Join curators from the Department of Contemporary Art as they illuminate “Rituals for Remembering: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Ana Mendieta” and “Martin Puryear: Nexus.” Explore how these two new special exhibitions speak to the ways in which the art of our time examines profound questions of identity, displacement, memory, and making.

Take the full four-session course or choose the lectures that interest you most.

Lecture1: María Magdalena Campos-Pons: A Portrait

In vivid works across photography, watercolor, installation, and performance, María Magdalena Campos-Pons tackles themes of migration, memory, spiritual connectedness, and motherhood. She entwines interconnected histories of labor with her family story, exploring the global impact of enslavement and indenture of West African and Chinese people in Cuba. In this lecture, get a sweeping introduction to Campos-Pons’s four-decade career, with a special focus on her impact on the arts communities in the Boston region, where she lived for nearly 30 years.

Carmen Hermo, Lorraine and Alan Bressler Curator of Contemporary Art, Department of Contemporary Art
Lecture 2: Ana Mendieta and María Magdalena Campos-Pons: A Shared Portrait

Look closely at the work of Ana Mendieta and María Magdalena Campos-Pons and discover where the two artists intersect. Though they never met, their work shares a reckoning with displacement and exile from their homes in Cuba, a deep reverence for the land, and a transformative use of natural elements like water, earth, and fire in their multimedia work. Explore the scope of their practices, with a special emphasis on Mendieta and her site-specific innovations in performance.

Carmen Hermo, Lorraine and Alan Bressler Curator of Contemporary Art, Department of Contemporary Art
Daisy Alejandre, curatorial assistant, Department of Contemporary Art

Lecture 3: Martin Puryear’s Liberties
For more than half a century, preeminent American sculptor Martin Puryear has captivated the public with works of beauty, elaborate craftsmanship, and sophisticated sources of inspiration—from global cultures, social history, and the natural world. On the occasion of the MFA’s exhibition “Martin Puryear: Nexus,” consider the artist’s complex use of rich materials and media—from sculptures in wood, leather, glass, marble, and metal to drawings and prints—and the ways his works describe a history of the forms he has encountered through a lifetime of movement, research, and study.

Ian Alteveer, Beal Family Chair, Department of Contemporary Art

Lecture 4: Martin Puryear and Craft

The line between craft and art is often a sticky one, and artist Martin Puryear has both navigated and transcended this truth across the arc of his career. Looking closely at the pivotal time Puryear spent as a student in Scandinavia in the mid-1960s, consider the artist’s rich and complex relationship with contemporary craft. Explore Puryear’s formative moment spent in northern climes, specifically his series of brief but impactful meetings with the acclaimed 20th-century woodworker, educator, and writer James Krenov, then make connections to circles of contemporary craft today.

Michelle Millar Fisher, Ronald and Anita Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts, Department of Contemporary Art