Artist Talk: Bethany Collins

Artist Talk: Bethany Collins

Thursday, November 16, 6 pm

Gordon Parks Arts Hall, Griffin Auditorium,
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
5815 S. Kimbark Avenue

Join the Smart Museum of Art as we welcome exhibiting artist Bethany Collins for a talk on her series The Odyssey (2018–ongoing) and her broader practice of engaging language and poetics.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Smart to the Core: Poetry is Everything, where The Odyssey: 2000 / 2017 is on view, with support from the University of Chicago Humanities Collegiate Division.

Learn more and register

FREE. Advanced registration encouraged, as space may be limited. 

About the artist

Bethany Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptually driven work is fueled by a critical exploration of how race and language interact. Language is both her subject and primary material—from dictionaries and encyclopedias to literary journals and newspaper archives. Language is also a prism through which she explores American history and the nuance of racial and national identities.

Collins received her BA in Studio Art and Photojournalism from the University of Alabama in 2007, and her MFA from Georgia State University in 2012. She was the 2013-2014 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and 2019 Public Humanities Practitioner-in-Residence at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. Collins was awarded the Hudgens Prize in 2015 and Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship in 2018. Upcoming and recent solo museum exhibitions include presentations at the Frist Museum, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, CAM St. Louis, Peabody Essex Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Collins is a Lecturer in UChicago’s Department of Visual Arts.