March 22, 2022 • SPEAKER SERIES • Jennifer Clement and Suzanne Mollouk – The Creative Life and the Perpetual Question: Is It Madness or Sanity?
7:00 PM EST
Jennifer Clement grants the reader this access and more in her sublime, poetic biography, Widow Basquiat. She chronicles her close friend Suzanne Mallouk's love affair with Basquiat in elegant, spare, riveting prose, and constructs a textured narrative Mallouk describes as "inspired by" her own writings and stories. Drawing from Mallouk's memories Clement takes us from innocent crush to live-in-lover, from muse and confidant to outcast: collateral damage of Basquiat's drug habit and suffocating paranoia.
Clement – a novelist, a poet, and the first woman to head PEN International – and Dr. Suzanne Mallouk, a psychiatrist who works with artists and is an artist in her own right, will have a conversation on their personal experience on this topic as opposed to a scientific, medical or academic discussion. Their unusual background as a part of the 1980's NYC art scene, as well as Clement's upbringing in Mexico and her contact with Surrealism, will enrich this conversation.
About Jennifer Clement:
Jennifer Clement is President Emerita of PEN International and the only woman to hold the office of President since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. Clement has received the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE in France, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship. She has authored several poetry collections; the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen, and Gun Love; and the memoir Widow Basquiat.
Clement’s writing has received a lot of recognition. The Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro picked Prayers for the Stolen as the “Book of the Year,” and the New York Times selected the novel as an Editor’s Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen has also been made into a movie directed by Tatiana Huezo and is Mexico’s Oscar selection for 2022. In addition to Gun Love being selected for Oprah’s Book Club, a National Book Award, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book, this novel was also a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and named by Time magazine, among others, as one of the top 10 books of 2018. Clement’s work now appears in more than 40 languages.
About Suzanne Mallouk, M.D:
Suzanne Mallouk, M.D., is a painter, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in New York City. She is best known for being an East Village artist in the 1980s and for her relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat. This relationship is portrayed in the book, Widow Basquiat: A Memoir, written by Jennifer Clement. In 2015, Vogue magazine listed Basquiat and Mallouk amongst “The 21 Most Stylish Art World Couples of All Time.” Learn more about Suzanne here.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
Jennifer Clement grants the reader this access and more in her sublime, poetic biography, Widow Basquiat. She chronicles her close friend Suzanne Mallouk's love affair with Basquiat in elegant, spare, riveting prose, and constructs a textured narrative Mallouk describes as "inspired by" her own writings and stories. Drawing from Mallouk's memories Clement takes us from innocent crush to live-in-lover, from muse and confidant to outcast: collateral damage of Basquiat's drug habit and suffocating paranoia.
Clement – a novelist, a poet, and the first woman to head PEN International – and Dr. Suzanne Mallouk, a psychiatrist who works with artists and is an artist in her own right, will have a conversation on their personal experience on this topic as opposed to a scientific, medical or academic discussion. Their unusual background as a part of the 1980's NYC art scene, as well as Clement's upbringing in Mexico and her contact with Surrealism, will enrich this conversation.
About Jennifer Clement:
Jennifer Clement is President Emerita of PEN International and the only woman to hold the office of President since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. Clement has received the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE in France, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship. She has authored several poetry collections; the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen, and Gun Love; and the memoir Widow Basquiat.
Clement’s writing has received a lot of recognition. The Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro picked Prayers for the Stolen as the “Book of the Year,” and the New York Times selected the novel as an Editor’s Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen has also been made into a movie directed by Tatiana Huezo and is Mexico’s Oscar selection for 2022. In addition to Gun Love being selected for Oprah’s Book Club, a National Book Award, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book, this novel was also a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and named by Time magazine, among others, as one of the top 10 books of 2018. Clement’s work now appears in more than 40 languages.
About Suzanne Mallouk, M.D:
Suzanne Mallouk, M.D., is a painter, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in New York City. She is best known for being an East Village artist in the 1980s and for her relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat. This relationship is portrayed in the book, Widow Basquiat: A Memoir, written by Jennifer Clement. In 2015, Vogue magazine listed Basquiat and Mallouk amongst “The 21 Most Stylish Art World Couples of All Time.” Learn more about Suzanne here.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
Jennifer Clement grants the reader this access and more in her sublime, poetic biography, Widow Basquiat. She chronicles her close friend Suzanne Mallouk's love affair with Basquiat in elegant, spare, riveting prose, and constructs a textured narrative Mallouk describes as "inspired by" her own writings and stories. Drawing from Mallouk's memories Clement takes us from innocent crush to live-in-lover, from muse and confidant to outcast: collateral damage of Basquiat's drug habit and suffocating paranoia.
Clement – a novelist, a poet, and the first woman to head PEN International – and Dr. Suzanne Mallouk, a psychiatrist who works with artists and is an artist in her own right, will have a conversation on their personal experience on this topic as opposed to a scientific, medical or academic discussion. Their unusual background as a part of the 1980's NYC art scene, as well as Clement's upbringing in Mexico and her contact with Surrealism, will enrich this conversation.
About Jennifer Clement:
Jennifer Clement is President Emerita of PEN International and the only woman to hold the office of President since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. Clement has received the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE in France, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship. She has authored several poetry collections; the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen, and Gun Love; and the memoir Widow Basquiat.
Clement’s writing has received a lot of recognition. The Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro picked Prayers for the Stolen as the “Book of the Year,” and the New York Times selected the novel as an Editor’s Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen has also been made into a movie directed by Tatiana Huezo and is Mexico’s Oscar selection for 2022. In addition to Gun Love being selected for Oprah’s Book Club, a National Book Award, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book, this novel was also a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and named by Time magazine, among others, as one of the top 10 books of 2018. Clement’s work now appears in more than 40 languages.
About Suzanne Mallouk, M.D:
Suzanne Mallouk, M.D., is a painter, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in New York City. She is best known for being an East Village artist in the 1980s and for her relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat. This relationship is portrayed in the book, Widow Basquiat: A Memoir, written by Jennifer Clement. In 2015, Vogue magazine listed Basquiat and Mallouk amongst “The 21 Most Stylish Art World Couples of All Time.” Learn more about Suzanne here.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
