Artists at the Institute

Taking advantage of the Institute’s location in one of the world’s leading art centers, the Graduate Student Association invites artists to discuss their work at the Institute.  Begun in 1983, the series normally includes two presentations per semester. The 2023 - 2024 student coordinators are Kaylee Nok, Grace Pinnella and Sofia Zamboli.

Watch selected previous Artists at the Institute lectures in the video archive.

Schedule

Monday, November 13, 2023, at 6:00pm
Speaker: Misha Japanwala


Join us in-person for Misha Japanwala's talk Join us virtually for Misha Japanwala's talk

As part of the Institute of Fine Arts’ ongoing tradition of inviting contemporary artists to speak about their practices in the Duke House Lecture Hall, this year’s Artists at the Institute Lecture Series invites four artists who explore the body as a site of confrontation. The body is continuously subjected to political, social, and aesthetic judgments both within and outside of the art historical canon. Whether it be through the ongoing battle with reproductive rights or the modification of the body in digital and social media, this phenomena proves to be omnipresent. Contemporary artists are constantly grappling with conceptions of corporeality, and each artist brings a diverse approach to what this means to them. This year’s series is committed to uplifting the voices of women working in representational practices across a range of media, styles, and backgrounds. Through feminist, cross-cultural, and art historical methods, these artists challenge the contours of corporeal form, transcending the limitations and restrictions that have bound the female body to the canonical canvas, and imagining how such liberation might transform aesthetics.

For our second installment of Artists at the Institute, Visions of Corporeality, lecture series we are excited to welcome Misha Japanwala. Misha Japanwala (b. 1995, London, England and raised in Karachi, Pakistan) is a Pakistani artist and fashion designer, whose work is rooted in the rejection and deconstruction of shame attached to one’s body, and discussion of themes such as bodily autonomy, gender based violence, moral policing, sexuality and censorship.

In our second installment of this series, Misha will touch upon what it means to be a Pakistani woman familiar with the historical objectification, commodification and control exerted on marginalized bodies by societies and systems enveloped in patriarchy. Misha’s work aims to create a new historical record and documentation of people — one that is on our own terms, and rooted in honesty, resistance and hope. Through molding the body to create casts that are worn as sculptural garments, Misha’s artistic practice blurs the lines between fashion and fine art, clothing and nudity, and asks viewers to see the body exactly as it is. Her practice is an insistence for bodies to occupy physical space, emphasizing the notion that our bodies shouldn’t need to prove anything other than being allowed to simply exist.

Previous Speakers

Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Janine Antoni, Alice Aycock, Jose Bedia, Lynda Benglis, Xu Bing, Barbara Bloom, Mel Bochner, David Henry Brown, Tania Bruguera, Matthew Buckingham, Scott Burton, John Cage, Luis Camnitzer, Magdalena Campos-Pons, Tammy Rae Carland, Paul Chan, Patty Chang, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Elena Climent, George Deem, Jeremy Deller, Jim Dine, Toni Dove, Carroll Dunham, Nicole Eisenman, Peter Eisenman, Stephen Ellis, Karen Finley, Wade Guyton, Eric Fischl, Coco Fusco, Kathleen Gilje, Robert Gober, Leon Golub, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dan Graham, Nancy Graves, Renee Green, Hans Haacke, Peter Halley, Ann Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Sharon Hayes, Geoff Hendricks, Leslie Hewitt, Gary Hill, Jenny Holzer, Jonathan Horowitz, Tehching Hsieh, Bryan Hunt, Emily Jacir, Valerie Jaudon, Joan Jonas, Jennie C. Jones, Michael Joo, Donald Judd, Deborah Kass, William Kentridge, Alain Kirili, Josh Kline, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Zoe Leonard, Simon Leung, Roy Lichtenstein, Los Carpinteros, Marlene McCarty, Allan McCollum, Julie Mehretu, Andrea Modica, Margaret Morton, Matt Mullican, Vik Muniz, Elizabeth Murray, Shirin Neshat, John Newman, Catherine Opie, Paul Pfeiffer, Ellen Phelan, Naudline Pierre, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Walid Raad, Faith Ringgold, Matthew Ritchie, Tim Rollins + K.O.S., Martha Rosler, Doris Salcedo, Isca Greenfield Sanders, Julia Scher, Carolee Schneemann, Collier Schorr, Richard Serra, Andres Serrano, Joel Shapiro, Miriam Shapiro, Shahzia Sikander, Charles Simonds, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, Pat Steir, Joel Sternfeld, Sturtevant, Mika Tajima/New Humans, Masami Teraoka, Diana Thater, Francesc Torres, Richard Tuttle, Andra Ursuta, Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, Rachel Whiteread, Fred Wilson, Terry Winters, Krzysztof Wodiczko, The Yes Men, Anicka Yi, Yu Youhan & Li Shan, John Zinser, Andrea Zittel.