Bard Graduate Center Gallery

A Curator Conversation with Barry Bergdoll (Columbia University) and Femke Speelberg (Metropolitan Museum of Art), moderated by Basile Baudez (Princeton) Join us for a discussion about the gothic and Gothic architectural drawings as we enter the final week of one exhibition _(Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds)_ and the early weeks of another _(Gothic by Design: The Dawn of Architectural Draftsmanship)._ This program, organized as a partnership between the Drawing Foundation, Bard Graduate Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will begin with a critical response to the two exhibitions by Basile Baudez (Princeton), followed by a conversation with curators Barry Bergdoll and Femke Speelberg. Basile Baudez is associate professor of architectural history in the department of art and archaeology at Princeton University. His latest single-authored book, _Inessential Colors: Architecture on Paper in Early Modern Europe_ (Princeton University Press, 2021), was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. He has recently coedited _Textile in Architecture: From the Middle Ages to Modernism_ (Routledge, 2023), which explores the interconnections between soft and hard architecture in the longue durée from diverse geographical contexts, and _Carceral Architecture: From Within and Beyond the Prison Walls_ (Jovis, 2025), the first account of prison design and its effects centered on the voices of justice-impacted people alongside activists, designers, scholars, artists, and students. He is currently finalizing a book project on textiles in eighteenth-century Venetian urban spaces. Since 2011 Femke Speelberg, MPhil, is curator of historic ornament, design, and architecture in the department of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this capacity, she oversees all drawings, prints, and illustrated books pertaining to the history of design and architecture, dating from the Gothic period to the first half of the twentieth century. Her research is focused on the role of works on paper in processes of artistic ideation, creation, and exchange. As such, her exhibitions and publications are inherently interdisciplinary in scope and connect art objects with the worlds in which they were created and functioned. Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, New York. His interests center on modern architectural history, with a particular emphasis on France and Germany since 1750. Trained in art history rather than architecture, he has an approach most closely allied with cultural history and the history and sociology of professions. Bergdoll has organized exhibitions at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where he served as Philip Johnson Chief Curator from 2007 to 2013. A Lee B. Anderson Memorial Conversation Lee Anderson, who worked for a time as an arts education teacher, has been referred to as the godfather of the Gothic revival in America. It is largely because of his impressive personal collection that the style has been rekindled among designers and other tastemakers. Lee passed away in 2010, but he left a legacy of philanthropic support through the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation, whose mission is to support programs and organizations that advance an appreciation for the decorative arts.

A lecture by Julius Bryant (Victoria and Albert Museum) Through the graphic art collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and its National Art Library, Julius Bryant leads a visit to the Crystal Palace, revealing the original layout, visitor routes, star attractions, and core purpose of the first world’s fair. This book launch lecture, marking the 175th anniversary of the Great Exhibition, shares discoveries made through systematic analysis of the full range of visual evidence, from official catalogues and illustrated press to commemorative oil paintings. Dr. Julius Bryant is keeper emeritus of the Victoria and Albert Museum and was formerly keeper of word and image, the V&A’s department for paintings, prints, drawings, the National Art Library, and the Archive of Art and Design.

Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This event is part of “Conserving Active Matter: A _Cultures of Conservation_ Research Project,” a collaboration between Bard Graduate Center, the Humboldt University (Berlin), and the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This initiative aims to bring new developments in materials science and new ways of thinking about matter to create new ways of thinking about the future of conservation. The project is articulated through semester-themed explorations along four axes: Indigenous ontologies (spring 2018), history (fall 2018), materials science (spring 2019), and philosophy (fall 2019). The Indigenous ontologies working group considers the fact that diverse peoples of the world bring their own cultural values and orientations to the material realm: their own fundamental notions of what “the object” is and isn’t; what its proper and persistent relationships to humans and other-than-human beings might be; what protocols surround its conservation, if indeed it ought to be preserved at all. Thinking globally, we explore cases where Indigenous ontologies of “Active Matter” expand western scientific, aesthetic and philosophical paradigms around the collection, care, and exhibition of living cultural heritage—tangible and otherwise.

