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Coffee & Curators Members Event
October 4 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am MDT
Coffee & Curators: Whitney Western Art Museum
October 4, 10–11:30 a.m.
Free for members! Coffee & Curators invites members to enjoy coffee, refreshments, and the company of other members as one of the Center of the West’s curators speaks on a topic related to their content area – special projects, recent acquisitions, significant objects, and future plans. It’s a great way to learn what’s going on behind-the-scenes at the Center of the West!
Our October program features our Whitney Western Art Museum.
Space for this members event is limited and reservations are required. Call 307-578-4008 or e-mail us to reserve your seat. Meet us at the main entrance — or stay tuned for information on how to attend virtually if you prefer.
Dr. Ashlea Espinal is the Assistant Curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum. Before joining the Whitney in November 2021, she completed a MA in Art and Museum Studies at Georgetown University and her doctorate in Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma. She also served as an art history adjunct instructor from 2019 to 2020 for both the University of Oklahoma and Bacone College. During her time at the Whitney, Espinal has co-curated the exhibitions James Bama: Portraits of the West and the Center’s current special exhibition POP! Goes the West. Her areas of focus are contemporary Native arts and Western American art history, visual culture, and cultural memory.
Drawing upon her specialization in contemporary Native arts, in her presentation, Native Arts Go POP!, Espinal will introduce the ten Native artists featured in the special exhibition, POP! Goes the West. Artists, writers, and filmmakers have long depicted the Old West as a sublime landscape crisscrossed by wagon trains, cowboys, armed horsemen and Native war parties, and dotted with dusty one-street towns. However, the artists in POP! Goes the West look at the region with fresh eyes. Native artists in particular respond to the long history and prevalence of Native peoples and imagery in American visual and popular culture. They use the styles and attitudes of Pop art to update old histories and myths, and their art tells more nuanced stories about the West.
Upcoming Coffee & Curators events:
• November 1: Plains Indian Museum
Not yet a member but interested in joining? Click here to find out more. You can even join online!
