Public Art Fund Talks: Carmen Winant

Attend a public talk with artist Carmen Winant and Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress as they discuss My Mother and Eye, Winant’s Public Art Fund exhibition and her largest public art project to date. On view from February to April 2025, My Mother and Eye features 11 compositions assembled from  over 1,200 film stills from works created by Winant and her mother as teenagers. The works will be displayed on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston. This exhibition explores themes of generational kinship, self-discovery, and agency, offering a reflection on the personal and cultural landscapes shared by mother and daughter.

During the talk, Winant will offer a short experimental lecture, give insights into her creative process, the significance of public space for this project, and the ways in which photography can shape both personal narratives and collective histories. The conversation will delve into the powerful role of self-representation and the importance of bringing intimate, familial stories into public view.

Attend in person at The Cooper Union’s Frederick P. Rose Auditorium. Registration is required, and capacity is limited. Seating is first come, first served so please arrive early. Your registration does not guarantee a seat. Doors will close at 6:45pm.

Accessibility: Email Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, at [email protected] with questions and requests for accessibility. Please send any needs for services or accommodations to support your participation in this program, including ASL interpretations, hearing aids, and simultaneous translation, by March 14.

Image:
Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye
Arrival, 2024
Photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY.
Presented by Public Art Fund as a part of Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye, an exhibition on JCDecaux bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston, Feb 5, 2025 – Apr 6, 2025.

Carmen Winant (b. 1983, San Francisco, California) is an artist and educator whose work explores the ways in which photographs tell stories and reflect societal values around bodies, labor, and identity. She collects images from books, magazines, and pamphlets in women’s health clinics, education centers, and intentional communities, creating large-scale installations that challenge our understanding of historical and cultural narratives. Winant grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and since 2014, has been based in Columbus, Ohio, where she serves as the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art at Ohio State University.

Winant’s work has been exhibited widely, including recent solo shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2023) and The Dayton Contemporary (2023), as well as notable group exhibitions like the Whitney Biennial (2024) and Her Voice – Echoes of Chantal Akerman at FOMU, Antwerp (2023). She holds an MFA from California College of the Arts and was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in photography. Her work is in the collections of MoMA, Los Angeles’s MOCA, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others.

Public Art Fund Talks, organized in collaboration with The Cooper Union, connect compelling contemporary artists to a broad public by establishing a dialogue about artistic practices and public art. The Talks series features internationally renowned artists who offer insights into artmaking and its personal, social, and cultural contexts. The core values of creative expression and democratic access to culture and learning shared by both Public Art Fund and The Cooper Union are embodied in this ongoing collaboration. In the spirit of accessibility to the broadest and most diverse public, the Talks are offered free of charge.