Reframing the Western: Thoughts on Engaging the Art, Film, and History of the American West in the 21st Century

A recap of this event is now available on our website.

Focusing on the development of Once Upon a Time… The Western, the first large-scale, interdisciplinary exhibition on Western film and fine art from the 19th century to the present (Denver Art Museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, May 2017- February 2018), this talk will address some of the critical frameworks and challenges involved in mounting an exhibition on the Western genre in our current historical moment.

Mary-Dailey Desmarais is Curator of International Modern Art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to joining the museum she assisted in the curatorial departments of the MoMA, New York, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the New-York Historical Society while completing her PhD in Art History. Her work has been published in scholarly journals, magazines, and museum catalogues and she recently co-edited the exhibition catalogue Once Upon a Time...The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film (2017), which was awarded the Western Heritage prize for best book in the art category, and has been selected as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She has been a frequent invited speaker and guest lecturer at public conferences, museums and universities in North America. Desmarais previously served on the board of Directors of the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal and as head of its Programming Committee. She is currently on the Director's Council of the Clark Art Institute and a member of the editorial board of the Inuit Art Quarterly. She holds a PhD in Art History from Yale University, a Masters Degree in Art History from Williams College and a Bachelors Degree from Stanford University. She is the mother of four children.

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