Homepage

A panoramic photo, a missing panel and a plot against a Native American tribe — the elements of a forgotten, rather removed, piece of American history.

In 2012, The New Yorker staffer David Grann’s interest piqued after visiting the Osage Nation Museum, when he first saw a seemingly innocent, 1920s image of Osage and white settlers gathered together; a panel was discretely removed. When asked why it was removed, the director shuddered. It was the “devil,” she said.

Her terror sparked Grann’s most recent book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, an account of sinister injustice in early 20th-century America. His first book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, was a 2010 Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection.

Grann summarized Killers of the Flower Moon at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Tuesday, Aug. 14, in the Amphitheater, continuing Week Eight’s theme, “The Forgotten: History and Memory in the 21st Century.”

The Osage’s history is “tangled,” he said; they owned territory stretching from Missouri to the edge of the Rocky Mountains until the early 19th century when, within a few decades, the United States government forced the secession of over 100 million acres of land from the people.

Confined to a reservation in Kansas, the Osage people fell under siege by white settlers looking to claim land during westward expansion in the 1860s; one of those settlers was Laura Ingalls Wilder, Grann said; Wilder’s father said in Little House on the Prairie: “white people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get there first and take our pick.”

The “squatters” became more aggressive, Grann said, massacring Osage people. By the 1870s, the Osage, in the most dire of straits, sold their land to the government and relocated to rocky, infertile land in Oklahoma. In 1906, the United States government forced “allotment” — distribution of land parcels to Native Americans — onto the Osage. When negotiating with the government, the Osage added a clause to their contract: “We shall maintain all the subsurface rights, mineral rights to our land.”

“Nobody thought the Osage were sitting upon a fortune,” Grann said. “ … And the Osage very shrewdly managed to hold on to this last bit of their territory — a realm that they could not even see. … They had become the world’s first underground reservation.”

They were indeed sitting on a fortune, he said. The Osage settled on oil-rich land, striking metaphorical gold with every tap. In 1923 alone, Grann said, they grossed $400 million, making them the wealthiest people per capita in the world.

“As the Osage’s wealth increased, it provoked increasing alarm across the country from whites,” he said. “The U.S. Congress went so far as to pass legislation requiring many Osage to have white guardians to manage their fortunes. … This system of passing legislation requiring guardians, it was not abstractly racist — it was literally racist.”

After the introduction of such systems, the Osage suspiciously began to succumb to mysterious circumstances, specifically the family of Mollie Burkhart, who were well-endowed from “headrights” — oil production royalties allocated during allotment.

“One night in 1925, (Mollie) had a party at her house, and her older sister Anna attended,” Grann said. “Anna left the party that evening, and she disappeared. … About a week later, Anna was found in a ravine with a bullet in the back of the head. It was the first sign that her family had become a prime target of this conspiracy.”

Within days, Burkhart’s mother grew ill; within two months she stopped breathing, he said. Evidence indicated poisoning.

“Within the span of two months, Mollie had lost her older sister … and her mother,” Grann said. “ … One night, at 3 a.m., Mollie heard a loud explosion. She got up, and went to the window and looked out. And there in the distance, she could see an orange fireball rising into the sky. It looked as if the sun had burst violently into the night.”

It was the house of Burkhart’s younger sister, who moved closer to town in fear of the killings. She, her husband and their live-in housekeeper were killed.

Burkhart turned to cattle baron, reported “king of Osage Hills” and deputy-sheriff William Hale — the uncle of her husband, Ernest Burkhart, Mollie Burkhart’s ex-chauffeur and her legal financial guardian — for help. Law enforcement at the time, Grann said, was extremely corrupt; local authorities did not pursue investigations into the systemic, targeted murders. Hale issued rewards for information, going as far as to hire private detectives.

With no leads and no results, the Osage Tribal Council pleaded for federal authorities to step in. The case was taken up by an “obscure” branch: The Bureau of Investigation, modernly known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bureau, under the director of J. Edgar Hoover, enlisted field agent Tom White for the Osage murder investigation.

White put together a ragtag team of undercover agents who were deployed in Osage County. They posed as cattlemen and insurance salesmen — who sold actual insurance policies, Grann said.

“The investigations had many twists and turns,” he said. “It was less like a criminal investigation and more an espionage case. The agents’ reports were being leaked out to the bad guys. They were being followed. … Ultimately, what you need to know is they followed the money.”

