CANCELLED: Art In Conversation: The Labor That Builds Our Nation

This event has been cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. Please stay tuned to our website as we hope to be able to reschedule soon.

In panel 29 of the series Struggle…From the History of the American People, artist Jacob Lawrence paints from the perspective of the laborers who built the Erie Canal. Lawrence visualizes their accomplishment, with the builders occupying the majority of the picture plane. In this program, Victoria Siciliano, Director of Administration and Fundraising with Adelante Alabama, will use Lawrence’s work as a springboard for talking about their work with immigrant workers throughout the state.

Adelante Alabama is a local advocacy group for low-wage, immigrant workers and their families to promote dignity, and justice for all. Joined by Katelyn D. Crawford, PhD, The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art at the BMA, the conversation will consider Lawrence’s perspective on American labor and the work Adelante Alabama is doing today. Participants will be able to ask a question which will be incorporated into the discussion.

One of the greatest narrative artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) painted his Struggle series to show how women and people of color helped shape the founding of our nation. The BMA’s current exhibition, Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle, features the series of paintings Struggle . . . From the History of the American People (1954–56) by the iconic American modernist. The exhibition reunites the multi-paneled work for the first time in more than half a century.

The local presentation of the exhibition is presented by Alabama Power, Vulcan Materials, and The Warner Foundation.