MoMA R&D
Salon 47 Grace under Pressure
Introduction: Paola Antonelli
Willie James Jennings
Cameron Russell
Leonardo Bravo
Bill T. Jones
Video Contribution: Verna Kale
Video Contribution: Mark McLaughlin
Video Contribution: Ocean Ramsey
Video Contribution: Eduardo Kohn
Under strain, rehearsed social manners give way to instinctual reactions that often reveal one’s true character. Not only exceptional circumstances but even daily routine can push someone beyond the threshold. Keeping those reactions at bay and displaying grace under pressure demonstrates an individual’s poise, dignity, elegance, and sang-froid. Some individuals need it for their jobs, and even make a career out of it. Think of surgeons, astronauts, or diplomats: their ability to exhibit grace under intense pressure can be a matter of life or death. And yet, everybody should learn the ropes, both individually and collectively. History demands as much.
These are some of the questions we will ask: What is grace in a social context? What does it then mean to display grace collectively? Should we be graceful as democracy is threatened and divisions across political party lines have intensified? Are their instances in which more knee-jerk, vehement reactions are preferable? Is there a connection between this concept and soft power? And non-violence? When does grace turn into acquiescence? Should we, as a society, react gracefully to the pressure of reckoning with the climate catastrophe and ecological devastation we have wrought upon ourselves and our planet?
The complexity and density of our interconnectedness is operating at a planetary scale with planetary consequences. For the first time, we are inextricably linked by each of our individual actions which cascade and multiply through a network of compounding consequences. Under this unparalleled contemporary condition, what is grace under pressure?
This Salon took place on February 27, 2024
Speakers
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Leonardo Bravo
Leonardo Bravo is an artist, educator, and curator. His work in the museum and non-profit arts field has exemplified building public and private partnerships that highlight the power of the arts to transform and catalyze vulnerable and underserved communities. Leonardo is currently the Director, Public Engagement within the Learning and Engagement Department at MoMA where he oversees adult and artist related programs and is shaping a civic engagement strategy to work with communities throughout the New York region. Some of his most recent positions have included, Director of Curatorial and Strategic Programs for Clockshop, an arts organization dedicated to using the arts as a lens to how we experience public green space in Los Angeles; Director of Education and Public Programs with the Palm Springs Art Museum where he oversaw partnership development and program implementation with school districts in the Coachella Valley and the development of new curatorial and social engagement projects with contemporary artists at the museum; Director of School of Programs for The Music Center where he oversaw arts education partnerships with school districts throughout Los Angeles County. He is the founder and organizer of Big City Forum, an interdisciplinary, social practice and curatorial research project that brings attention to emergent practices across design, architecture, and the arts. Big City Forum provides an ongoing exploration of the intersections between these creative disciplines and new ways of knowledge making within the context of public space and social change. As a programming and curatorial platform it has developed collaborations and partnerships with Art Center Media Design Practice program, the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Cal State University Dominguez Hills – College of Arts and Humanities, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and Woodbury University School of Architecture among many others. Bravo has also been an adjunct professor with UCLA’s Department of World Arts Cultures/Dance within the School of the Arts and Architecture, and has served on the board of CREATE CA advising on arts education policy that impact students throughout the state of California. He holds a Master in Fine Arts from University of Southern California, Los Angeles with a focus in Fine Arts and Critical Theory and a BFA from the Otis School of Art and Design, Los Angeles.
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Wille James Jennings
Dr. Willie James Jennings is currently Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School. Dr. Jennings, who is a theologian, teaches in the areas of Christian thought, race theory, and decolonial and environmental studies. Dr. Jennings is the author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race published by Yale University Press. Dr. Jennings is also the recipient of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his groundbreaking work on race and Christianity. Dr. Jennings recently authored Commentary on the Book of Acts won the Reference Book of the Year Award, from The Academy of Parish Clergy. He is also the author of After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, which was the inaugural book in the much-anticipated book series, Theological Education between the Times, winning the 2020 book of the year award from Publisher’s Weekly. It was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book of the Year in the Constructive- Reflective Studies category, and in 2023 won the Lilly Fellows Program Book Award. Dr. Jennings has been selected to give several prestigious lectures, including the Bampton Lectures at Oxford University, the Huslean Lectures at Cambridge University, the Cole Lecture at Vanderbilt University, the Parks-King Lecture at Yale University, the Ferguson Lecture at Manchester University, and the Hughes-Cheong Lecture at the University of Melbourne. And now Dr. Jennings is hard at work on a two-volume book on the doctrine of creation, tentatively entitled, “Reframing the World.” Volume two is on Race and the Built Environment.
