2021 Wolf Chair in Photography Carissa Rodriguez gives an online artist's talk about her work, including her current exhibition, "The Maid," currently on view at The Art Gallery, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Taking its title from a 1913 short story by Robert Walser about a devoted maid searching for a lost child who has been put under her care, "The Maid" follows a selection of American artist Sherrie Levine’s Newborn sculptures throughout the course of a day in various residences, private and institutional, from New York to Los Angeles. Famous for her works of appropriation, Levine based the forms of her sculptures on Newborn, Constantin Brancusi’s iconic sculptures of 1915 and 1920. Filmed in the homes of collectors in Los Angeles and New York, Levine’s two works and the specific worlds they inhabit ultimately reference multiple environments and histories. "The Maid" thus becomes a recursive study of art in context. Other works in the exhibition include the short video "The Girls" (1997–2018), and five framed photographs, "All the Best Memories Are Hers" (2018). Information on how to attend this online talk can be found here.

Carissa Rodriguez (US, born 1970 in New York) lives and works in New York City. Her solo exhibition "The Maid" has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago (2020); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2018); and SculptureCenter, New York (2018). Recent solo exhibitions include CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2016); Front Desk Apparatus, New York (2013); Karma International, Zürich (2012). Rodriguez participated in the Whitney Biennial of 2014 and 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2001 and was a core member of Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York from 2004 to 2015. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University.

This talk is co-presented by The Cooper Union and is made possible by The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Student Activity and Program Fee Board and the John Young Museum.