A Century: Reading and Conversation with Ariel Goldberg

How can writing be used as a tool to embody histories and identities hidden by processes of effacement? Join writer and artist Ariel Goldberg for a reading from A Century, their current novel-in-progress. A Century is based upon the intimate and creative worlds of photographer Berenice Abbott and art critic Elizabeth McCausland, who were partners from 1935-65. Set within communities of photographers, writers, artists, and lovers—including Abbott and McCausland’s apartment at 50 Commerce Street, clandestine lesbian bars of Greenwich Village, museum openings, and the Photo League darkroom—A Century imagines the often erased details of queer life in the mid-twentieth century. Echoing Goldberg’s other writings, A Century aims to center and see community through simultaneous contestation and dialogue with the individuals and partnerships that move in and through it. Immediately following the reading, Goldberg will be joined by writer and UW Bothell Senior Artist-in-Residence Rebecca Brown for a conversation about the process of writing A Century and the challenges, surprises, and responsibilities of narrating the invisible.

Ariel Goldberg’s visit is in conjunction with the exhibition Carrie Yamaoka: recto/verso. We invite you to attend Goldberg’s guided tour of Yamaoka’s work on Saturday, October 26^th. Recto/verso is on view through November 3rd.

Ariel Goldberg's publications include The Estrangement Principle (Nightboat Books, 2016) and The Photographer (Roof Books, 2015). From 2014-2017, they organized interdisciplinary readings at The Poetry Project. Goldberg has taught at Pratt Institute, Columbia University, The New School, and Rutgers. They were the 2018-9 Zuckerman Fellow, Curator of Community Engagement at the Jewish History Museum in Tucson, and now curate for the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York. Goldberg’s writing has most recently appeared in e-flux, Artforum, and Art in America.

Rebecca Brown's most recent book, Not Heaven, Somewhere Else was published by Tarpaulin Sky in 2018. Among her dozen other books are American Romances, The Haunted House, The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary, The Terrible Girls (all with City Lights) and The Gifts of the Body (HarperCollins). Her altered texts and installations have been exhibited in the Frye Art Museum, Hedreen Gallery, Arizona Center for Poetry, Simon Fraser Gallery (BC Canada) and elsewhere. She was the first Writer in Residence at Hugo House, co-founder of the Jack Straw Writers Program, and former creative director of the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference in Port Townsend. She lives in Seattle.