News + Events

For those of our visitors in the New York City area, please drop by the Whitney Museum of American Art from 9 to 13 May and see For All the World to See curator, Maurice Berger's video, Threshold, which will be projected continuously during the residency--BLEED--curated for the Whitney Biennial by Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran. The Whitney writes: "BLEED will present five days of live music, exploring the power of performance to cross barriers and challenge assumptions, as their title, BLEED, suggests. With a line-up of concerts and events spanning music, dance, theater, and literature, as well as an exhibition of past video collaborations with Glenn Ligon, Joan Jonas, Kara Walker, and Simone Leigh and Liz Magic Laser—and a new video by the cultural historian Maurice Berger—BLEED is a celebration of surprising synergy across the visual arts and music."

Here is more about Threshold from the Whitney press release:

"Over the past seventeen years, the cultural historian Maurice Berger has produced cinematic 'culture stories,' syncopated compilations of historic clips from American film and television that explore issues of identity and self-representation. Threshold is a continuum of images from popular culture produced during the period of or about the historic civil rights movement. It riffs on the crossing of thresholds—walking through doors, boarding trains and buses, entering cars, gliding across stages, stepping up to podiums, and even the imagined passage from Earth to heaven—that have defined the voice, place, and aspirations of a people. The story it tells is one of self-possession and triumph: the epic passage across thresholds that, in the context of this film, serve as metaphors of the barriers, glass ceilings, and restrictions then imposed on African Americans."

> For more on BLEED and the full schedule of events, Click Here

In celebration of Black History Month, the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grantees pay tribute to the contributions of African Americans to our nation and its history with numerous events and cultural programs. Click on below for coverage of NEH-supported events, exhibitions, and resources focusing on African American history and culture taking place around the country this February--lists that feature For All the World to See!

> Click Here for the NEH Black History Month Recommendations

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Also, for teachers or museum educators: The National Endowment for the Humanities recommends the For All the World to See website as an important Black History Month teaching resource!

> Check Out the NEH EDSITEment Black History Month Page

Attention teachers: For All the World to See is now part of the "Oh Freedom" Teacher Bibliography--Teaching African American Civil Rights Through American Art at the Smithsonian! Learn more about the teaching of civil rights through the For All the World to See online exhibition and website.

> Read More About FATWTS and the "Oh Freedom" Initiative

BET--Black Entertainment Television--recommends For All the World to See as the place to go an important African American cultural experience!

> Read the Recommendation form BET

The For All the Word to See website has just been selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities for its EDSITEment educational initiative! EDSITEment websites have been approved and recommended for use in the classroom by the NEH as the "best of the humanities on the web."

> Go to the NEH EDSITEment Page!

Washington DC's renowned Arena Stage recommends a visit to For All the World to See in its Stage Banter blog! The exhibition remains at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History through 27 November 2011.

> Read Arena Stage's Recommendation

The Yale University Press For All the World to See companion book was recently named a finalist for the Benjamin Hooks National Book Award. Read about it in the Today's Hooks newsletter!

> Read About the FATWTS Book in the Hooks Newsletter

Yet another honor! The companion book of For All the World to See was named as a finalist for the National Book Award of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change of the University of Memphis. The award recognizes a publication that best advances an understanding of the American civil rights movement and its legacy.

> Read 2011 Hooks Award Press Release

> Read More About The Hooks Award In The Tri-State Defender

The American Library Association has just named the companion book for For All the World to See a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2010, in the category of Art and Architecture!

Here is Choice's Full Citation:

Berger, Maurice. For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Yale/Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland Baltimore County/National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian, 2010. 207p index afp; ISBN 9780300121315, $39.95. Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2010sep CHOICE.

In this compelling, insightful book, cultural historian and art critic Berger (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) underscores the myriad ways that images in advertising, film, photojournalism, and television fashioned and fortified the modern civil rights movement from the early 1950s to the mid 1970s. Echoing cultural critic bell hooks's assertion that the struggle for black liberation was a battle for both visual and political representation, Berger demonstrates how civil rights leaders fought to replace century-old caricatures of doting mammies, entertaining dandies, and exotic primitives with positive portrayals of modern, self-assured, and successful citizens. Analyzing representations of race in the news and entertainment industries, Berger shows how black leaders orchestrated media events to rouse African Americans to action and compel European Americans to confront the realities of racism. He underscores how popular film and television programs both supported and undermined these aims. Berger's incisive examination into the visual culture of American race relations will cause readers to look anew--quite literally--at the civil rights movement and to grasp the power of images to transform American life. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. -- K. A. Schwain, University of Missouri--Columbia

> Read About the Companion Book

Maurice Berger, the curator and project director of For All the World to See, received a curatorial award for the "Outstanding Exhibition in a University Art Museum 2010," from the Association of Art Museum Curators in a ceremony at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The AAMC prizes are among the highest honor afforded museum curators in the United States and Canada and the only awards voted on by curators themselves. "Each year our awards stand as the high-water mark for acknowledging the exemplary work of curators from across North America, “ says Sally Block, Executive Director of the Association of Art Museum Curators, “What is most impressive is the these are the only awards given to curators by their peers.” In addition to FATWTS, this year's winners include curators from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Cincinnati Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Photo: 2011 AAMC Award Recipients (Maurice Berger, third from right).

> Read the AAMC Press Release

> Read about the AAMC Award in Arts Journal

The PBS Sunday Arts segment about For All the World to See that aired last August was just nominated for a New York Emmy Award in the category of HISTORICAL/CULTURAL: PROGRAM FEATURE/SEGMENT. Both Cara Cosentino, segment producer, and FATWTS curator Maurice Berger were nominated for their work on the piece.

> Read the Press Release

> See the Emmy Nominated Segment about FATWTS on PBS Sunday Arts

The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce recommends For All the World To See at the International Center of Photography as an exhibition to visit on its 2010 New York City Summer Getaway.

> Read About FATWTS on the NGLCC website

The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) recommends For All the World to See at the International Center of Photography in New York City. NAMLE's mission is to improve and expand the practice of media literacy education in the United States.

> Read the Recommendation

BOMB, the esteemed literary and arts magazine, selects For All the World to See at the International Center of Photography as one of the 18 stops on its national U.S. "2010 Summer Road Trip Map."

> Read the Map (We're Number 8)