March 2 Hohenberg Lecture Will Examine Symbolism in Art
For release: Feb. 21, 2003
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey

Dr. Christopher Reed, the 2002-2003 Dorothy K. Hohenberg Chair of Excellence in Art History at The University of Memphis, will speak at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art on Sunday, March 2, at 2 p.m. Admission is free.

His lecture, "Is a Calla Lily Ever Just a Calla Lily? Abstraction, Symbolism, and Sexual Identity," is given in conjunction with the Brooks exhibition "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art: 1860-1940," which runs Feb. 23-May 4. The exhibition features more than 50 works by 30 artists, including O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth and Marden Hartley. With paintings of the calla lily as his background, Reed examines practices of coding and symbolism in modern art, which have often been overlooked by historians more concerned with the significance of abstraction.

Reed considers how the use of codes and symbols, whose meanings are not always obvious, reinforced modern ideas of an avant-garde distinct from the mainstream. He also examines how the avant-garde overlapped with other modern subcultures based on new ideas about gender and sexuality.

Reed earned his doctorate from Yale University and serves as chairman of the Art Department at Lake Forest College in Chicago.

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