Tuesday Night Lecture Series: Wardell Milan

As part of the Tuesday Night Lecture Series (TNLS) BU College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts presents a lecture with artist Wardell Milan, organized by MFA Painting.

Building upon a conceptual foundation in photography, Wardell Milan’s practice encompasses drawing, collage, painting, and sculpture to explore ideas of the body, beauty, and the unconscious. His multi-media works often reference and incorporate the imagery of artists such as Alvin Baltrop, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and Eugene Richards. Through cut-paper and collage techniques, he constructs striking human subjects with reclaimed photographic elements, contending with the medium’s visual lineage and its claims to representation. These composite, fragmented figures inhabit ambiguous landscapes of painted abstraction, navigating themselves through recontextualized historical and contemporary environments. Through them, the body—the physical, the psychological, and the photographic body—is understood as a multi-faceted, intersecting site of gender, race, sexuality, and history.

Wardell Milan (b. 1977, Knoxville, TN) received his BFA in photography from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2001) and his MFA in Photography from Yale University (2004). His work was included in the traveling group exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage. Was recently the subject of the solo exhibition, Wardell Milan: Recent Work, at the Benton Museum of Art, Pomona College (2022-23). His first major solo museum show, America. God Bless You If It’s Good To You, was presented at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2021. Milan is the recipient of numerous awards including, Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2024), Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2014), The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2007), and received the African American Trailblazer Award (2017), from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN. Milan’s work is included in the public collections of The British Museum, London; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum, New York, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; UBS Art Collection; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation, Paris; Hall Art Foundation; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Milan is represented by Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, on the west coast; he lives and works in New York.

When 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm on 10 December 2024
Building FLR, RM. 410, 808 Commonwealth Ave