Ideas: Talks Bill McKibben
Ideas: Talks Williams graduation
Ideas: Talks MCLA
Ideas: Talks Titus Kaphar

People lean forward. They are gripped and moved, full of energy and ready to plunge. A good talk can carry a charge like live music, and curious audiences come to our colleges and museums to share passion and possibility.

Global journalists, artists, scientists and activists share knowledge and experience at Williams College, MCLA and Bennington College from fiction writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to journalist Cokie Roberts and environmentalist Bill McKibben. Talks are open to all and free.
Curators, contemporary artists from Titus Kaphar to Nick Cave, musicians, dancers and poets speak at the Clark Art Institute, Mass MoCA and WCMA about art at our museums.
Directors and actors speak and perform all summer at Williamstown Theatre Festival and through the year at our colleges and museums, exploring new work.

Talks

Books: Williams Bookstore

Downtown Williamstown

Operated by Follett, the college bookstore offers new fiction and nonfiction, readings and book signings, gifts and textbooks and a cafe run by Tunnel City Coffee.

Williams College

Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts and is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country.

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA)

MCLA promotes learning and teaching, innovative scholarship, intellectual creativity, public service, applied knowledge and active and responsible citizenship.

Natalie Diaz and Ada Limón: A Reading and Conversation at WCMA

WCMA

April 1 5:30 PM - March 14, 2019 7:00 PM

A reading by poets Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz. Reception to follow. Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry; her most recent, The Carrying, is currently a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and her previous volume,Bright Dead Things, was a finalist for the […]

The (Superdome) Basement Tapes: Black Feminist Sonic Revolutions

April 2 4:15 PM - March 16, 2019 5:15 PM

This event is part of the yearlong lecture series Performative Ethics: Embodied Representation in the Commons. A conversation with Daphne Brooks. This talk considers the underground performance practices of four black women musicians: jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, the mysterious blues duo Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, and superstar pop icon Beyonce. It considers the […]

Looking and Lunching: Dürer’s Apocalypse Cycle

March 21, 2019 12:00 PM - March 21, 2019 1:30 PM

Take a closer look at the Clark’s collection during Looking and Lunching, a half-hour discussion in the galleries focusing on one work of art. Enjoy continued discussion over lunch with the presenter and fellow art lovers. This month, join curatorial intern Nora Rosengarten in the Manton Study Center for Works on Paper for a special […]

Louise Nevelson: Modernist Drag

April 2, 2019 5:30 PM - April 2, 2019 6:30 PM

Robert Sterling Clark Professor Julia Bryan-Wilson presents, “Louise Nevelson: Modernist Drag.” This talk investigates the work of sculptor Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), in particular her all-black wood-based reliefs—a formal idiom she pursued for decades—to argue for a politics of queer commitment, persistence, and excess. Julia Bryan-Wilson teaches modern and contemporary art at the University of California, […]

The Bauhaus, 100 Years On

The Clark Art Institute

April 4, 2019 10:30 AM - April 4, 2019 11:30 AM

This year marks the centennial of the founding of the Bauhaus, the twentieth century’s most influential school of art and design. Beyond the activity of its famous workshops, the Bauhaus popularized its products and an array of avant-garde “isms” through its publishing imprint, The Bauhaus Books (Bauhausbücher). The Clark library owns a nearly complete, first-edition […]

Looking and Lunching: Brutus Condemning His Sons to Death

April 9, 2019 12:00 PM - April 9, 2019 1:30 PM

Take a closer look at the Clark’s collection during Looking and Lunching, a half-hour discussion focusing on one work from the collection followed by continued discussion over lunch with the presenter and fellow art lovers. This month, join Chief Curator Esther Bell as she discusses Guillaume Guillon Lethière’s masterpiece, Brutus Condemning His Sons to Death, […]

Artist Talk: Trenton Doyle Hancock + Frank Oz

April 10, 2019 6:30 PM - April 10, 2019 8:00 PM

Join exhibiting artist Trenton Doyle Hancock as he discusses his lifelong practice of character creation and myth building with screen legend Frank Oz. The two will talk about the creative process, pop culture, and identity in what promises to be a riveting night of conversation. What to Expect: We’ll be in our premier venue, the Hunter Center, for […]

Animating Museums: Creativity and Authenticity in the Art Museum

April 13, 2019 3:00 PM - April 13, 2019 4:00 PM

Adam Lerner is the Mark G. Falcone “MaFa” Director and Chief Animator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. His talk will explore the role of authenticity in his unique approach to museum programming that combines curatorial, education, and artistic production. Co-presented with the Graduate Program in Art History.

The Art of Commodities: Medieval Venice

April 16, 2019 5:30 PM - April 16, 2019 6:30 PM

Mellon Decade Fellow Philippe Cordez presents, “The Art of Commodities: Medieval Venice.” Since the twelfth century, Europe has seen a steady increase of highly specialized objects produced in large quantities, involving a variety of materials, techniques, ornaments, images, and functions, the very first of which was to be sold. The lecture focuses on the case […]

Grand Challenges: Social History of Art and Digital Humanities

The Clark Art Institute

April 27, 2019 3:00 PM - April 27, 2019 4:00 PM

The Research and Academic Program presents, “Grand Challenges: Social History of Art and Digital Humanities Methods,” a public discussion among leaders in the field of art history about the state of the field in relationship to the digital humanities and the possibilities of a digital art history. Participants include Anne Helmreich, Getty Research Institute, and […]