Kobena Mercer
Hybridity — in and out of the Fashion Cycle
The fourth lecture in the handwerker Gallery Critical Forum
"Concepts of cultural mixing, including syncretism, creolization, and hybridity, have inspired a
wide range of critical practices among visual artists and cultural theorists, yet these ideas have recently been called
into question. This introductory overview will examine the key debates alongside the concerns of contemporary artists and
will map out questions for future inquiry."
— Kobena Mercer
 Kobena Mercer writes
and teaches on Afro-diaspora visual studies. He has contributed essays to the catalogs for the exhibitions Keith Piper:
Relocating the Remains (New Museum, New York, 1999), Adrian Piper: 1969-1999 (Baltimore Museum, 1999), and
Picture Britannica (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1997). He is the author of Welcome to the Jungle: New
Positions in Black Cultural Studies (New York: Routledge, 1994) and is currently a fellow at the Society for the
Humanities at Cornell University. Read an interview with Kobena Mercer
here.
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As an educational institution, the Handwerker Gallery seeks to create a
challenging environment that enhances critical understanding of both art production and art consumption. To meet that goal
and to disrupt the alleged institutional neutrality of an exhibiting space, the gallery is offering a series of lectures
and discussions-the Handwerker Gallery Critical Forum. The forum aims to expose the different strategies used to produce
images, thereby helping art history students and the larger community become perceptive critics. Noted art historians,
critics, and scholars will share their current research on and thoughts about issues of representation, working together
toward "the place where the questions have to be asked, and where they cannot be asked in the old way"
(T. J. Clark).
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