Race Stories: Celebrating Maurice Berger

Race Stories: Celebrating Maurice Berger celebrates the life and legacy of Maurice Berger, who was research professor and chief curator at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC) until his death in 2020.

CADVC announces the launch of the Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund, in support of the exploration of, and research into, histories of race, representation and justice in visual culture, with the goal of creating accessible public programming. On the occasion of this announcement, we celebrate the publication of RACE STORIES: Essays on the Power of Images, a collection of award-winning essays by Maurice Berger, authored during his CADVC tenure. Co-published by Aperture and The New York Times, the book explores the powerful roles photography plays in shaping ideas and attitudes about race. Event participants include Marvin Heiferman, Berger’s husband and editor of the volume, as well as Aruna D’Souza, Maleke Glee, Sarah Lewis, Lowery Stokes Sims, and many others.

This event also celebrates two key activities related to the Center’s efforts to honor Berger’s legacy: the relaunch of the CADVC’s Issues in Cultural Theory publication series, and the publication of “Cockeysville to Baltimore,” supported by the Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund. The booklet accompanies the exhibition “Levester Williams: all matters aside” and its associated public video art projection series. An essay commissioned for the booklet, Michelle Diane Wright’s “Scrubbed Clean: The Pursuit of Purity in Baltimore,” explores the connections between racial inequality and the cultural imaginary of Cockeysville marble as deployed in the built environment of Baltimore.

The evening’s speakers:

Aruna D’Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, intersectional feminisms, and diasporic aesthetics. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns, The New York Times, and in numerous artist’s monographs and exhibition catalogues. Whitewalling: Art, Race, and Protest in 3 Acts was named one of the best art books of 2018 by the New York Times. Recent editorial projects include Linda Nochlin’s Making It Modern: Essays on the Art of the Now and Lorraine O’Grady’s Writing in Space 1973-2018; she co-curated the retrospective “Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And” at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. She is the recipient of the 2021 Rabkin Prize for art journalism and a 2019 Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. She was appointed the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art in 2022, and the W.W. Corcoran Professor of Social Engagement at the Corcoran School of Art, George Washington University, in 2022–2023. Her most recent book, Imperfect Solidarities was published in 2024.

Marvin Heiferman organizes exhibitions, online projects, and publications about photography and visual culture for institutions that have included the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, International Center of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1 Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the New Museum. Earlier in his career and as a gallerist and artist representative, Heiferman worked closely with a wide range of artists and photographers including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, and Richard Prince. He has written for museums, galleries, monographs, blogs, and magazines including The New York Times, Gagosian Gallery, CNN, Artforum, Design Observer, Aperture, Art in America, and BOMB. The author of 15 books including Talking Pictures (1994), Photography Changes Everything (2012) and Seeing Science (2019), Heiferman has edited numerous other books including Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images by Maurice Berger (Aperture/New York Times) 2024 and Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, (Aperture) 1986. Post to Heiferman’s social media projects, collectively called WHY WE LOOK — including a personal Instagram project and an ongoing inquiry on Threads, Facebook and X into the ways photography and visual culture transform our lives — are uploaded daily.

Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is the founder of Vision & Justice and the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America (Harvard University Press), the bestseller The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery (Simon & Schuster), and the forthcoming book Vision & Justice (One World/Random House). Lewis is the editor of the award-winning volumes, “Vision & Justice” by Aperture magazine and the anthology on the work of Carrie Mae Weems (MIT Press). She is the organizer of the landmark Vision & Justice Convening at Harvard University, and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Her awards include the Infinity Award, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, a Cullman Fellowship, the Freedom Scholar Award (ASALH), the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, and the Photography Network Book Prize. Her writing has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Artforum, and the New York Review of Books, and her work has been the subject of profiles from The Boston Globe to the New York Times. Lewis is a sought-after public speaker, with a mainstage TED talk that received over 3 million views. She received her BA from Harvard University, an MPhil from Oxford University, an MA from Courtauld Institute of Art, and her PhD from Yale University. She lives in New York City and Cambridge, MA.

Lowery Stokes Sims served on the education and curatorial staff of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1972–99), as executive director and president The Studio Museum in Harlem (2000–2007) and retired as curator emerita from the Museum of Art and Design (2007–2015). As an independent curator and art historian she has lectured nationally and internationally, and has been involved in projects with the Caribbean Cultural Center, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, N.J.; the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Center for Art, Design & Visual Culture. Sims was visiting professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (2018–2020) and the 2021–22 Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Sims was a founding board member of ArtTable, the organization that promotes networking for women in the art world, and was recently elected as an honorary fellow of the American Craft Council.

Meleke Glee is a cultural worker, writer, and professor based in Washington, D.C. With academic training in Arts Management from Howard University and Cultural Sustainability from Goucher College, he explores the intersections of fine art, popular culture, and vernacular expression. In addition to a curatorial and writing practice, Maleke consults with small and medium-sized institutions and corporations to better instill cultural competency and authentically engage communities in storytelling projects. He has held positions with STABLE Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Prince George’s African American Museum. He has curated exhibitions for Howard University, The Museum of ContemporaryAfrican Diasporic Arts (MoCADA), No Longer Empty, and more. He has consulted with The Go-Go Museum and Cafe, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Red Bull Arts, The John F. Kennedy Center, and more.

Timothy Nohe is an artist, composer, and educator engaging traditional and electronic media in civic life and public places. His work has focused on sustainability and place, as well as musical and video works for dance and live performance. He holds a BFA in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. He is a tenured professor of visual arts at UMBC. He was the recipient of a 2006 Australian–American Fulbright Commission Senior Scholar Award and was awarded the Commission’s 2011 Fulbright Alumni Initiative Grant. Nohe has also received five Maryland State Arts Council Awards. Nohe has presented his work in a range of venues: IMPAKT, Utrecht; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin; the Louvre Museum; Centre Pompidou; ISEA; Ars Electronica; the Danish Institute of Electro-Acoustic Music; Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo; the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and others.

Kimberly Moffitt (Ph.D. in communication/media studies from Howard University) joined the UMBC community as an assistant professor of American Studies. Before assuming the role of dean for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, she was professor and director of the Language, Literacy and Culture doctoral program and affiliate professor of Africana Studies. A media critic whose research focuses on mediated representations of marginalized groups as well as the politicized nature of Black hair and the body, Moffitt has published several articles and book chapters, as well as five co-edited volumes.

Rebecca Uchill is director of the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC) and professor of the practice at the College of Art, Humanities, and Social Sciences at UMBC. She is an art historian, curator, and critic of contemporary art. Prior to joining UMBC, she was lecturer and director of community engagement initiatives at UMass Dartmouth. Her research in the history and theory of modern and contemporary art and cultural stewardship has been published in numerous scholarly books and journals including Architectural Theory Review, Journal of Art Historiography, and Journal of Curatorial Studies, and others.

Attendance is free, but registration is required: https://forms.gle/dmzCxWXNmqkC7hha6.

A reception will follow.

The gallery of the CADVC will be open for a special viewing beginning at 2:30 p.m.

The Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund is dedicated to programs that support the exploration of, and research into, histories of race, representation and justice in visual culture, with the goal of creating accessible public programming that prompts discussion and raises awareness. To contribute to the Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund, please visit https://shorturl.at/tYjBU.

Visitors who need specific accommodations should contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.

Photo: Steve Miller