Writers and Artists Respond

Walk through the exhibition Joan Semmel: In the Flesh with contemporary painter Natalie Frank and writer Julia Halperin as they reflect on the importance of equitable representation in the visual arts. Frank, a figurative painter, is known for creating narrative works that draw on rich histories of feminist literature and of performance. Halperin, a writer and journalist with extensive experience reporting on the cultural sphere, is known for her investigations of bias in the art world. 

About the speakers:

Natalie Frank is an interdisciplinary artist whose drawings, paintings, books, performance design focus on narrative, feminist portraiture. Gloria Steinem said: “giving us back the women heroines of the oldest stories, Natalie Frank is giving back…the right to tell our own stories.” Frank was artistic director of Grimm Tales, Ballet Austin, Texas, 2019. Her survey, Unbound, opened at the Kemper Museum, OH, 2021. Frank has made drawings for Apple’s, The Crowded Room, Netflix’s, Evil and co-designed Liz Phair’s nationwide tour. She is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a BA, Yale University and MFA, Columbia University.

Julia Halperin is an arts and culture journalist, editor, and co-founder of the Burns Halperin Report, the largest report of its kind tracking equity and representation in the art world. She is a contributor to the New York Times, the Financial Times, and W magazine, among other publications. She also serves as editor at large of CULTURED magazine and a contributing editor to The Art Newspaper, where she writes a column about changes and challenges in American art museums. From 2017 to 2022, she was executive editor of Artnet News.

Tickets: Free with Museum admission; advance RSVP required.