Winfield C. Cook Constitution Day Conversation

Picturing the Constitution: Curators, Artists and Scholars in Conversation

Katherine Gressel, Curator
Bang Geul Han, Artist
Steven Mazie, Constitutional Expert

How can artists help enhance our understanding of the United States Constitution, its interpretations throughout history, and our own political participation? Join Katherine Gressel, curator of the 2023 Picturing the Constitution exhibition at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, participating artist Bang Geul Han, and Supreme Court correspondent and political scientist Steven Mazie for a joint presentation and panel discussion focused on artists’ responses to the United States Constitution, including its origins, contents, and interpretations. All artists are engaged in interpreting the world around them. This panel will explore the value of creatively applying interpretive tools to the Constitution as a document of ever-evolving meaning.

Picturing the Constitution featured artists’ responses to the United States Constitution, including its origins, contents, and interpretations. Installations, workshops and performances in diverse media by 17 artists and art teams asked: to what extent do these founding documents still serve us (equitably)? What could we add or amend? The run-up to the 2024 presidential election offers an opportunity to reflect on the history and current state of democracy in America, our rights and responsibilities to our communities, and the role of artists in depicting and advancing these ideals. Together, the artists in Picturing the Constitution emphasize the importance of deep engagement with the imperfect documents that have shaped our past and present, including imagining a more perfect future. 

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. Is is part of the Clarke Forum’s annual theme, Alternative Models.

Topic overview written by Ella Layton ’26

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Katherine Gressel is a New York City-based independent curator focused on site specific and participatory art in nontraditional spaces. She is currently the contemporary curator at the Old Stone House & Washington Park (OSH), where she oversees artists and guest curators realizing ambitious solo projects and thematic group shows responding to the history and environment of this historic house and local park. In addition to organizing over a dozen major exhibitions to date at OSH, Gressel has curated and produced artist projects for Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Arts Gowanus, Established Gallery, Smack Mellon, FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society. She was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator and an Independent Curators International (ICI) 2015 Curatorial Intensive participant.  She has been a member of the Mother Creatrix Collective since 2024, helping organize exhibitions and events exploring the intersection of art and caregiving. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Time Out NY, and CBS News. Gressel has written and presented on art and social impact for Americans for the Arts and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Gressel also served as programs manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits. She earned her B.A. in art from Yale and M.A. in arts administration from Columbia.

Bang Geul Han is an interdisciplinary artist who works in video, performance, code, and weaving. Born and raised in South Korea and based in New York City, her work has been shown in venues including A.I.R. Gallery, The Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, Smack Mellon in New York City, Pérez Art Museum in Miami, and Centro Internazionale per l’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. She is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and received many artist residencies and fellowships, including an Artist Residency at the Museum of Art and Design, a Creative Capital Award, an AIM Fellowship, and an Artist in Residence at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, A.I.R. Fellowship, LMCC’s Workspace program, MacDowell Fellowship, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been reviewed in 4Columns, Art Papers, Art in America, The AMP, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Brooklyn Rail. Han received her M.F.A. in electronic integrated arts from NYSCC at Alfred University in Alfred, NY, and her B.F.A. in painting from Seoul National University in Korea. Han is an associate professor at the College of Staten Island / CUNY.

Steven Mazie received his A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College (government) and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (political science); and completed postgraduate work at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a professor of political studies at Bard High School Early College-Manhattan and has taught at Bard College, New York University, and the University of Michigan. Honors include American Political Science Association Best Paper Award in Religion and Politics; Charlotte C. Newcombe Fellowship; National Science Foundation research grant; Raoul Wallenberg Scholarship and three awards for teaching excellence. He is the author of American Justice 2015: The Dramatic Tenth Term of the Roberts Court (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) and Israel’s Higher Law: Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books, 2006). He is the Supreme Court correspondent for The Economist (2013-present) and has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, SCOTUSblog, Slate, Time Magazine and The Atlantic. He has appeared on radio, television (CBS News, MSNBC, CNN) and podcasts including “The Intelligence,” “Checks and Balance,” “Apple News Today,” “Supreme Myths” and “Passing Judgment.”

Winfield C. Cook Constitution Day Program

The annual program is endowed through the generosity of Winfield C. Cook, former Dickinson Trustee. Each year the Clarke Forum invites prominent public figures to campus to speak on a contemporary issue related to the Constitution. The event celebrates the signing of the United States Constitution (September 17, 1787) and commemorates Dickinson’s connection to that document, through John Dickinson’s participation as an original signer. Previous speakers have included Kenneth Starr, Ira Glasser, Lowell Weicker, Marjorie Rendell, Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Ibram X. Kendi.

Relevant Links

https://theoldstonehouse.org/picturing-the-constitution-virtual-tour/

https://theoldstonehouse.org/exhibitions/

Picturing the Constitution info session for prospective artists recording