Free Film Screening w/ Artist Wangechi Mutu at the Legion of Honor (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Theater
Join us to celebrate the closing of the sprawling, site-specific exhibition, Wangechi Mutu: I Am Speaking, Are You Listening? with two exclusive screenings. See the never before seen conversation with artist Wangechi Mutu and exhibition curator Claudia Schmuckli, curator of contemporary art and programming, followed by the exhibition film, a poetic exploration of the installation narrated by the artist herself.

After the screenings, join us for a book and poster signing with Wangechi Mutu. Purchase the exhibition catalogue in advance or on site at the museum store. This dazzling book accompanies a presentation of Wangechi Mutu’s new work on view at the Legion of Honor, along with a greater selection from her landmark oeuvre. It features a wealth of photography and materials from the gallery installations at the Legion and serves as a remarkable document of the exhibition. It is also the most comprehensive book on the artist to date.

Schedule:

1–2 pm Film Screening of Bransten Lecture Conversation with Wangechi Mutu and Claudia Schmuckli

2–3 pm Book and poster signing

About the Exhibition
Over the past two decades, Wangechi Mutu has created chimerical constellations of powerful female characters, hybrid beings, and fantastical landscapes. With a rare understanding of the power and need for new mythologies—the productive friction of opposites beyond simple binaries and stereotypes—Mutu breaches common distinctions among human, animal, plant, and machine. At once seductive and threatening, her figures and environments take the viewer on journeys of material, psychological, and sociopolitical transformation. An artist who calls both Nairobi and New York home, she moves voraciously between cultural traditions to challenge colonialist, racist, and sexist worldviews with her visionary projection of an alternate universe informed by Afrofuturism, post-humanism, and feminism. Mutu’s sprawling exhibition at the Legion of Honor, a museum built for the showcase of European art from antiquity through Impressionism presided over by Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, aims to spur “a purposeful examination of art histories, mythologies, and the techniques of archiving and remembering.”

About the Artist
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Wangechi Mutu received her MFA from Yale University.

Mutu’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and installations worldwide, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Contemporary Austin, Texas; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; and the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina. Other venues include the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Wiels Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and Kunsthalle Wien. Mutu was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and is the recipient of Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year award, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, and the American Federation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award. The artist works in Nairobi and New York.

COVID-19 Guidelines
Regardless of vaccination status, face coverings are required for staff and adult visitors at all times on museum premises (City-owned property). Masks may be temporarily removed for eating and drinking while seated in the museum or outdoors. Cleaning routines have been increased, and sanitizing stations are available throughout the Legion of Honor. Learn more about our rigorous health and safety measures.

There is no drinking or eating allowed inside the Gunn Theater; we encourage you to step outside temporarily or visit our cafe after the program.

Ticket Information
No purchase is necessary for the film screening. Seating inside the theater is limited and unassigned. Free tickets are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis an hour before the program begins in front of the Gunn Theater.

Every Saturday the Legion of Honor offers free general admission to all residents of the nine Bay Area counties.

Contact Information
Public Programs
publicprograms@famsf.org
(415) 750-7624

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.