Visiting Artists Program (VAP) Resource Guides

The Visiting Artists Program resource guides contain upcoming speakers' biographies, articles, video and audio content, related publications in the Flaxman Library, and additional online resources. These guides may be used in the classroom in preparation for the event, research, or post-lecture discussion.

Dread Scott: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series: Tuesday, October 15, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation services.

Join us in person for a lecture by artist Dread Scott followed by an audience Q&A.

Dread Scott (BFA 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encourages viewers to reexamine cohering ideals of American society. In 1989, the US Senate outlawed his artwork and President Bush declared it "disgraceful" because of its transgressive use of the American flag. Scott became part of a landmark Supreme Court case when he and others burned flags on the steps of the Capitol. He has presented a TED talk on this subject.

His artwork, the All African People’s Consulate (2024), was an official Collateral Event of the 60th International Venice Biennial. His art has been exhibited at MoMA/PS1, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands; and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York. It is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Weatherspoon Art Museum. In 2019, he presented Slave Rebellion Reenactment, a community engaged project that reenacted the largest rebellion of enslaved people in US history. The project was featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and by Christiane Amanpour on CNN. Artforum has featured his work on its cover.

In 2023, Scott received the Abigail Cohen Rome Prize. Two years earlier, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Frieze Impact Prize, and a Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That year he was named a senior fellow at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College. He was the 2019 Open Society Foundations Soros Equality Fellow, and he has received fellowships from United States Artists and the Creative Capital Foundation.

Presented in partnership with SAIC Alumni Engagement.

Photo credit: Daniele Molajoli

Artist Website

Dread Scott's website

Gallery Representation

Cristin Tierney Gallery

The Artist Who Burned the U.S. Flag Raises a New One in Venice*
Zachary Small | The New York Times | May 1, 2024
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Dread Scott: Goddam
Ann C. Collins | The Brooklyn Rail | June 10, 2023

Dread Scott’s Visual Ballad to Nina Simone
Briana Ellis-Gibbs | Hyperallergic | March 8, 2023

Dread Scott Celebrates a Long-forgotten Rebellion as a Moment of Resilience
Taylor Michael | Hyperallergic | November 17, 2021

Dread Scott with Charles M. Schultz
Dread Scott, Charles M. Schultz | The Brooklyn Rail | November 2021

Dread Scott's NFT White Male For Sale, a critique on slavery, to be auctioned off at Christie’s
Wallace Ludel | The Art Newspaper | September 14, 2021

Dread Scott’s Slave Rebellion Reenactment: Site, Time, Embodiment*
Adrian Anagnost | RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, vol. 46 (2) | p. 59-74 | 2021
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

In Plain Sight
Emmanuel Olunkwa | Pioneer Works | July 3, 2020

Dread Scott’s Struggle to Reclaim Collective Memory
Noah Simblist | Art in America | June 30, 2020

Here’s How the Artist Dread Scott Pulled Off an Epic Reenactment of the Largest Slave Rebellion in American History
Melissa Smith | artnet | November 12, 2019

With a Slave Rebellion Re-enactment, an Artist Revives Forgotten History*
Richard Fausset | The New York Times | November 6, 2019
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Dread Scott: Goddam at Cristin Tierney Gallery
Cristin Tierney Gallery | Vimeo

Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.

SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98).