MATRIX 30th Anniversary Events

Artist and Curator in Conversation: Nayland Blake and Lawrence Rinder

October 19, 2008; 3:00 p.m.

Museum Theater

Our yearlong celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the MATRIX Program continues with a public conversation between artist Nayland Blake, who was featured in the program in 1989, and Lawrence Rinder, MATRIX curator from 1988 to 1998 and current director of BAM/PFA.

Throughout his career, Nayland Blake’s work has explored the complexities of identity, race, relationships, and representation, and has revealed a diverse set of interests and concerns—from popular culture and Camp to the queer body in the age of AIDS and the legacy of racism in America. His early work was twice exhibited in MATRIX, in his psychoanalytically inspired solo installation The Schreber Suite and as part of the artist collective Group Material’s project The AIDS Timeline. In 1995, Blake and Lawrence Rinder co-curated In a Different Light, a landmark BAM exhibition that considered the cultural resonances of gay, lesbian, and queer experience in a cross-generational context.