About this Event
Join us for a live recording at the National Academy of Design of Person Place Thing, featuring host Randy Cohen in conversation with artist Mitch Epstein NA. Musical performance by guest composer and guitarist Steph Jenkins.
Included in both parts of Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgment, Epstein’s photographs offer a subtle and contemplative approach to a range of critical societal issues within the United States, continuously questioning what it means to be American.
Excerpt from , by Sara Reisman, Chief Curator:
A portrait of America would not be complete without memorials that populate public spaces across the United States. In 2020, Mitch Epstein NA was completing a four-year project, in which he traveled across the US, training his lens “on the local impacts of big policies,” from activism at Standing Rock to the US government’s recent land grab at the US-Mexico border to build a wall and the graffiti-covered Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, Virginia. Epstein’s large-scale photograph of the memorial captures the residue of the fervent protest movements that erupted in 2020 following the M**der of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen is an interview show based on the idea that people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves, but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing with particular meaning to them. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. Past guests have included Claire Weisz NA; Sara Caples NA and Everardo Jefferson NA; Marion Weiss NA and Michael Manfredi NA; Tod Williams NA and Billie Tsien NA; Laurie Anderson NA; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Anna Deveare Smith; Alice Aycock NA; David Gonzalez; and Yeohlee Teng.
RESERVATIONS: Admission is free but reservations are required.
ACCESSIBILITY: This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. To request free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service, email your request at least three weeks in advance of the event to [email protected].
About the Speakers
Mitch Epstein NA has photographed the landscape and psyche of America for half a century. A pioneer of 1970s color photography, Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design and awarded the Prix Pictet, Berlin Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been shown and collected by museums worldwide, including the Tate Modern in London and New York’s Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art; a theatrical rendition of Epstein’s American Power series was commissioned and premiered by the Walker Art Center. His books include Silver and Chrome, Property Rights, New York Arbor, American Power, Recreation and Family Business, all published by Steidl. Epstein has also worked in film as director of Dad, and production designer and co-producer for Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Mississippi Masala (1991). His new series Old Growth and multichannel video Forest Waves premiered at Yancey Richardson Gallery in September 2024, and was featured in the major exhibition Mitch Epstein: American Nature at Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, October 2024 – March 2025.
Randy Cohen’s first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for "Late Night With David Letterman" for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore’s "TV Nation." He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. For twelve years he wrote "The Ethicist," a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine. He is currently the creator and host of Person Place Thing, a public radio program. | personplacething.org
Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and composer Steph Jenkins grew up in a musical family in Manhattan's Upper West Side. She started playing old-time banjo at 16 and has been playing American traditional music ever since. She plays in stringband The Calamity Janes, and has recorded extensively as a banjoist on multiple studio records. As a solo artist, she released her debut EP “End to End” in October 2018 and recorded second EP, “The Season,” in the first months of Covid lockdowns. Both of these were re-released in Japan on the label Hayabusa Landings in 2022, along with two songs written for that CD. She is thrilled to return as a musician to Person, Place, Thing.
Image: Mitch Epstein, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Six Grandfathers, South Dakota 2018.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
National Academy of Design, 519 West 26th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