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Bill T. Jones
Bill T. Jones is recognized for his contributions as a dancer and choreographer. Renowned for provocative performances that blend an eclectic mix of modern and traditional dance, Mr. Jones creates works that challenge us to confront tough subjects and inspire us to greater heights. Artistic director of New York Live Arts and artistic director/co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Bill T. Jones has received major honors ranging from a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award to Kennedy Center Honors in 2010. Jones was honored with the 2014 Doris Duke Award, recognized as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2010, inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2009, and named “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure” by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000. He is a two-time Tony Award recipient for Best Choreography for FELA! and Spring Awakening and received an Obie Award for Spring Awakening‘s off-Broadway run. His choreography for the off-Broadway production of The Seven earned him a 2006 Lucille Lortel Award.
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Cameron Russell
Cameron Russell has spent the last twenty years working as a model for clients including Prada, Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Vogue, and Elle. With over forty million views, her TED talk on the power of image is one of the most popular of all time. She is the co-founder of Model Mafia, a collective of hundreds of fashion models striving for a more equitable, just, and sustainable industry. She continues to organize, consult, and speak to transform extractive supply chains and center climate justice. She lives in New York with her family.
Video Contributors
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Verna Kale
Verna Kale earned her PhD from Penn State in 2010 with specializations in 19th- and 20th-century American literature and textual scholarship. She is co-editor with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 6 (1934-1936); the author of a biography of Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway, part of the Critical Lives series published by Reaktion Books/The University of Chicago Press, 2016); and editor of Teaching Hemingway and Gender (part of the Teaching Hemingway series published by Kent State UP, 2016).
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Eduardo Kohn
Eduardo Kohn is an Associate Professor and Anthropology for the Ecozoic Lead at McGill University. He was awarded the 2014 Gregory Bateson Prize in Anthropology for How Forests Think. His lifework is dedicated to developing the conceptual equipment–the ideas, methods, and theories–to prepare us to live in this age of unprecedented anthropogenic climate change. Centrally, this involves imagining better ways to live with the living world, in ways that can allow that world to orient our conduct. It involves, that is, a fundamental rethinking of anthropology and “the human” so that we can learn to “ecologize” our ethics.
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Mark McLaughlin
Mark McLaughlin, MD, FACS, FAANS is a practicing board-certified neurosurgeon, a national media commentator, author of the book Cognitive Dominance: A Brain Surgeon’s Quest to Out-Think Fear, and acclaimed keynote speaker. He is the founder of Princeton Brain and Spine Care where he practices surgery focusing on trigeminal neuralgia and cervical spine surgery. McLaughlin is also a thought leader in performance enhancement and physician hospital relations.
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Ocean Ramsey
Ocean Ramsey is a shark and marine conservationist as well as a marine biologist specializing in shark ethology.
