Clark Art to Host "Read the Story and Picture" Lecture Sept. 20

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute’s Research and Academic Program will present a lecture by Clark Fellow Olivier Bonfait entitled, "Read the Story and the Picture" at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 20 in the Clark’s auditorium in the Manton Research Center building.

In this lecture, Bonfait will discuss the interplay between the pictorial intelligence of the human history based on a left-right dynamic and the lateralization of vision which is also part of  daily experience.

Olivier Bonfait is a professor at the Université de Bourgogne and the École du Louvre and is also a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He earned his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne with a dissertation on art and society of Baroque Bologna.

Bonfait has published, in particular on Nicolas Poussin and "Caravaggesque" painting. When he was director of the art history department at the Villa Médici—Académie de France (Rome), Bonfait curated several exhibitions spanning seventeenth- to nineteenth-century European art.

At the Clark, Bonfait is researching the history of large-format painting and considering its important role in the formation of modern nation states.

The event is free and no registration is required. Prior to the lecture, attendees are invited to join a reception in the Manton Research Center Reading Room starting at 5 p.m. 

A recorded video of this lecture releases on the Clark’s YouTube channel on September 27. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.


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Williams College Addressing New Bias Incidents

iBerkshires.com Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Saying the college has to “resist hatred in all its forms,” the president of Williams Monday informed the campus community of recent bias incidents at the school.
 
Maud Mandel sent a college-wide email to provide details on the incidents, talk about how affected students are being supported and point out that the college’s code of conduct will be brought to bear on any members of the student body found to be responsible.
 
The recent incidents appear to be targeting both Jewish and Black students at the school.
 
“In one case, a table painted with the U.S. and Israeli flags was placed outside on the Frosh Quad,” Mandel said, referring to an area bounded by two residence halls that abut Park Street . “Over several days the table was repeatedly flipped over and damaged. It was eventually defaced with graffiti that read, ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘I love Hamas,’ ‘F— Zionists,’ ‘Colonizers,’ ‘F— AmeriKKKa’ and ‘Don't claim rednecks.’ “
 
The Star of David was crossed out on an Israeli flag at the table, and the table itself was repeatedly damaged by vandals, Mandel wrote.
 
Her email also referenced a series of reports earlier this semester involving the harassment of Black students on Main Street (Route 2), which runs through the middle of campus.
 
“[On] several occasions this semester, people in cars have yelled the N-word and other racial slurs at Black and other students crossing Route 2,” Mandel wrote. “During one of those incidents a person in the car also threw an empty plastic bottle at the students. Route 2, the main public thoroughfare through campus, has been a site of similar incidents in past years.”
 
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