The agents traced Burkhart’s headrights, linking it back those who profited from the murders.

“Now, headrights cannot be bought and sold. They can only be inherited,” Grann said. “ … Ultimately, it led them to a man who Mollie not only knew, but who she knew intimately. It led them to her husband, Ernest. The money had been funneled from each of these killings in the family to Mollie’s accounts, which where managed and controlled by Ernest, who was her guardian. Once more, these crimes and this scheme had been hatched by none other than William Hale, the king of the Osage Hills, the reported man of law and order.”

Grann quoted Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to summarize this tale of most intimate betrayal: “Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough to mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy. Hide it in smiles and affability.”

To close, Grann revealed the missing panel from the photo — the genesis of his book. The “devil” the museum director quivered at the thought of was Hale, standing amid Osage people, an innocent smirk swiped across his face with chapeau and glasses in tow.

“The Osage have removed that photograph, not to forget what had happened, but because they can’t forget,” he said.  “And so many Americans — I include myself among them — have never learned about this history or had forgotten it.

“We have excised it from our conscience.”

After the conclusion of Grann’s lecture, Institution Chief of Staff Matt Ewalt opened the Q-and-A by asking how the Osage Nation has responded to the publication of Killers of the Flower Moon.

Grann said sharing this history and making it part of common consciousness is important to the Osage. Unfortunately, many of the cases remain unsolved due to corruption in local law enforcement and conspiracies. What Grann realized through writing Killers of the Flower Moon is that documenting injustices cannot bring justice, but it can bring accountability.

Ewalt then turned to the audience for questions; “what are the complications of (Grann) as a white man telling this story,” one attendee asked.

“All reporting is difficult,” Grann said. “The most important thing is your sense that you’re judicious, you’re fair and you are, as best as possible, truthful.”

To close the lecture, Ewalt asked how Grann’s work with the Osage will stay with him.

“When I began this story … photographs became integral to the project in a way that I had never really used before because I saw this as a working documentation, a work of chasing ghosts, a work of documenting every little bit I could,” Grann said. “ … I kept those photographs on a wall in my office, and for me that was always what the project was about, a reminder of what it was about, and that will always stay with me.”

Week Eight’s theme, “The Forgotten: History and Memory in the 21st Century,” provides a platform for lecturers and performers who have dedicated their lives to uncovering the forgotten pieces of history. One of them is roots music singer-songwriter Rhiannon Giddens.

At 8:15 p.m. Wed., Aug. 15, in the Amphitheater, Giddens will perform with jazz musician Francesco Turrisi in a show that will feature Giddens on the viola, violin and minstrel banjo and Turrisi on the piano, cello banjo, accordion, hand drums and tamborello.

Giddens said that working with Turrisi seemed like a natural fit because of the way both musicians cover pieces of music that are often forgotten or hidden. Giddens’ work often comments on how African-American music informed and influenced current American music, and Turrisi’s work explores the roots of southern Italian and Mediterranean music in current European music.

“We like to explore the connections between particularly Southern Italy, because (Turrisi’s) family is Sicilian, with early Italian and older banjo styles from America,” Giddens said. “There are some unexpected connections that we found, so we have been building on that. We found a lot that go between what I do and what he does.”

Formally the lead singer, violinist and banjo player of the musical group called the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens has been interested in exploring African influences in American music since she began working with roots music. She was awarded the 2017 MacArthur “Genius” Grant for her work reclaiming the African influence in American music.

Turrisi is the leader and founder of “The Taquín Experiments,” a contemporary jazz ensemble that works with world and early music. He has released six critically-acclaimed albums through Diatribe Records and his own record label, Taquin Records.

The pair began working together in December, where Giddens said they “started exploring musically.”

Giddens performed a solo show last season in the Amphitheater and said she is excited to perform in front of the Chautauqua audience again.

“Francesco and I, this is our second American show and fifth or sixth show overall,” she said. “Any time you have a new project, it’s a little bit nerve-wracking, but the responses we have gotten are really good. We’re excited because the audience here is a listening audience, and we have interesting stories to tell about the musical connections. I think it’s a perfect fit.”

