at home: Artists in Conversation | Ken Gonzales-Day
Conversation
October 19, 2022
Ken Gonzales-Day, artist and Fletcher Jones Chair in Art, Scripps College, Claremont, California, in conversation with Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
at home: Artists in Conversation
Join us for lively and inspiring conversations with some of today’s most notable artists. at home: Artists in Conversation brings together curators and artists to discuss various artistic practices and insights into their work.
About Ken Gonzales-Day
Born in 1964 in Santa Clara, California, Gonzales-Day is a Los Angeles-based artist best known for his interdisciplinary and conceptually grounded projects which consider the history of photography, the construction of race, and the limits of representational systems, from lynching photography to museum displays. He received an MFA in studio art from the University of California, Irvine; an MA in art history from the City University of New York; and a BFA in painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. His many projects include the widely exhibited Erased Lynching Series, begun in 2002, which has increased awareness of the history of lynching in California and nationwide. Gonzales-Day’s research expanded the number of known cases of lynching in California from fifty to more than 350. The series is notable for its conceptual use of digital technology and its engagement with historic and archival images.
In 2017, Gonzales-Day received a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography, and in 2019, he was awarded the Fletcher Jones Chair in Art at Scripps College, Claremont, California. He has been a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; a senior fellow, Latino Initiatives Program, Smithsonian Institution; a Van Lier Fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and had a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. Gonzales-Day lives and works in Los Angeles.
This conversation is held in conjunction with Steve McQueen’s Lynching Tree, on view at the museum from September 22 through October 30, 2022.
