CBH Talk | Of Manacles and Monuments - Act 2: Gates, Barriers, and Confinement
Of Manacles and Monuments is a three-part public programming series co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and More Art. The series is inspired by Fred Wilson’s public artwork Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds which is on view in Columbus Park, Downtown Brooklyn.
About Of Manacles and Monuments Act 2: Gates, Barriers, and Confinement
The second program in the series centers on a one-on-one moderated conversation between artist Fred Wilson and Pamela Newkirk, author of Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. They explore ideas of confinement, how barriers are intangible as well as physical, and how they keep people out as well as in. The program continues with a reading by poet Randall Horton, whose work draws upon his own experience of incarceration.
Explore and register for the full series here.
About Fred Wilson's Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds
Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds is a public artwork by Fred Wilson, commissioned by More Art and currently on view in Columbus Park, Downtown Brooklyn. Wilson’s first ever large-scale public artwork, it features a 10-foot-tall sculpture composed of layers of decorative ironwork and statues of Siibele/Senufo “rhythm pounder” figures. The ornamental gates and fences act as a metaphor for security and insecurity and graphically reference mass incarceration. The title of the work borrows from William Blake’s concept of “Mind Forg’d Manacles”—self-created barriers to personal and societal growth and freedom, built by fear, division, and perceptions of difference. Located just a few short blocks from the Center for Brooklyn History, program attendees are encouraged to visit the artwork.
Participants
Randall Horton is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award, the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction, and a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature. He is a member of the experimental performance group Heroes Are Gang Leaders which recently received the 2018 American Book Award in Oral Literature and whose work The Baraka Sessions, was named best vocal jazz album by NPR in 2019.
Randall’s collection of poetry {#289-128} is published by the University of Kentucky (2020) and received the 2021 American Book Award. His new memoir Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays is published by Northwestern University Press (2022). He is the co-creator of Radical Reversal, a poetry/music band dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system through the installation of recording studios and creative/performance spaces as well as programing in Department of Correction facilities in the United States. Randall is a Professor of English at the University of New Haven.
Pamela Newkirk, PhD, is a journalist, professor, author, and multi-disciplinary scholar whose work examines contemporary and historical depictions of African Americans in popular culture. Prior to joining the faculty at New York University, she was a daily reporter at four news organizations including New York Newsday where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team.
She is the author of numerous books including Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, which was awarded the 2016 NAACP Image Award and was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media which won the National Press Club Award for Media Criticism and was recently optioned for a feature film. She holds journalism degrees from Columbia and New York universities, and a PhD from Columbia University.
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Fred Wilson is a conceptual artist whose work investigates museological, cultural and historical issues, which are largely overlooked or neglected by museums and cultural institutions. Since his groundbreaking exhibition Mining the Museum (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society, Wilson has been the subject of more than 40 solo exhibitions around the globe. His work has been exhibited extensively in museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Allen Memorial Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio; the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Institute of Jamaica, W.I.; the Museum of World Cultures, Sweden; the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; the British Museum, and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His work can be found in several public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Long Museum, Shanghai, the Tate Modern in London and National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Wilson presented his exhibition Afro Kismet at the 2017 Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, which traveled to London, New York and Los Angeles. Since 2008 Wilson has been a member of the Board of Trustees at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He represented the U.S. at the Cairo Biennale (1992) and Venice Biennale (2003). His many accolades include the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius” Grant (1999); the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (2006) the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change fellowship (2018) and Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Award (2019). Most recently Wilson unveiled "Mother", a large-scale installation commissioned by Delta Airlines for New York’s LaGuardia airport.
The public art piece Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds, commissioned by More Art, is made possible by a grant from the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund, a partnership with Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and Dumbo Improvement District as part of New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This project is supported in part by the Lambent Foundation, the Joseph Robert Foundation, the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation, Pace, The David Rockefeller Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and commissioning sponsor VIA Art Fund. Additional support for educational programming has been provided by the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation. More Art thanks partners, NYC Parks and the Center for Court Innovation.
Of Manacles and Monuments is a three-part public programming series co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and More Art. The series is inspired by Fred Wilson’s public artwork Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds which is on view in Columbus Park, Downtown Brooklyn.
About Of Manacles and Monuments Act 2: Gates, Barriers, and Confinement
The second program in the series centers on a one-on-one moderated conversation between artist Fred Wilson and Pamela Newkirk, author of Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. They explore ideas of confinement, how barriers are intangible as well as physical, and how they keep people out as well as in. The program continues with a reading by poet Randall Horton, whose work draws upon his own experience of incarceration.
Explore and register for the full series here.
About Fred Wilson's Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds
Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds is a public artwork by Fred Wilson, commissioned by More Art and currently on view in Columbus Park, Downtown Brooklyn. Wilson’s first ever large-scale public artwork, it features a 10-foot-tall sculpture composed of layers of decorative ironwork and statues of Siibele/Senufo “rhythm pounder” figures. The ornamental gates and fences act as a metaphor for security and insecurity and graphically reference mass incarceration. The title of the work borrows from William Blake’s concept of “Mind Forg’d Manacles”—self-created barriers to personal and societal growth and freedom, built by fear, division, and perceptions of difference. Located just a few short blocks from the Center for Brooklyn History, program attendees are encouraged to visit the artwork.
Participants
Randall Horton is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award, the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction, and a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature. He is a member of the experimental performance group Heroes Are Gang Leaders which recently received the 2018 American Book Award in Oral Literature and whose work The Baraka Sessions, was named best vocal jazz album by NPR in 2019.
Randall’s collection of poetry {#289-128} is published by the University of Kentucky (2020) and received the 2021 American Book Award. His new memoir Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays is published by Northwestern University Press (2022). He is the co-creator of Radical Reversal, a poetry/music band dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system through the installation of recording studios and creative/performance spaces as well as programing in Department of Correction facilities in the United States. Randall is a Professor of English at the University of New Haven.
Pamela Newkirk, PhD, is a journalist, professor, author, and multi-disciplinary scholar whose work examines contemporary and historical depictions of African Americans in popular culture. Prior to joining the faculty at New York University, she was a daily reporter at four news organizations including New York Newsday where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team.
She is the author of numerous books including Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, which was awarded the 2016 NAACP Image Award and was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media which won the National Press Club Award for Media Criticism and was recently optioned for a feature film. She holds journalism degrees from Columbia and New York universities, and a PhD from Columbia University.
Fred Wilson is a conceptual artist whose work investigates museological, cultural and historical issues, which are largely overlooked or neglected by museums and cultural institutions. Since his groundbreaking exhibition Mining the Museum (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society, Wilson has been the subject of more than 40 solo exhibitions around the globe. His work has been exhibited extensively in museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Allen Memorial Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio; the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Institute of Jamaica, W.I.; the Museum of World Cultures, Sweden; the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; the British Museum, and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His work can be found in several public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Long Museum, Shanghai, the Tate Modern in London and National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Wilson presented his exhibition Afro Kismet at the 2017 Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, which traveled to London, New York and Los Angeles. Since 2008 Wilson has been a member of the Board of Trustees at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He represented the U.S. at the Cairo Biennale (1992) and Venice Biennale (2003). His many accolades include the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius” Grant (1999); the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (2006) the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change fellowship (2018) and Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Award (2019). Most recently Wilson unveiled "Mother", a large-scale installation commissioned by Delta Airlines for New York’s LaGuardia airport.
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