Reading List
DIPLOMACY AND LEADERSHIP
Cowell, Alan. “Kofi Annan, Who Redefined the U.N., Dies at 80.” The New York Times. August 18, 2018. (Available online)
Gambino, Megan. “Madeleine Albright on Her Life in Pins.” Smithsonian Magazine. March 23, 2022. (Available online)
Jamal, Amaney and Keren Yarhi-Milo. “The Discourse Is Toxic. Universities Can Help.” The New York Times. October 30, 2024. (Available online)
Keller, Renata and Michelle Paranzino. “The Cuban missile crisis offers lessons for diplomacy today — if we listen.” The Washington Post. October 22, 2022. (Available online)
Knight, Sam. “How a Disaster Expert Prepares for the Worst.” The New Yorker. May 15, 2023. (Available online)
McLaughlin, Greg. “The War Correspondent: Risk, Motivation and Tradition.” The War Correspondent. London: Pluto Press, 2016. (Available online)
Pham, Mary Jo. “Food as Communication: A Case Study of South Korea’s Gastrodiplomacy.” Journal of International Service 22, no. 1, (Spring 2013): 1-23. (Available online)
Starr, Douglas. “What Should Crisis Leadership Look Like?” The New Yorker. October 26, 2020. (Available online)
Thomas, Merlyn. “Iran: CNN cancels interview with Iranian president over headscarf demand.” CNN. September 22, 2022. (Available online)
Wilson, Rachel. “Cocina Peruana Para El Mundo: Gastrodiplomacy, the Culinary Nation Brand, and the Context of National Cuisine in Peru.” Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy 2, no. 1, (2013). (Available online)
Wright, Robin. “Madeleine Albright was the First “Most Powerful Woman” in U.S. History.” The New Yorker. March 24, 2022. (Available online)
Yarhi-Milo, Keren. Who Fights for Reputation: The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. (Available with institutional access)
THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY
Berlinger, Nancy. “Avoiding Cheap Grace: Medical Harm, Patient Safety, and the Culture(s) of Forgiveness.” The Hastings Center Report 33, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2003): 28-36. (Available online)
Chotiner, Isaac. “A Seminary President on Finding Grace in the Age of Trump.” The New Yorker. March 11, 2019. (Available online)
Eisenstadt, Peter. “We are Not Afraid: Howard Thurman and the Casting Out of Fear.” The Unfinished Search for Common Ground: Reimaging Howard Thurman’s Life and Work. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023.
Gay, Ross. “Joy Is Such a Human Madness.” The Book of Delights. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2019. (Available online)
Putnam, Robert D, and David E. Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. (Event transcript available online)
Thurman, Howard. “Fear.” Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. (Available online)
Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Oxford: Routledge Classics, 2002. (Available online)
Wiman, Christian. “Can This Sin Live.” Zero to the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.
RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION
Cliff, Michelle. “Notes on Speechlessness.” Sinister Wisdom 5, (Winter, 1978): 5-9. (Available online)
hooks, bell. “Again- Segregation Must End.” Belonging: A Culture of Place. New York: Routledge, 2009. (Available online)
hooks, bell. “Grace: Touched By Love.” all about love: new visions. New York: Harper, 2000. (Available online)
Gross, Terry. “Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK and Malcolm X Influenced Each Other.” NPR. August 21, 2020. (Available online)
Kaba, Mariame and Eva Nagao. “What about the rapists?” Interrupting Criminalization, 2021. (Available online)
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Man’s Sin and God’s Grace.” Sermon delivered in Montgomery, Alabama. January 1, 1954 to December 31, 1960. (Available online)
Livingston, Alexander. “Fidelity to Truth: Gandhi and the Genealogy of Civil Disobedience.” Political Theory 46, no. 4 (August 2018): 511-536. (Available online)
Mallon, Thomas. “Trying to Remember J.F.K.” The New Yorker. May 15, 2017. (Available online)
Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity and Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. (Available online)
FEMINISM AND GENDER STUDIES
Ahmed, Sara. The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. Seal Press: New York, 2023.
