Presenter:Dr. Adrienne Brown, Associate Professor of English, U. of Chicago

As a technology for envisioning the city and its masses, the early skyscraper was a key site where Black people positioned themselves within the landscape of modernity. Adrienne Brown, author of The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race and a University of Chicago associate professor, will address the skyscraper-centric images of Aaron Douglas, one of the most influential visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance. In a talk that ties together two current exhibitions—Aerial Vision, in our galleries, and The Harlem Renaissance, online—Brown will consider the multiple forms of urban belonging the skyscraper suggested to African American artists in the early 20th century.