Giddens and Turrisi are not just here to perform tonight. They are in residence at the Institution for the week, during which time they are working with the Nashville Ballet, the company’s artistic director, Paul Vasterling, and poet Caroline Randall Williams to create a ballet performance set to Giddens’ music and based upon Williams’ poem “Lucy Negro, Redux.” The project explores the idea that Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady,” who appears in many of his sonnets, was actually an African-American woman.

“I think when you go back and you read those sonnets again with that in mind, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, how could you think anything different?’ ” Giddens said.

Giddens said that so far, the project has been going well. Commissioned by the Nashville Ballet, it is set to premiere in February.

“It’s actually working out really well considering that the poetry is a mixture as well. It seems to be syncing up really well,” Giddens said.

The show in February will feature 12 dancers from Nashville Ballet in the chorus and three main dancers, who will play Lucy, Shakespeare and the Fair Youth.

“It’s a triangle, and you have different duets within that triangle, and then you have, at the end, all of them together,” Giddens said. “It’s very exciting because it means it’s very portable, and we might be able to do it elsewhere.”

Giddens said that she has enjoyed having time to workshop in the same physical space as the Nashville Ballet and Turrisi.

“It’s great to have an opportunity to be somewhere for a few days and kind of dig in,” she said.

On May 4, 1970, members of the National Guard opened fire on a group of Kent State University students protesting the Vietnam War. Four were killed, and nine were injured.

On April 27, 2018, Kent State students staged an on-campus demonstration with various firearms in support of open-carry gun laws. One might have expected “tense confrontations,” said Beverly Warren, president of Kent State. What happened instead was “meaningful conversations.”

“The May 4 shootings still speak to us about the dangers of polarization,” Warren said, “the price we pay for shouting at one another in place of civil discourse.”

At 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15, in the Amphitheater, Warren will give her lecture, “Kent State Beyond the Shootings: Journey of the Wounded Healer.” Her speech, which marks the first time a Kent State president has spoken publicly about May 4 outside of Kent’s campus, is part of the Week Eight theme, “The Forgotten: History and Memory in the
21st Century.”

Her topic is a bit of both. As the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shooting approaches, Warren and others at the university have used the event to frame “Kent State’s unique answer to a common challenge: how do we keep history relevant?”

The answer, which Warren will share with Chautauquans, involves how Kent State “use(s) our history to drive positive change in the world.”

That journey has led the university to undertake a number of initiatives to reflect on and learn from the May 4 shooting. In addition to an annual commemoration of the date, a visitors center was built in 2013 to host exhibits that “tell the story of the decade leading up to May 4, 1970, the events of that day, the aftermath and the historical impact,” according to the center’s website. The site of the shooting was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2016. Plans for the 50th anniversary include a series of events throughout the 2019-2020 academic year.

“For many members of the Kent State family — including me — the events of May 4, 1970, remain a vivid and emotional memory,” Warren said in a June press release. “ … As we honor and remember the lives lost and those lives forever changed, we reflect on the lessons of May 4 and renew our commitment to lift our collective voices to affect positive change.”

Since taking the helm at Kent State in 2014, Warren has launched a six-year plan that includes a “global exploration” of the lessons learned from the incident.

Although it was not understood at the time, Warren said many now consider the Kent State shooting to be the “pivot point that turned mainstream American public opinion against the Vietnam War once and for all.” The incident was a spark that ignited similar events at universities across the country — such as the nearby Ohio University, where National Guardsmen were also summoned on May 15, 1970. The school closed for the remainder of spring quarter.

Despite that importance, there are many questions about May 4, 1970, that are still unresolved.

“Who gave the order to open fire? Why did those rifles have live ammunition?” Warren said. “We have to make peace with a certain lack of closure.”

This presents another challenge, Warren said. Although the lessons of the shooting have “never been more useful,” the majority of Americans now were not alive to witness it.

“The shootings are embedded in our history,” she said. “It is vital for Kent State to keep the memory alive … Sharing the painful lessons of May 4 is a vital path to healing and renewal.”

Cellist Johannes Moser’s approach to music sometimes resembles that of an athlete’s approach to sport. For example, when preparing for performances, Moser follows a diet — albeit not a food-related one.

“When learning I’m preparing a classical piece that has been recorded, I don’t listen to recordings of it for a certain amount of time,” Moser said. “I put myself on a musical diet. I listen to other works of the composer, but works that were written for other instruments.”

