BPL To Host "Men of Change" Artist Shaun Leonardo in Conversation with Professor Stacy Morgan on November 8

Men of Change Artist Shaun Leonardo, photo by Vincent Tullo.  

On Wednesday, November 8, at 6:00 p.m., please stop by the Central Library downtown for a live conversation between acclaimed artist Shaun Leonardo and noted scholar Stacy Morgan. Leonardo and Morgan will discuss Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth., the exhibition currently on view at the Birmingham Public Library (BPL) and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI).

The conversation will be video-streamed on the library’s theatre-sized screen in the First Floor Atrium. Audience members will have the chance to participate in the discussion through panel moderator Paul Barrett. The conversation may also be viewed and listened to online via Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89923570710. 

Shaun Leonardo is one of 25 contemporary artists whose work is featured in Men of Change. Leonardo’s work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, as well as profiled in the New York Times and on CNN. The work Leonardo created for Men of Change is inspired by LeBron James, one of 25 revolutionary men and women whose stories are featured in the exhibition. 

To view an image of Leonardo’s Champion, please visit https://menofchange.si.edu/exhibit/artist-pairings/shaun-leonardo/. 

To watch a video of Leonardo talking about his portrait of James, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQBB6aa47wA. The video was created by the California African American Museum 

Professor Stacy Morgan of the University of Alabama is a prominent scholar on the work of Black artists and how Black people are portrayed in American art and literature. He is the author of Rethinking Social Realism: African American Art and Literature, 1930-1953 (2004) and Frankie and Johnny: Race, Gender, and the Work of African American Folklore in 1930s America (2017). Morgan teaches courses in African American Art, Popular Culture in America, Race & Essentialism in American Culture, American Folklore, and Art Worlds & American Values, among others. 

While Men of Change showcases numerous acclaimed Black artists, the focus of the discussion on Wednesday, November 8, will be contemporary and historic depictions of Black people; art historical references to subjects and the artists who portrayed them in the context of Morgan's book, Rethinking Social Realism: African American Art and Literature, 1930-1953; and the ethics surrounding representation and who speaks for whom. 

Panel moderator Paul Barrett is an independent curator who has collaborated with BPL on past exhibitions, as well as with Leonardo and Morgan on separate recent projects. He curated the exhibition Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama at UAB as well as I, Too, Am Thornton Dial at Samford University, the Wiregrass Museum of Art, and the LSU Museum of Art. He also curated Spider Martin: Selma to Montgomery March at the Birmingham Public Library, for which he organized a panel discussion featuring Stacy Morgan in conversation with Selma Civil Rights food soldiers Joyce O'Neal and Dianne Harris. 

In advance of this special event, which is funded by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Alliance, patrons are encouraged to view Shaun Leonardo’s depiction of LeBron James at BCRI, as well as read about James in the installation portion of Men of Change at BPL. 

Men of Change: Power: Triumph: Truth. was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

By Margaret Splane | Library Assistant III, Development Department