Program set for Monday at Skidmore

Discussion slated about monuments

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » A discussion program about the role of memory and historic monuments in America is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College.

The program, moderated by museum Curator-at-Large Isolde Brielmaier, will engage contemporary artists Titus Kaphar, Karyn Olivier and Dan Borelli in a conversation about recent debates surrounding the preservation of monuments of historic figures and the tactics taken by the panelist-artists to reclaim public space.

The event is free and open to the public.

Kaphar is an artist whose work interacts with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums through painting and sculpture, and then altering the work in a nod to hidden narratives and unspoken truths about the nature of history, a news release said.

Olivier is a sculptor and installation artist. In 2017, Olivier installed a large-scale commissioned work for Philadelphia’s Mural Arts program in historic Vernon Park. In 2015, Olivier created public works for Creative Time in Central Park and New York City’s Percent for Art program.

Borelli is an artist and director of exhibitions at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In 2010, as part of his master studies there, he started an art-based research inquiry into the Nyanza Superfund Site in his hometown, Ashland, Mass. His project makes public hidden narratives of cancer clusters, human loss, activism, and ultimately regeneration, the release said.

The event is part of the Tang’s Accelerator Series.

The Accelerator Series seeks to find new entry points into discussions that veer from traditional paths. As an open and inclusive public forum for dialogue, exchange, and questioning, the series ignites a collective sense of intellectual curiosity and fosters thoughtful engagement with a deeper understanding of compelling issues that have the potential to spark radical transformations.