It follows, then, that Moser has probably not listened to Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85, in a while.

The concert is the third installment in the CSO’s “Into the Music” series, which means the concert will include a discussion of the music and no intermission.

The musical diet, Moser said, allows him to craft an original interpretation of an often-recorded work. Elgar’s cello concerto is generally held to be one of the great cello concertos ever composed, and all of the 20th century’s most famous cellists have given their take on it.

The best way to give an honest and personal performance of a piece like that, according to Moser, is to focus on the minutia of the “text,” — in this case, the sheet music.

Elgar’s concerto, he said, is a meticulously written work, with detailed markings about dynamics and articulations throughout the cello part.

Following the music so fastidiously might appear restricting, but Moser thinks that attempting to be utterly faithful to the “text” — or sheet music — will inevitably result in an original performance.

“The interesting thing is that every soloist will tell you that they are playing exactly what is on the page, and yet everyone sounds different,” he said. “And isn’t that wonderful? That’s because the material that you find on the page is also a mirror of yourself, and everybody is different.”

Moser is no stranger to Elgar’s concerto. He recorded the piece in 2017, and has played it dozens of times with orchestras across the world. Despite that, the cellist hasn’t gotten tired of it yet.

“People often ask me if it ever gets boring to play the some pieces over and over again,” Moser said. “No. Because every place is different and every audience is different, and through audience engagement, every moment has its unique flavor and configuration. It’s very rewarding, actually.”

Conductor Gemma New, who will lead the CSO tonight, will be coming to Chautauqua from the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival, where she is spending the summer as a conducting fellow (as did many notable conductors, such as Seiji Ozawa and Marin Alsop). New is also currently the music director for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ontario, Canada, and in her second season as resident conductor for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Both New and Moser have collected praise for their accomplishments at their relatively young ages — New was described by the New Zealand Herald as “a young New Zealander making a mark in North America,” and Moser was called “one of the nest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists” by Deutsche Grammophon, so between the two, this evening will be a display of ascendant stars in classical music.

Too often throughout history, the record and story of what’s told is governed by principles outside of fact and truth. In a growing age of technology and information, more stories are being uncovered and brought into the forefront.

David Grann has made a career of doing just that. Through his stories and work, he has helped shine a light on areas of history around the world that have, for too long, gone unnoticed or been forgotten by the general public.

Grann, best-selling author and award-winning staff writer for The New Yorker, will be speaking at 10:45 a.m. Tues., Aug. 14, in the Amphitheater.

Grann’s most recently published book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, was a No. 1 New York Times best-seller and 2017 finalist for the National Book Award.

Killers of the Flower Moon looks into the string of murders of the wealthy Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1920s and the racism and conspiracy that surrounded these crimes. Forced into a rocky corner of Oklahoma, the tribe became one of the wealthiest groups in the country thanks to an abundance of oil beneath the land. Crime and corruption quickly followed.

Grann didn’t know of these tragedies that befell the Osage before visiting the Osage Nation Museum in 2012, but he took notice of a large panoramic photograph he saw there of both of early white settlers and the Osage people — with a panel cut out.

“The museum director pointed to the missing panel and said, ‘The devil was standing right there,’ ” Grann said. “She then brought up the missing panel, and it showed the killers of the Osage.”

The missing image — containing William H. Hale, the mastermind behind many of the Osage murders — was the origin point of his research in many ways, Grann said, and contained a symbolic message for what the overall story would end up being.

“The museum director, the Osage, had removed that photo because they were deeply aware of its history and it was so painful,” Grann said. “So many people didn’t know about this history, including me.”

Through five years of research, pulling records, speaking with victims’ families and documenting timelines, the story took shape. At first, Grann said he began to see the story as a traditional crime novel, with one person as the mastermind behind these crimes — the narrative the FBI and other officials had handed down for years.

Through time and research, Grann began to see this story wasn’t so accurate. Grann said he began to note that there were numerous mysterious deaths and murders that weren’t solved or tied up, and the story quickly became “who didn’t do it.”

“It was really about a culture of killing,” Grann said. “That’s really a more difficult truth to accept and reckon with. My perception and the way I told the story changed dramatically over time as I gathered more evidence.”

Putting more focus and interest on gathering photographs with this project than any other before, Grann said these images of victims and their families became the motivation and driving force for him behind telling this historical tale.

