NEW YORK, Jan 19, 2011 / — Kenya-born artist Wangechi Mutu will speak about her work and the events in her life that influence her art on February 15, 2011 at the FIT.

By combining painted and collaged images with photographic fragments of idealized women from magazines, Mutu creates female figures that critique the portrayal of black women as either tribal aborigines or hypersexualized pinups. Her work has been seen by critics as a commentary on a variety of feminist and racial issues.

Born in 1972, Mutu earned her BFA degree in art and anthropology from Cooper Union and her MFA degree from Yale University.

She was named the Deutsche Guggenheim Artist of the Year for 2010 and received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant and the Emerging Talent Award from Cooper Union in 2008. Her work, which has been the subject of major exhibitions at leading galleries and museums around the world, was recently on view at the Gladstone Gallery in New York City.

This event is the first of three ARTSpeak talks to be presented this year by the Fine Arts Department of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and FIT’s Diversity Council.

Tuesday, February 15, 1-2 pm
Free and Open to the Public