Identity

Bruce Nauman was born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and currently lives and works near Galisteo, New Mexico. He graduated with a BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1964, and with an MFA from the University of California, Davis, in 1966. In his work, Nauman uses videos, sculptures, holograms, neon lights, and installations to create scenarios that disrupt viewers’ habits of perception. By investigating themes of time, control, and language, the artist creates an open-ended body of work that prioritizes process over product and expands the possibilities of what art may be.

Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. The artist was educated at Otis Art Institute, where he received a BFA in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999. In his work, Marshall interrogates Western art history, recontextualizing the canon to include themes and imagery that have been historically excluded. Through his paintings, drawings, installations, and public works, the artist builds a body of work that privileges the Black figure, using race, history, and everyday Black experiences as the inspiration for his work.

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911. She first studied mathematics at Sorbonne University before pursuing a degree in arts at various schools around Paris, including the Ecole du Louvre, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Académie Julian, and Atelier Fernand Léger. In 1938, she immigrated to the United States, continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York, and began making sculptures on the roof of her apartment. Bourgeois’s early sculptures were composed of groupings of abstract shapes, often carved from wood. By the 1960s, the artist began to execute her work in rubber, bronze, and stone, and the pieces themselves became larger and more referential to what has become the dominant themes of her work: her childhood, familial trauma, and loneliness.

Maya Lin was born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, and currently lives and works in New York City. She attended Yale University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1981 in art and architecture and her M.Arch. in 1986. Trained as an architect and an artist, Lin’s work encompasses memorial designs, architectural works, and large-scale environmental installations. Using water and natural landscapes as a throughline between her disparate practices, Lin’s work touches on themes of memory and time, exploring how we experience and relate to our environment and surroundings.

William Wegman’s interests in areas beyond painting led him to photography and the then-infant medium of video. A central figure in his photography and videos, Wegman’s dog Man Ray became known in the art world and beyond for his endearing, deadpan presence. In 1972, Wegman and Man Ray moved to New York. In 1986, a new dog, Fay Ray, came into Wegman’s life; and soon thereafter another famous collaboration began, marked by Wegman’s use of the Polaroid 20-by-24-inch camera. With the birth of Fay’s litter in 1989 and her daughter’s litter in 1995, Wegman’s cast of characters grew.