“Each project is different, and the sort of motivations around each project are different,” Grann said. “These photographs, they were reminders of what the project was about for me — remembering and trying to document what had happened to these people. Their lives are a part of our history that we, including myself, for too long excluded and kept out of our consciousness.”

Finding stories like this to tell with either his books or articles in The New Yorker, Grann said, is just a product of listening and talking to people.

“It’s extremely hard to find them,” Grann said. “That’s the biggest challenge. During almost every waking hour, you have one ear tilted thinking, ‘Oh, would that be a good story?’ ”

After finding and diving into a story, Grann said the deciding factor for whether a story becomes an article or a book depends on whether or not he’s willing to live with the subject matter for a few months, or years at a time.

“The methodology in some ways is similar,” Grann said. “You’re kind of following one clue to the next, going from one bit of information to the next bit of information. They both involve a great deal of research.”

Grann said he doesn’t think much about where he wants to go as a writer, and that living in the present keeps him from becoming complacent. Grann said he just feels blessed to be able to do what he does and hopes to continue finding stories that are worth being told.

“The thing that gets me excited is to realize and sink into a story and almost get lost in it, sometimes for too many years at at time,” Grann said.

Grann said he’s honored to be a part of this week’s theme, “The Forgotten: History and Memory of the 21st Century,” something he finds very important. Grann said he was glad to be able to share the tragic case of the Osage killings that for too long has been forgotten.

“I’m glad that places are putting the focus on these forgotten or overlooked parts of our history,” Grann said. “That wasn’t necessary for the Osage. They are very aware of this history. It was very necessary, unfortunately, for many others.”

Grann’s next work, The White Darkness, will be released this fall. Based off a story he published for The New Yorker, the story deals with Henry Worsley, who obsessively modeled his life after famed arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, whom Grann called one of the greatest leaders of his era.

Andrew Russeth spoke to the “art” in Week Seven’s theme, “The Arts and Global Understanding,” in a conversation with Chautauqua Institution Chief of Staff Matt Ewalt at Thursday’s, August 9, 10:45 a.m. morning lecture in the Amphitheater.

Former editor and founder of The New York Observer’s GalleristNY, the New York City-based art critic currently serves as co-executive editor of ARTnews. His writing has appeared in W, New York, Bijutsu Techo and Parkett, as well as on his contemporary art blog, “16 Miles of String.”

His lecture, titled “Crossing Over, Reaching Out: Collaborating Across Borders in Contemporary Art,” touched on artists, exhibitions and mediums that are participating in cross-cultural collaboration.

“If you look at the history of visual art, I think especially the history of art in the 20th century, pretty much every big change, every exciting development comes from some sort of cross-cultural guideline,” Russeth said. “… Then I think about cross-cultural collaboration, cross-cultural influence, … especially right now in contemporary art, where people are really trying to move beyond boundaries.”

Twentieth-century artist Robert Rauschenberg experimented with cross-cultural collaboration during his 1980s series, “Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange.” Russeth read a quote from Rauschenberg, which he said summed up cross-cultural collaboration:

“I feel strong in my beliefs, based on my varied and widely travelled collaborations, that a one-to-one contact through art contains potent peaceful powers and is the nonelitist way to share exotic and common information, seducing us into creative mutual understandings for the benefit of all.”

Rauschenberg traveled across the globe from 1984 and 1991, learning new crafts from local artisans.

His work culminated in a collection of collages featuring native prints, newspapers, photographs from the places he visited and, occasionally, trash he collected from those visits.

Similarly, photographer Gauri Gill of New Delhi documents rural India, including makeshift graves of various religious sects and west-central Indian artisan masks, while also collaborating with other Indian visual artists. Russeth quoted her:

“I think these are powerful voices and I feel like part of my job as a photographer is just to listen — it’s a kind of active listening.”

Aside from individual artists, exhibitions are also venturing into cross-cultural collaborations and exploration, Russeth said.

“The art world is in an interesting moment,” he said. “Predominantly, it’s been in Europe and North America, a very Eurocentric, very white place. But we’re seeing recently, because of activism, because of pressure, because of some policy changes in government, a real effort to embrace difference, to be more diverse.”

Russeth offered two established, large exhibitions as examples: “Prospect” in New Orleans and “documenta.”