A lecture by Edward González-Tennant (Texas State University) Historical archaeologists are uniquely positioned to explore hidden histories—those events erased or otherwise obfuscated in the present—by facilitating a nuanced understanding of the past and its legacies in the present. This presentation explores how a range of digital technologies support archaeological reclamation, an emerging approach that positions archaeological expertise at the service of communities and the public. Dr. González-Tennant discusses several case studies from Florida and Texas to provide concrete examples of this community-centered approach to historical archaeology. These case studies illustrate the centrality of digital technologies—e.g., GIS (geographic information systems), GPR (ground penetrating radar), LiDAR (light detection and ranging), photogrammetry, and VR (virtual reality)—in revealing new historical truths that facilitate public dialogue and engagement. By examining the intersections between technology, community, and historical memory, González-Tennant seeks to contribute to ongoing conversations about the role of archaeology in promoting restorative justice and reconciliation. An Archaeological Encounters Lecture Edward González-Tennant earned his PhD from the University of Florida for pioneering work applying digital and virtual archaeological methods to explore the history of Rosewood, Florida. He is currently an assistant professor of historical archaeology at the Texas State University, where he directs the newly established Texas State Computational and Digital Archaeology Lab (CDAL).

A lecture by Kristina Richardson (University of Virginia) In 869 CE, thousands of East African agricultural slaves rebelled in the southern Iraqi city of Basra and formed an independent state that fell to the Abbasids fourteen years later. A generation or two after, a small collective of Muslim philosophers based in Basra composed a revolutionary, anti-slavery treatise. In this lecture, Kristina Richardson will trace the development of abolitionist philosophies from the ninth-century slave revolt to the tenth-century treatise and beyond, offering an original excavation of medieval abolitionist thought. A Global Middle Ages Lecture Kristina Richardson is professor of history and Middle Eastern and South Asian languages and cultures at the University of Virginia. She specializes in histories of non-elite groups in the Middle East. She is the author of two monographs: _Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World_ (2012) and _Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture, and Migration_ (2022). She also co-edited the _Notebook of Kamāl al-Dīn the Weaver_ in 2021. She is currently writing a book called _Black Basra_ on free and unfree South Asian and East African agricultural laborers in early Islamic Iraq.

A lecture by Risham Majeed (Ithaca College) Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc is widely celebrated as a draughtsman, architect, and restorer of medieval buildings. A national hero in France, Viollet-le-Duc tends to be plucked out of the complex nexus of colonialism and nationalism which molded much of his thinking. Indeed, Viollet-le-Duc’s friendship with Arthur de Gobineau, who wrote the _Essay on the Inequality of the Races,_ is understudied given that Gobineau’s theories of race inflected the architect-scholar’s thinking from the 1850s until his death in 1878. Such theories of racial development allowed comparisons between the “primitive” nature of the medieval and the “primitive” quality assigned to the art newly introduced to Western Europe by colonization. In this lecture, Risham Majeed examines how medieval sculpture came to be racialized and understood as “primitive” and “originary” through Viollet-le-Duc’s design for its display in the museums of the Trocadéro Palace (1878–1937). A Lee B. Anderson Memorial Lecture Lee Anderson, who worked for a time as an arts education teacher, has been referred to as the godfather of the Gothic revival in America. It is largely because of his impressive personal collection that the style has been rekindled among designers and other tastemakers. Lee passed away in 2010, but he left a legacy of philanthropic support through the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation, whose mission is to support programs and organizations that advance an appreciation for the decorative arts. This event is presented in conjunction with Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, on view at the BGC Gallery through May 24. Risham Majeed (PhD, Columbia University) was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and grew up in Saudi Arabia and London. She specializes in medieval art in Western Europe and the historical arts of Africa. Her research has revealed the parallel reception of the two fields during the emergence of art history as a discipline, which is the topic of her book project, _Primitive Before Primitivism: Medieval and African Art in the 19th Century._ Current projects include an examination of sub-Saharan Africa in conversation with Asia and Europe during the medieval period, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. She is also curating an exhibition, _Africa in the World: materials without end,_ which will open at the Handwerker Gallery in March 2026.