Peter Williams: Artist Talk with Prof. Chris Reitz

Painter Peter Williams was scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated artist talk at the Cressman Center for Visual Arts on March 20^th. Unfortunately the pandemic, and calls for social distancing, struck Kentucky before he arrived. Nevertheless, the show must go on, and so Williams and curator Chris Reitz staged a remote conversation, recorded here and presented in dialogue with video of the work. Join us online as the artist and curator walk through the gallery and discuss Williams’ art, his artistic development, and his thoughts on the exhibition’s theme: Incarceration. 

Peter Williams Bio:
Peter Williams lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and is Senior Professor in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Delaware. In 2018 Williams was inducted into the National Academy of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2018), Joan Mitchell Award (2004 and 2007), Ford Foundation Fellowship (1985 and 1987), and McKnight Foundation Fellowship (1983). His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Delaware Art Museum, Davis Museum of Art at Wellesley College, Howard University in Washington DC. Williams’ recent exhibitions include Black Universe (2020), MOCAD, Detroit, MI; Men of Steel, Women of Wonder (2019), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; River of Styx (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; With So Little To Be Sure Of (2018), CUE Art Foundation, New York; Soul Recordings (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Prospect.4: The Lotus In Spite Of The Swamp (2017-18), Prospect Triennial, New Orleans, LA; Dark Humor: Peter Williams (2017).

Chris Reitz Bio
Chris Reitz is Assistant Professor of Critical and Curatorial Studies and Gallery Director at the Hite Art Institute. His research focuses on transnational practices in art and exhibitions of the past 30 years, with a particular emphasis on art and the art market in the era of neoliberalism. Professor Reitz has worked as a project manager at Public Art Fund in New York and as an independent curator. His most recent writing has appeared in October, Texte zur Kunst, N+1, The White Review, Paper Monument, The Baffler, and Martin Kippenberger’s Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings. His first book project, currently underway, offers an analysis of Martin Kippenberger’s work in the context of the emerging neoliberal art market. Professor Reitz serves as the Hite Art Institute’s primary curator, and in that capacity has organized solo exhibitions for Judy Chicago, Sanford Biggers, Sislej Xhafa, and For Freedoms, in addition to the group exhibition, Painting in the Network, Algorithm and Appropriation, which featured work by Gabriel Orozco, Cory Arcangel, Tabor Robak, Davis Rhodes, Laeh Glenn, and Siebren Versteeg.