Author Talk with Elise Armani and Katy Siegel

Free, with registration required here; walk-ins accepted as space allows

Join us for a pre-release book talk for What Was America? Art, Culture, and Politics in the Bicentennial Era, with co-authors Elise Armani, Assistant Curator of Twentieth-Century Art, and Katy Siegel, the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Endowed Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University. Released on Oct 13, 2026—during the year of the 250th anniversary of the United States’ adoption of the Declaration of Independence—this book is available to pre-order through Yale University Press London.

About the Book

What Was America? offers a prismatic view of American art and culture in the years leading up to the US Bicentennial in 1976. Ten fascinating case studies examine the individual efforts of artists such as Benny Andrews; blockbuster exhibitions, including A Nation of Nations at the Smithsonian; and popular community projects such as protest quilts and time capsules. The authors consider issues that remain highly relevant today and offer new perspectives on the possibilities for art’s social role, exploring its use in defining the nation’s past and future, its purpose and its people.