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I will be speaking about my series the Discreet Charm of the Bougies, an ongoing body of work that addresses issues around fashion, aging, mental health and joy.

Renee Cox, photographer, lecturer, political activist and curator

The Discreet Charm of the Bougies

Renee Cox, The Housewife Missy at Home from the series Black Housewives, 2009. Digital inkjet print on watercolor paper, edition 2/3, 30 x 40 inches (76.2. x 101.6 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Gift of Marjorie (P'16, P'19, P'19) and Michael Levine (B.S.'84, P'16, P'19, P'19), 2020.14.1. © Renee Cox.
Renee Cox, The Housewife Missy at Home from the series Black Housewives, 2009. Digital inkjet print on watercolor paper, edition 2/3, 30 x 40 inches (76.2. x 101.6 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Gift of Marjorie (P'16, P'19, P'19) and Michael Levine (B.S.'84, P'16, P'19, P'19), 2020.14.1. © Renee Cox.

This is an hour-long video from a virtual event on the Zoom platform featuring artist Renee Cox, who was born in Colgate, Jamaica, and who lives and works in New York. Cox is a photographer, lecturer, political activist and curator whose feminist work forthrightly critiques structures of power. She uses her own body, both nude and clothed, to celebrate Black womanhood and criticize a society she often views as racist and sexist. Her work, The Housewife Missy at Home from the series Black Housewives, is part of in In Relation to Power: Politically Engaged Works from the Collection.

The annual lecture is made possible by Barbra and Andrew Rothschild. Past speakers include artists John Akomfrah, the Guerrilla Girls, Kerry James Marshall, Dave Muller, Odili Donald Odita, Ebony G. Patterson, Dario Robleto, Amy Sherald, Eve Sussman, Carrie Mae Weems and Kehinde Wiley. Other past speakers include art critic and cultural theorist Dave Hickey and Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

This artist talk was also a Keynote Lecture of the 2021 CLICK! Photography Festival.

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