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1949. (Available online)
Curtain, Michael. “A Question of Manners: Status and Gender in Etiquette and Courtesy.” The Journal of Modern History 57, no. 3 (Sep., 1985): 395-423. (Available online)
Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press, 1984. (Available online)
Mears, Ashley. “Discipline of the catwalk: Gender, power and uncertainty in fashion modeling.” Ethnography 9, no. 4 (December 2008): 429-456. (Available online)
Neimanis, Astrida. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. (Available online)
Post, Emily. Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home. Ohio: Funk & Wagnalls, 1922. (Available online)
Schwartz, Alexandra. “Christine Blasey Ford and the Curse of a Woman’s Poise.” The New Yorker. September 27, 2018. (Available online)
LIFE OR DEATH
Barkham, Patrick. “The extraordinary story behind Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours.” The Guardian. December 15, 2010. (Available online)
Bright, Becky. “Audio of US Airways Flight That Landed in Hudson.” Wall Street Journal. February 5, 2009. (Available online)
Majendie, Matt. “Sebastian Steudtner has turned to science as he chases the world’s biggest waves.” CNN. May 8, 2023. (Available online)
MacKinnon, J.B. “Alex Honnold’s Perfect Climb.” The New Yorker. June 9, 2017. (Available online)
Rothman, Joshua. “Anatomy of Error.” The New Yorker. May 11, 2015. (Available online)
Weisberg, Zach. “Ocean Ramsey Wants to Teach You Everything She Knows About Sharks and Safety.” The Inertia. September 16, 2020. (Available online)
Wilkinson, Alec. “The Deepest Dive.” The New Yorker. August 17, 2009. (Available online)
Zdanowicz, Christina. “15 years after the Miracle on the Hudson, some struggle with PTSD while others learned to fly.” CNN. January 7, 2024. (Available online)
PHYSICAL GRACE, STRENGTH, AND ARTISTRY
Bila, Tereza, director. “Life on Point.” Nowness, 2018. 4 min, 29 sec. (Available online)
Blackburn, Mary Walling. “The Bull Rider and the Ballerina.” Cabinet Magazine. Summer 2003. (Available online)
Cacciola, Scott. “The Artistry of Stephen Curry.” The New York Times. November 24, 2015. (Available online)
“Derek Redmond’s Emotional Olympic Story - Injury Mid-Race | Barcelona 1992 Olympics.” The Olympics. YouTube video, 2:45. (Available online)
Jones, Bill T. Story/Time: The Life of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. (Available with institutional access)
Jones, Bill T. Last Night on Earth. Pantheon Books: New York, 1995. (Available online)
LaBarge, Emily. “Josephine Baker, Still Moving.” The New York Times. January 30, 2024. (Available online)
Schumann, Rebecca. “Kerri Strug Shouldn’t Have Been Forced to Do That Vault.” Slate. July 31, 2021. (Available online)
FACING CLIMATE CHANGE
(Forthcoming) Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth. What If We Get It Right? New York: Penguin Random House, 2024.
Kohn, Eduardo. “Anthropology as Cosmic Diplomacy: Toward an Ecological Ethics for the Anthropocene.” Lecture at Harvard Divinity School. November 17, 2017. (Video and notes available online)
Kohn, Eduardo. How Forests Think: Towards an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. (Introduction available online)
Ritchie, Hannah. “How ‘Urgent Optimism’ Can Save the World.” Time Magazine. January 5, 2024. (Available online)
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. (Available online)
LITERATURE
Cirino, Mark and Michael von Cannon. “David Wyatt on Grace under Pressure.” One True Podcast. October 5, 2023. (Available online)
Cohen, Margaret. “Fluid States.” Cabinet Magazine. Winter 2004-2005. (Available online)
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons: 1940. (Available online)
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Gift from the Sea. New York: Pantheon Books, 1955. (Available online)
Parker, Dorothy. “The Artist’s Reward.” The New Yorker. November 22, 1929. (Available online)
Robinson, Marilynne. “Grace and Beauty.” Ploughshares 44, No. 1 (Spring 2018): 157-167. (Available online)
Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping. New York: Picador, 1980. (Available online)
Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built in Hell. New York: Viking Press, 2009. (Available online)
FILMS
Boyle, Danny, director. 127 Hours. Searchlight Pictures, Pathé, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010. 1 hr., 34 min.
Chaplin, Charlie. City Lights. United Artists, 1931. 1 hr., 21 min. (Watch here)
Chin, Jimmy and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, directors. Free Solo. National Geographic, 2018. 1 hr., 40 min.
Elliot, Alan (realized by) and Sydney Pollack (uncredited), directors. Amazing Grace. Al’s Records & Tapes Production, 2018. 1 hr., 27 min.
Frei, Christian, director. War Photographer. Look Now!, 2001. 1 hr., 36 min. (Watch here)
LeBlanc, Rosalynde and Tom Hurwitz, directors. Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters. Dancing/On Air, 2021. 1 hr., 30 min. (Watch here)
Marsh, James, director. Man on Wire. Magnolia Pictures and Icon Productions, 2008. 1 hr., 34 min.