About this Event
The work of historian-curators Gregory Dreicer and Stephanie Sparling Williams invite people to view the history and culture of the United States in fresh ways. By focusing on the intersecting worlds of the multiracial and multiethnic America-makers who invented the iconography and infrastructure of the United States, Dreicer and Sparling Williams portray the figurative and literal construction of a nation.
Dreicer explores the image of the US at home and abroad through architecture and bridge building—and the stories we’ve been told about them. Launching from Ithiel Town, renowned architect-engineer and founding member of the National Academy of Design, Dreicer reveals who was involved in the prototyping of construction strategies that were called “American” and enabled transformation of the designed environment on a global scale.
Sparling Williams examines how historic American visual artists have shaped our perceptions of national identity and belonging through their creative practices. She also considers how institutional collections of American art are built, whose creative output has been valued historically, and how ever-diversifying contemporary audiences experience and make sense of those narratives within museum galleries today.
In honor of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this program demonstrates the power of asking simple questions and questioning traditional stories, in order to recontextualize the histories we think we know, embrace complexity, and illuminate the gaps and silences.
Discussion and Q&A to follow. American Bridge: Reinventing Building, Making History and Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art will be available for purchase and signing by the authors during the reception.
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
Gregory Dreicer has engaged popular audiences in exploring big cultural issues with innovative museum experiences and historical scholarship. One of the most successful interdisciplinary curatorial strategists in the U.S., Dreicer conceived pathbreaking projects including Between Fences, Transformed by Light: The New York Night, Chicago Model City, and Unbelievable at institutions including Museum of Vancouver, Chicago Architecture Center, and Museum of the City of New York. Dreicer’s new book, , reveals how evolutionary metaphors and national myths have masked the development of construction methods fundamental to industrial capitalism and nation building. Dreicer was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and the New York Public Library’s Center for Scholars and Writers.
Stephanie Sparling Williams is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Her curatorial practice is predicated on interdisciplinary research, writing, and teaching American art, and foregrounds Black Feminist space-making. Her scholarly work is invested in the space of the museum, with a focus on African American art and culture, and the work of U.S.-based artists of color. Williams’ project, disrupts traditional presentations of art from the Americas and offers a new set of approaches to collection display and interpretation. This groundbreaking reinstallation and accompanying publication reframes 2,000 years of art drawn from the world-renowned holdings of the Brooklyn Museum. Sparling Williams was recently awarded the 2026 Anschutz Distinguished Fellowship in American Studies at the Effron Center for the Study of America at Princeton University.
Image: Left, America Bridge: Reinventing Building, Making History by Gregory Dreicer. Right, Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art by Stephanie Sparling Williams.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
National Academy of Design, 519 West 26th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
