Todd Gray, Euclidean Gris Gris (Scales of Injustice, No Respect), 2019. Five archival pigment prints in artist's frames and found frames, UV laminate. 61 1/2 x 98 3/4 x 4 3/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and David Lewis Gallery, New York.
On the final day of Todd Gray’s Reality Reframed, join us for a reflective afternoon with social theorist Jacob Roundtree, who wrote the exhibition’s catalogue essay, alongside exhibition curators Anjuli Nanda Diamond and George Bolster. Specific works on view at The 8th Floor as well as the broader philosophical issues and compositional language in Gray’s practice will be discussed, with guests encouraged to ask questions.
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Jacob J. Roundtree is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins University. A political theorist by training, he writes on social theory and modern intellectual history. He received his PhD in political theory from Harvard in 2023, and a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from Colby College in 2010. His dissertation is a critical genealogy of the social theories of Hegel and Marx that raises the question of whether freedom is possible in the modern world given the complexity of capitalism and the modern nation-state. He is working on revising his dissertation into a book, “The Politics of Absolute Freedom,” that will examine the social theoretic implications of the complexity of modern civilization. In addition to his primary research on the history of social theory’s encounter with the problem of social complexity, Roundtree is especially concerned with the contemporary problems of public ignorance, ideology, technocracy, political parties, propaganda, elite dogmatism, and political polarization. Roundtree is a highly decorated educator whose pedagogical approach is designed to help students combat the epistemic pathologies of present–day politics. He has deployed this approach in a range of courses, including ones on democracy, the politics of truth, Marxism, German Idealism, Conservatism, race and politics, and the politics of technology. Roundtree also serves as an assistant editor at the interdisciplinary journal Critical Review, where he has helped organize special issues on themes in the field of intellectual history.
Image description: Three framed photographs are mounted on a white wall and shot on a slight angle. The center is the largest with a far more ornate gold frame than the two smaller simple wood frames on either side. The center photographic composition features a Ghanaian forest, which is mostly covered by an oval frame with a photo of a seated bronze figure from the Luxembourg Gardens, which is again layered by a smaller circular frame depicting a photo of a goat. The two smaller frames on either side both feature large manicured green bushes.