(Top) Annie Leibovitz, Self Portrait, New York City, 2017. (Bottom) Annie Leibovitz, Amy Sherald, Columbus, Georgia, 2022. © Annie Leibovitz. Courtesy of the artist.

On the occasion of the final day of Annie Leibovitz: Stream of Consciousness, on view at Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street, Ursula presents an unforgettable conversation with artists Annie Leibovitz and Amy Sherald, moderated by Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, in the historic Great Hall at The Cooper Union. 

Annie Leibovitz: Stream of Consciousness presents a group of works by the distinguished American artist. Foregoing a linear timeline or conventional thematic constraints, the exhibition is conceived to reveal glimpses into Leibovitz’s highly associative thought processes, creating a fluid visual dialogue among photographs that aren’t anchored in the moment they were made. 

Stream of Consciousness includes landscapes, still lifes and portraits, including a portrait of artist Amy Sherald in her childhood home. 

Reservations are required for this free event co-presented with The Cooper Union School of Art. Click here to register.

Panelist Bios

Annie Leibovitz was born in 1949 in Connecticut. She bought her first camera in the summer of 1968, when she was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, and her early works are punctuated by images of the Bay Area landscape and photographs shot during drives the artist often took on the highways between San Francisco and Los Angeles. She switched majors from painting to photography, and while still a student, in 1970, she approached Rolling Stone magazine—just three years after its inception—with a few of her pictures. Some of them were published, thus beginning her career as a photojournalist and embarking on what would develop into a symbiotic relationship between the young photographer and a magazine famous for reflecting the American zeitgeist. Leibovitz’s first major assignment was for a cover story on John Lennon. Leibovitz became Rolling Stone’s chief photographer in 1973, and by the time she left the magazine, she had amassed 142 covers and published photo essays on scores of stories, including the 1975 Rolling Stones tour. Moments of freedom and an unyielding imagination fed the evolution of Leibovitz’s photography. The monumental body of work taken during her thirteen-year tenure at Rolling Stone blurred the lines between celebrity and civilian, interviewer and interviewee, artist and subject, dissolving the boundary separating Leibovitz from those captured in her photographs. Documenting fellow reporters and photographers in addition to their subjects, Leibovitz highlighted those hidden behind the camera and brought them to the forefront. 

Born in Columbus, Georgia, and now based in the New York City area, Amy Sherald documents contemporary African American experience in the United States through arresting, intimate portraits. Sherald engages with the history of photography and portraiture, inviting viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of race and representation, and to situate Black life in American art. Sherald received her M.F.A. in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and B.A. in painting from Clark-Atlanta University. Sherald was the first woman and first African American to ever receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She also received the 2017 Anonymous Was A Woman award and the 2019 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award. In 2018, Sherald was selected by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her portrait as an official commission for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Sherald’s work is held in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC.

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $16 billion international social justice philanthropy with offices in the United States and 10 regions around the globe. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19. Before joining Ford, Walker was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he led a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS. Walker co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He cofounded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. Educated exclusively in public schools, Walker was a member of the first Head Start class in 1965 and received B.A., B.S., and J.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. Among his many other honors include being named to the Order of the British Empire for services to UK/US relations by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and was awarded France’s highest cultural honor, Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letter, for leadership in the arts. In 2020 Walker was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator of the Year and 2023 Foundation Leader of the Year by Inside Philanthropy. In 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Walker the National Humanities Medal, which honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of and engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects.

About Ursula 
Ursula is a quarterly magazine published by Hauser & Wirth, that celebrates the artistic achievement and creativity of the gallery's artists and those beyond. Through the printed magazine, digital content platform and live programs, Ursula champions artistic practices that challenge and interrogate the future, highlighting a diverse range of contemporary culture that Hauser & Wirth finds compelling. Featuring stories from the worlds of art, design, film, books, food, and sustainability, Ursula invites readers to think critically, ask questions, and engage with the ideas shaping our world. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Ursula appeals to a broad, inquisitive readership, from dedicated insiders to curious observers. "It has always been our mission to make the gallery a home for our artists where other thinkers, writers, and visionaries can also gather and engage," gallery President Iwan Wirth told Artnet News. "Now Ursula will be an editorial home as well, a truly global magazine that reflects our philosophy."