Imani Uzuri's guest appearances

Imani Uzuri

National Gallery of Art | Talks

Body and Soul

David Smith

Celeste Headlee

William Morris

Toni Morrison

Jacob Lawrence

Frederick Douglass

Frank Gehry

Andrea Mantegna

I. M. Pei

Draping Michelangelo

Francesco Mochi

Gianlorenzo Bernini

Edgar Degas

Piet Mondrian

Edmond J. Safra

OwlTail

Alicia Hall Moran

Kimberly Drew, writer, curator, and activist; Alicia Hall Moran, artist, composer, and mezzo-soprano; and Imani Uzuri, composer, librettist, and 2019-2020 Hutchins Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University. Edgar Degas's (1834–1917) renowned images of the Paris Opéra are among the most sophisticated and visually compelling works he created. Celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Opéra’s founding, Degas at the Opéra presents approximately 100 of the artist’s best-known and beloved works in a range of media. In celebration of this exhibition on June 17, 2020, Kimberly A. Jones, curator of 19th-century French paintings, welcomes Kimberly Drew, Alicia Hall Moran, and Imani Uzuri to discuss the influence of opera on contemporary artists’ practices. Their conversation expands upon an Office magazine interview conducted by Drew about the possibilities of opera as the architecture for Black cultural production. Together they explore the medium as historically unapologetic, dramatic, and bold, asserting its potential to set a precedent for all artists. This program coincides with the publication of Drew’s book This Is What I Know About Art.

Black Opera as Architecture: A Conversation with Kimberly Drew, Alicia Hall Moran, and Imani Uzuri