Romare Bearden A Black Odyssey

This conversational audio tour for the traveling exhibition “Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey,” gives listeners new intellectual inroads into the works of Romare Bearden and into the bewitching heart of Homer’s “Odyssey.” Voices on the tour include Dr. Robert O’Meally, exhibition curator and Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is joined by Diedra Harris-Kelley, Bearden’s niece and the co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation. Hip hop multimedia artist and composer Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, provides additional perspective, contributing his own thoughts about Bearden’s genius. Jazz musician Branford Marsalis contributes to the audio tour with the song “Sea Breeze,” originally composed by the multi-talented Romare Bearden.

"Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey," from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), represents the first full-scale presentation of these works outside of New York City and is on a seven-city national tour through 2014. “Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey” and its related educational resources are supported by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

The companion book Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey was written by Robert G. O'Meally (DC Moore Gallery, New York, 2008).

App designed and developed by GuideOne. Audio produced by Acoustiguide.