“Prospect” grew out of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina as a way for art to heal, Russeth said. Artist Mark Bradford collected discarded wood from the wreckage of Katrina and created an ark, similar to the Biblical tale of Noah; Kiluanji Kia Henda photographed performers on pedestals where statutes of colonizers once stood; and Barkley L. Hendricks’ portraits of African-American subjects replaced European artists of the colonial period in the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“Art exhibitions are also thinking about ‘We need to get away from art as paintings, art as sculpture, art made by people who went to a master of fine arts program’ — it’s everything in the world,” Russeth said. “It’s anything culture created.”

The exhibition series “documenta” began in 1955 to bring multicultural art to Germany after the erection of the Berlin Wall. Since its conception, “documenta” has been displayed 14 times. Its 14th edition featured “The Parthenon of Books” by Argentinian artist Marta Minujín. The piece is a replica of the Athenian Parthenon made of 100,000 banned books at the site of the 1930s book burnings in Kassel.

Other featured works included that of Cecilia Vicuña, who utilizes traditional Chilean knot making; Rick Lowe, who refurbishes houses for community use; and Ibrahim Mahama, who covers public structures with jute-sack quilts from local venders.

“(Mahama) weaves them together in these giant tapestries, using oftentimes art students, oftentimes local people, and then drapes them in plazas or buildings,” Russeth said. “So it becomes this interweaving of cultures — the merchants who decided they were going to part with their work and people who stitched them together, and his work.”

Russeth also provided a smaller, lesser-known exhibition as an example: “The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness,” which featured Anicka Yi’s crossover of art and science where she combined the scent of an Asian women with the scent of an ant as a critical remark on the stereotypes of Asian people.

To close, Russeth offered three examples of cross-cultural collaboration pushing into politics and real-world issues.

The first was a piece by Christoph Büchel called “The Mosque” — a repurposed decrepit church, which served as a mosque in the historic district of Venice, Italy, where there are no other mosques. The installation was eventually shut down by police, which many in the art community saw as religious censorship, Russeth said.

Russeth then discussed Sam Durant’s “Scaffold,” a sculptural, large-scale gallows in Minnesota created to highlight the mass execution of the Dakota people ordered by President Abraham Lincoln. The Dakota people protested, arguing Durant, a white man, was not equipped to tell their story; Durant apologized and gave the Dakota people the rights to the structure, which they buried.

“Consequently since then, there have been initiatives to collect more art by Native Americans, to have community leaders involved in decision-making about curating,” Russeth said. “But it is very much a work in progress. A lot of museums now are trying to take steps to really engage a diverse variety of communities.”

Finally, Olu Oguibe’s “Monument for Strangers and Refugees” is an obelisk engraved with the book of Matthew in four languages (German, English, Arabic and Turkish) which became a source of debate in Kassel, Germany — some thought it was ugly and distasteful, others thought it was welcoming, Russeth said. Eventually, public opinion favored Oguibe, and the monument stayed in Kassel’s town square.

Russeth remarked how the piece’s simplicity — a few Bible verses plastered on a plain shape — sparked engagement about topical issues and revealed deep-rooted xenophobia in Kassel.

“See as much art as possible,” he said. “When something feels uncomfortable or you don’t like it, really then spend time with it. … When you are around great art and you give it time to work on you and you listen to it, you can understand someone’s background, someone’s viewpoint in a way that few other (media) provide. Just really listen, and when you get offended, dig in.”

After the conclusion of Russeth’s lecture, Jordan Steves, director of strategic communications and community relations, opened the Q-and-A by asking how the aforementioned artists draw attention to their work.

Russeth attributed the ever-diversifying art community to the onset of social media and the ease of sharing information.

Steves turned to the audience for questions; one attendee asked about cultural appropriation in art.

“There just aren’t easy answers oftentimes,” Russeth said. “I think the best we can hope is that these conversations about cultural appropriation lead to more thoughtful art-making, lead to more thoughtful shows.”

Other attendees asked about folk art’s role in cross-cultural collaboration, and for Russeth’s thoughts on the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the demolition of activist Ai Weiwei’s studio by Chinese authorities. Steves then asked why visual arts are an effective means of dissent.

“Humans are visual people,” Russeth said. “… It shows how powerful symbols are.”