Artist Michael Ray Charles and scholar Cherise Smith will be in discussion twice this week about Charles’ artistic practice of exploring historic African American stereotypes by appropriating stereotypical racial material.
On Sept. 2, BookPeople will host the pair in discussion related to the book “Michael Ray Charles: A Retrospective” (UT Press). The book features more 100 color images of Charles’ work as well as an expansive essay by Smith who contextualizes Charles’s provocative use of racist images appropriated from vintage consumer culture.
The event streams on Zoom at 7 p.m. CST Sept 2. Sign up to receive the link here.
Related: “A New Book from UT Press Sets the Record on Michael Ray Charles”
KUT’s program Views & Brews will host the “The History, Re-presentation, and Digital Manifestation of Blackface” with Smith, Charles and Rafael Gutierrez Jr, at 6 p.m. Sept. 1 at facebook.com/cactuscafeaustin
Charles, whose paintings have been exhibited and collected internationally, is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Painting at the University of Houston.
Related: “Michael Ray Charles: Always Questioning”
Smith is the founding executive director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies, chair of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department (AADS), and a professor in the Departments of AADS and Art and Art History at the University of Texas.
