The Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture Series at Otis College of Art and Design brings distinguished artists, designers, and creative thought leaders to campus for engaging public discussions that inspire and challenge perspectives. Named in honor of Otis College's founding director, architect Eliot Einstein, this series provides students and the broader community with the opportunity to hear directly from influential voices shaping contemporary art, design, and culture. Each lecture fosters critical dialogue, creative exploration, and a deeper understanding of the role that art and design play in society today.
Upcoming Speakers
Dawoud Bey
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 7:00 p.m
Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) is a renowned photographer known for his compelling portraits and deep community engagement. His work spans from Harlem, U.S.A. (1975-79) to projects exploring history and memory, such as The Birmingham Project and Night Coming Tenderly, Black. A MacArthur Fellow and Yale MFA graduate, Bey is a professor at Columbia College Chicago. His work is held in major museums worldwide, and he continues to challenge narratives through photography.
Past Speakers
Theaster Gates
Gates is an artist and social innovator who lives and works in Chicago. Over the past decade, Gates has translated the intricacies of Blackness through space theory and land development, sculpture, and performance. Through the expansiveness of his approach as a thinker, maker, and builder, he extends the role of the artist as an agent of change. His performance practice and visual work find roots in Black knowledge, objects, history, and archives.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Crosby (b. 1983, Enugu, Nigeria) is a Los Angeles-based artist known for her mixed-media works exploring cultural hybridity. She has exhibited internationally, including at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019) and solo shows at the Blanton Museum of Art and Yale Center for British Art (2022-2023). A recipient of prestigious awards like the MacArthur Fellowship (2017) and United States Artist Fellowship (2021), her work is held in major museum collections worldwide. Learn more at njidekaakunyilicrosby.com.
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Trenton Doyle Hancock, born in Oklahoma City and raised in Paris, Texas, is a Houston-based artist known for his dynamic, narrative-driven works. He earned his BFA from Texas A&M University–Commerce and his MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Hancock has exhibited internationally at major institutions, including MoMA, the Menil Collection, Mass MoCA, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. One of the youngest artists to participate in the Whitney Biennial, he was featured in its 2000 and 2002 editions.
Edgar Heap of Birds
Edgar Heap of Birds (Hock E Aye Vi) is a multi-disciplinary artist known for text-based conceptual art and large-scale public installations. A member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, he teaches Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and has been a visiting professor at Yale, RISD, and the University of Cape Town. His work includes Building Minnesota (1990), an installation honoring Dakota men executed after the Dakota War, and Wheel, a fifty-foot sculpture for the Denver Art Museum, inspired by the Big Horn Medicine Wheel.
Doug Aitken
Doug Aitken (b. 1968) is a Los Angeles-based artist known for blurring the boundaries between media through immersive installations. Since the 1990s, he has used multiple screens, video feeds, and sound to explore themes of time, space, and perception. In 1999, he won the International Prize at the Venice Biennale for Electric Earth, an eight-screen installation. His Sonic Pavilion at Brazil’s Inhotim Cultural Institute captures and amplifies the sounds of the earth, exemplifying his exploration of sensory awareness.
Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) is an Iranian-born artist exploring gender and cultural identity in Islamic societies. After leaving Iran in 1974, she began photographing herself in a chador, examining veiled women’s roles. Her series Women of Allah (1993–97) combines female imagery with religious texts. In 1999, she won the Venice Biennale prize for Turbulent, highlighting gender disparity in music. Now based in New York, she films primarily in Morocco, Turkey, and the U.S.
Jeffrey Vallance
Jeffrey Vallance is a California-born artist known for blending object making, installation, performance, and writing. His site-specific projects include burying a chicken at a pet cemetery, meeting world leaders, and curating exhibits in unconventional spaces like Las Vegas museums. He has explored myths, religious relics, and cultural heritage, from Polynesia to the Vatican. Vallance also curated the only art-world exhibition of Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth in Orange County.
Kara Walker
Kara Walker (b. 1969) is a New York-based artist known for her silhouetted figures exploring race, gender, and violence. She has exhibited worldwide, with works in major collections like MoMA, the Met, and Tate London. In 2014, she created A Subtlety, a monumental sugar-covered sphinx at the Domino Sugar refinery, reflecting on the history of sugar and labor. A MacArthur Fellow, she has also designed opera productions, including Norma at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Zoé Whitley
Dr. Zoé Whitley is Director of London’s Chisenhale Gallery and co-curated Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern (2017–2020). She has worked at major UK institutions, including Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the V&A, and the British Council’s 2019 Venice Biennale Pavilion. Alongside curating, she writes exhibition catalogues, artist monographs, and children's books on art. Whitley is a Trustee of the Teiger Foundation and a member of the London Mayor’s Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm.
Anicka Yi
Anicka Yi (b. 1971, Seoul) is a New York-based artist whose work merges science, biology, and politics. Her installations explore the blurred boundaries between humans, animals, plants, and machines, creating "biopolitics of the senses." Yi has exhibited globally at Tate Modern, Guggenheim, and Venice Biennale. She won the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize and the 2020 Tate Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission. Her work is held in major collections, including MoMA, LACMA, and the Whitney Museum.