The Figge Art Museum presents Virtual Scholar Talk: David Bright in Conversation with T.J. Dedeaux-Norris -- October 29.

Thursday, October 29, 6:30 p.m.

Presented by the Figge Art Museum

Estate planning and other legal issues facing artists will be the subjects of the Figge Art Museum's Virtual Scholar Talk on October 29, with Iowa City attorney David Bright and artist T.J. Dedeaux-Norris discussing the legal efforts taken to preserve the artistic legacy and estate of Tameka Janean Norris, whose currently running Figge exhibit is designed to explore the complex legacy of an artist’s identity after their passing.

An American visual and performance artist, Dedeaux-Norris uses painting, sculpture, and performance art to create work about racial identity and the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of blackness through cultural appropriation in modern society. Their work critiques the presence of the black body in the history of painting and fine art, and they were listed as among “24 Artists to Watch in 2013” by Modern Painters magazine. In their art practice, Dedeaux-Norris adopts different personae including black academic artist “Tameka Jenean Norris,” and the distinction between artist and persona is frequently blurred in the resulting artworks that are simultaneously autobiographic and dramatized. Dedeaux-Norris will use their Figge exhibition to establish an artist’s estate and retrospective for recently deceased persona Tameka Jenean Norris, whose entire body of work – including fabric assemblage paintings, videos, music and works on paper – will be on view.

Dedeaux-Norris was born in Guam and received their undergraduate degree at the University of California – Los Angeles, before graduating with an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art in 2012. The artist has participated in numerous exhibitions and festivals including at Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; the Yerba Buena Museum in San Francisco; the Prospect.3 Biennial in New Orleans; the Walker Museum in Minneapolis; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Dedeaux-Norris' works have also been highlighted at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, and Iowa City's Mission Creek Festival, among many others. Having participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Fountainhead Residency, the Grant Wood Colony Fellowship, and the MacDowell Colony, Dedeaux-Norris is the 2017 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa.

David Bright

Attorney and scholar David Bright practices in the areas of real estate, land use, and real-estate development; business transactions; franchising and distribution; nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations; estate planning and probate; and art and museum law. He has earned Martindale-Hubbell's top “AV” Peer Review Rating and is an alumni of the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce’s Community Leadership Program. Bright was also recently selected to author the Iowa section of the American Bar Association’s “Franchise Desk Book.” He currently serves as the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Art & Cultural Heritage Law Committee, and regularly contributes to its section of the ABA’s “Year In Review” publication. A frequent presenter at colleges and universities, local businesses, and continuing-education events, Bright speaks on topics that include business formation, estate planning, nonprofit and tax-exempt governance, and art and museum law.

The Virtual Scholar Talk with David Bright and T.J. Dedeaux-Norris is free, but advance registration is required, and participants will receive an e-mail with a Zoom link two hours before the program begins at 6:30 p.m. on October 29. T.J. Dedeaux-Norris Presents the Estate of Tameka Jenean Norris itself will be on display October 24 through January 31, and more information on both the exhibit and its companion events is available by calling (563)326-7804 or visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.

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