Bard Graduate Center Logo
  Banner Image
 

Bard Graduate Center Gallery reopens its doors on September 24 for Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915. The exhibition features more than 350 examples of this colorful, wildly imaginative, and technically innovative ceramic ware that became wildly popular in the late nineteenth century.

Information about our in-person or virtual tours and a fascinating array of companion events are listed below. ASL Access will be provided by ProBono ASL for all events, and virtual tours upon request.


 

Making Majolica Mania
Thursday, September 30 at 12 pm
Zoom Event
Pay What You Wish

Explore how the Majolica Mania exhibition came together. The curators will reflect on the origin story of the exhibition, their research process, and the evolution of this unique project.

Register Button

Race-ing Whimsy: Black and Asian Figures in the Majolica Imaginary
Thursday, October 21 at 6 pm
Zoom Event
Pay What You Wish

Majolica’s reputation for ornament, historicism, and lighthearted eclecticism is well understood; however, the ways in which majolica represented ideas of race remain little discussed. Curator Susan Weber observed that majolica, more than any other ware of the era, makes tangible the interests, desires, and anxieties of nineteenth-century consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. Join us for an exploration of how this popular ceramic ware reflected Victorian thinking about race.

Register Button

Beautiful and Deadly: The Dark Side of Pigment
Friday, October 29 at 12 pm
Zoom Event
Pay What You Wish

Just in time for Halloween! Join us for a program investigating the dark side of some of the world’s most vibrant pigments. BGC professor Jennifer Mass will explain how lead, uranium, and arsenic are used to create these glorious but deadly hues and discuss their material histories with Dr. Spike Bucklow (University of Cambridge), author of Red: The Art and Science of a Colour.

Register Button

Histories of Lead Activism in America
Wednesday, November 10 at 6 pm
Zoom Event
Pay What You Wish

This conversation, organized by Dr. Richard McKinley Mizelle, Jr. (University of Houston), will highlight key moments in the long fight against environmental racism led by Black activists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Register Button

Majolica Poetry Reading
Monday, November 15 at 6 pm
Zoom Event
Pay What You Wish

Acclaimed poets Wayne Koestenbaum, Sally Wen Mao, S*an D. Henry Smith, and Stacy Szymaszek share the poems they wrote for our Majolica Mania exhibition and the objects that informed their work.

Register Button

Tours

Bard Graduate Center is delighted to offer in-person and virtual tours to groups of 10 or more. These tours require advance reservations. Free for public schools; all other tours start at $85 per group. To book a tour, email tours@bgc.bard.edu.

Learn More Button
COPY AND PASTE CODE BELOW TO MAILCHIMP