Dr. Jordana Moore Saggese
Dr. Jordana Moore Saggese is the Director, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts & Culture of African Americans & the African Diaspora and Professor of modern and contemporary art in the U.S. at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the College Art Association’s Art Journal. Trained as an art historian, Saggese's work focuses on American art with an emphasis on the critical expressions of blackness. She is an internationally - recognized expert on the work of the American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88), and has published two books on his life and work: Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art (UC Press, 2014) and The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader: Writings, Interviews, and Critical Responses (UC Press, 2021). Her forthcoming book Heavyweight: Black Boxers and the Fight for Representation is forthcoming from Duke University Press. She is currently the Director of The Driskell Center at the University of Maryland – a creative incubator dedicated to a world with Black artists at its center.