Talk
Legacy Russell on The Black Meme
The Norwegian Critics' Association and The Academy of Fine Art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts are pleased to present a lecture by writer and curator Legacy Russell.
Taking her latest book Black Meme (Verso, 2024) as its point of departure, this lecture explores the commodification of Black identity from the early 1900s to the present, across diverse modes of expression – including early cinema, contemporary art, memes, and viral videos. Russell’s sophisticated analysis of historical and contemporary visual culture shows that Black people have continually been denied ownership of their own image. A central part of her critical project is to examine how today's viral internet culture relates to subject formation and categories such as race, class, and gender. After the lecture, there will be a brief Q&A.
This event is free, open to all and will be held in English. It is supported by Arts Council Norway and Fritt Ord and organized in collaboration with MUNCH. On March 5 – the day before this lecture – Russell will be in conversation with MUNCH’s Director, Tone Hansen, as part of The Munch Museum’s Museum Talks series.
About Legacy Russell
Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of the experimental arts institution The Kitchen. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award, a 2022 Pompeii Commitment Digital Fellow, a 2023 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow, and a 2024-25 Lunder Institute for American Art Fellow. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020). Her second book is Black Meme (2024).