Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture

The Sixth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture will be delivered by art historian Huey Copeland. Titled “Solar Ethics,” the lecture will focus on the legacy of the musician, writer, and composer Sun Ra and will be followed by a reception in the Guggenheim’s iconic rotunda.
Since his death in 1993, Sun Ra—a self-styled intergalactic prophet hailing from Saturn by way of ancient Egypt—has become a frequently referenced touchstone for cultural producers of various stripes. In this lecture, Huey Copeland explores Ra’s representations of space-time and their implications for contemporary artists, such as Edgar Arceneaux, Glenn Ligon, and Mai-Thu Perret, who identify with his utopian aspirations and have taken up the challenge thrown down by his life and work. While commentators have made much of Ra’s brilliant troping on black alienation, particularly his embrace of outer space, equally important to his intellectual project was a radical reassessment of the logics of Western temporality. Ultimately, Copeland argues, Ra’s thinking points us toward new criteria for the evaluation of recent art that takes seriously both the recursiveness and simultaneity of time as it unfolds within, beyond, and across the black community.
Learn more about the Guggenheim’s Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture series.