Director’s Foreword

In September 2021, the Fairfield University Art Museum reopens after eighteen months of closure to the public due to COVID-19. During this difficult period, the United States has also struggled to come to terms with and combat systemic racism in our society. It is our honor to mark our reopening with the presentation of three exhibitions that explore issues of racial justice, police reform, and Black history in the United States: Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects, Roberto Lugo: New Ceramics, and Robert Gerhardt: Mic Check. Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects, on view in the museum’s Walsh Gallery, includes recent photographic and video works by Weems that question stereotypes associating Black bodies with criminality. The exhibition is comprised of three associated works, two of which, All the Boys and The Usual Suspects, examine the racial stereotypes at the heart of deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police, and confront the viewer with the fact of judicial inaction. The third piece in the exhibition is People of a Darker Hue, a meditative compilation of video, found footage, narration, and performance commemorating these deaths. Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects was organized by LSU Museum of Art. The project, which includes a fully illustrated catalogue, which is for sale at the museum, is a collaboration between the LSU College of Art + Design, the LSU School of Art and LSU Museum of Art.

On view in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries is Roberto Lugo: New Ceramics. A self-described “ghetto potter,” Lugo uses porcelain, a medium traditionally reserved for the wealthy, to explore inequality and racial and social justice. His work often takes familiar shapes drawn from European and Asian ceramic traditions, including ginger jars, amphorae, and teapots, but their hand-painted surfaces take inspiration from street art and feature contemporary iconography, and celebrate important figures in Black and Latino culture. Also on view in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries is Robert Gerhardt: Mic Check, a photography project by photojournalist and writer Robert Gerhardt, who relied on the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to track and document protests in New York City over the last seven years. We hope you will be able to join us in the galleries for this timely group of exhibitions, which reflects the museum’s commitment to uplifting the voices of Black artists and artists of color, and to creating an engaging and safe space to consider the issues surrounding systemic racism in our communities. These are difficult things to talk about, but we look forward to inviting all of our different audiences to join us in moving the conversations forward into action.

This fall our exhibitions can finally all be viewed in person by everyone, which is such a relief to us after such a long period of closure. Our programs, on the other hand, will continue to be presented virtually for the most part. All of them will be recorded, so if you cannot join us live on thequicklive.com portal, you can look for the programs on our YouTube channel a few days later, and experience them at your leisure. The schedule of associated programming (see pg. 22) is robust, ranging from the history of Black potters to the founding of Black Voters Matter with much in between – we hope you will tune in, and be a part of the conversation. We are extremely grateful to the artists and lenders who have made these three exhibitions possible, including Carrie Mae Weems, LSU Museum of Art, Jack Shainman Gallery, Roberto Lugo, Wexler Gallery, Robert Gerhardt, and the Mary and Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community. Generous funding in support of these exhibitions has been provided by #UNLOAD Foundation, the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, and the Aquarion Water Company. We are excited to welcome the Eliza and Mary Freeman Center for History and Community in Bridgeport as a Community Partner for the exhibitions.

We are pleased to be partnering with #UNLOAD Foundation again, as their goal of using the arts to illuminate, educate and engage a broader coalition of people to end gun violence aligns so well with these exhibitions. The collegial participation and support of our exhibition faculty liaisons Johanna Garvey, PhD, Associate Professor of English, and Kris Sealey, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, has been invaluable as we have worked together over the last three years to bring these exhibitions and their associated programming to campus. We are happy to be able to present this exhibition catalogue and all of the educational materials in the galleries in both English and Spanish. This bi-lingual effort is made possible by the expertise (and patience) of Laura Gasca Jiménez, PhD, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Translation Studies in the department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

Thanks, and appreciation as always go to our exceptional museum team for their hard work in bringing these exhibitions to fruition: Michelle DiMarzo, Curator of Education and Academic Engagement; Emily McKeon, outgoing Museum Assistant; Rosalinda Rodriguez, incoming Museum Assistant; and Megan Paqua, Registrar. We are also grateful for the additional support provided across the University by Edmund Ross, Susan Cipollaro, Dan Vasconez, and Tess Brown Long, as well as by our colleagues in the Quick Center for the Arts, at Rodney Productions, and in the Media Center.

Carey Mack Weber Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director