Distinguished University Professor Dr. Alessandra Raengo of the School of Film, Media & Theatre is the recipient of the prestigious 2022-23 Paul Mellon Senior Fellowship from the Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She will focus on her research project “Liquid Blackness in Contemporary Visual Arts: Black Study as Aesthetic Practice”, which is built on the archival/critical practice of the liquid blackness research group and liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies and on their founding gesture of thinking about blackness through/as aesthetics. The liquid blackness website is archived at the Library of Congress for “its cultural and historical significance.”
According to the project introduction, "liquid blackness research projects are undisciplined and best understood through a series of questions pivoting around (1) the relationship between aesthetics and the ontology of blackness and (2) the generative potential of blackness as an aesthetic. As we extend and confront lines of inquiry from a number of research fields, our approach is equally concerned with theoretical content, analytical methods, and scholarly praxis."
The Paul Mellon Fellowship is awarded each academic year to one individual to support research in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, prints and drawings, film, photography, decorative arts, industrial design and other arts) of any geographical area and of any period.
