Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Carol Becker

Carol Becker is Professor of the Arts and Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts.

She was interviewed twice for this series, the second interview about her book, Losing Helen, can be heard here.

She is the author of numerous articles and several books including: The Invisible Drama: Women and the Anxiety of Change (Prentice Hall & IBD, 1987); The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society and Social Responsibility (Routledge,1994); Zones of Contention: Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender, and Anxiety (State University of New York Press, 1996); Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002); Thinking in Place: Art, Action, and Cultural Production (Paradigm Publishers/Routledge, 2009); and her most recent long essay memoir, Losing Helen (Red Hen Press, 2016).

She travels widely often lecturing on art, artists, and their place in society. She also works closely with the World Economic Forum’s program on art and culture.

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  1. […] Carol Becker is Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts. She is also a writer who has many published works, the most recent of which is titled Losing Helen about the loss of her mother who was 98 years old. Her non-Jewish mother wished to be buried in the Jewish cemetery with her husband, the book became a meditation on this loss and the process of advocating for her final wishes. Becker also writes analytic essays about artists. An upcoming essay currently in early stages will discuss Greek-American poet and translator of Greek poetry Kimon Friar. For this Becker says she is considering various aspects of time. For example, Becker refers to time in the present era as “crushed time,” a reference to the sense of acceleration we live with all the time. She points to a stark contrast between the slow time savored by the Greek poets translated by Friar and the present in which we feel the constant pressure of being rushed. On representations of coexisting time, Becker says, “if I were a visual artist I probably would create something with multiple concentric circles.” This portrays the many “balls of time” in which we all exist. Becker has also recently spoken at the world economic forum in Davos. To hear more of Becker’s fascinating take on time and more listen to the full interview. […]

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