In conjunction with Michelle Lopez: Ballast & Barricades, this conversation examines strategies used by Filipinx artists and curators to navigate questions of race and cultural production within the museum against the rise of authoritarianism in both the U.S. and the Philippines. Michelle Lopez joins fellow artists Josh Kline and Paul Pfeiffer to discuss the limits and possibilities of art, identity, and politics, moderated by Joselina Cruz, Director and Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Manila.

What possibilities and limits do institutions offer when critically considering race and place within the production of contemporary art? Though there have been many initiatives for increased racial diversity and inclusion within museum exhibitions and collections, the complexity of race as a category of identification demonstrates the need for nuance. In recent years, a number of American artists with Filipinx ancestry have made significant contributions to the field of contemporary art, oftentimes without making work that centers their personal identities. How might these contributions complicate understandings of race and nationality within contemporary art production, and what might they reveal about the relationship between art and identity?

Support

Support for Michelle Lopez: Ballast & Barricades programming has been provided by the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation and the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation.

Programming at ICA has been made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation, and by Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan.