorium, with Q&A by Patwardhan and opening night reception
December 14, 1pm: Screening of Reason (2018), MFAH’s Brown Auditorium, with introduction by Patwardhan
About the Core Program
Established in 1982, the Core Program awards residencies to exceptional, highly motivated visual artists and critical writers who are working to develop a sustainable practice. Residents participate in a yearlong seminar and engage with a wide range of distinguished artists, critics, curators and art historians who are invited to meet individually with the residents, lead group seminars, and deliver public lectures. Each spring the program mounts an exhibition of work produced during the current residency term, which is accompanied by a publication that documents the artists’ work and features essays contributed by the critical studies residents. Each resident receives a stipend and studio or office space.
Applications for 2020–21 residencies are due April 1, 2020. For instructions and more information, visit mfah.org.
Contact: T 713 639 7500 / coreprogram [at] mfah.org