Event: The Harry Ransom Center hosts public programs.
When: Various dates throughout October.
Where: Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, 21st and Guadalupe streets
Background: Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. The Ransom Center’s Charles Nelson Prothro Theater has limited seating. Line forms upon arrival of the first person, and doors open 30 minutes in advance.
Curator’s tour of “The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 19201925”
Thursday, Oct. 6, 7 p.m., at the Ransom Center
Molly Schwartzburg, Cline Curator of Literature, leads a tour of the exhibition “The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 19201925.” As early as 1921, noteworthy visitors to Frank Shay’s bookshop, located at 4 Christopher Street in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City, began signing the narrow door that opened onto the store’s back room. When the shop closed in 1925, manager Juliette Koenig preserved the door and, with it, a revelatory slice of cultural history. Signed by 240 writers, artists, actors, publishers and other community members, this unusual artifact presents a unique opportunity to reconsider the intersecting communities that made the Village an epicenter of American modernism and literary commerce.
“Ulysses ‘Seen'”
Thursday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m., at the Ransom Center
Mike Barsanti and Rob Berry discuss “Ulysses ‘Seen,'” their graphic novel adaptation of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and issues of copyright and censorship in the 21st century. “Ulysses ‘Seen'” made headlines in 2010 when Apple asked the creators to remove any nudity before approving it as an iPad app. Barsanti and Berry discuss this controversy and their mission to foster the understanding of public domain literary masterworks through the media of the digital graphic novel. This program is held in conjunction with the Ransom Center’s exhibition “Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored,” on display through Jan. 22. View a live webcast of this program.
Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird”
Thursday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m., at the Ransom Center
Associate Curator of Art Peter Mears discusses Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird.” The painting, which resides in the Ransom Center’s collection, is on display on the first floor through Jan. 8, 2012. Since 1990 the painting has been on almost continuous loan, featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States and in countries such as Australia, Canada, France and Spain.
Mears discusses how the Ransom Center acquired “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940) and a small but important collection of modern Mexican art from New York City celebrity photographer and collector Nickolas Muray, who was also Kahlo’s lover. Mears will also provide an overview of this iconic painting’s worldly travels, which serve as a cultural barometer reflecting the trends, issues and cross-cultural themes prevalent in the art world over the past two decades. View a live webcast of this program.
