Race Stories: Celebrating Maurice Berger celebrates the life and legacy of Maurice Berger, who was research professor and chief curator at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC) until his death in 2020.

CADVC announces the launch of the Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund, in support of the exploration of, and research into, histories of race, representation and justice in visual culture, with the goal of creating accessible public programming. On the occasion of this announcement, we celebrate the publication of RACE STORIES: Essays on the Power of Images, a collection of award-winning essays by Maurice Berger, authored during his CADVC tenure. Co-published by Aperture and The New York Times, the book explores the powerful roles photography plays in shaping ideas and attitudes about race. Event participants include Marvin Heiferman, Berger’s husband and editor of the volume, as well as Aruna D’Souza, Maleke Glee, Sarah Lewis, Lowery Stokes Sims, and many others.

This event also celebrates two key activities related to the Center’s efforts to honor Berger’s legacy: the relaunch of the CADVC’s Issues in Cultural Theory publication series, and the publication of “Cockeysville to Baltimore,” supported by the Maurice Berger CADVC Program Fund. The booklet accompanies the exhibition “Levester Williams: all matters aside” and its associated public video art projection series. An essay commissioned for the booklet, Michelle Diane Wright’s “Scrubbed Clean: The Pursuit of Purity in Baltimore,” explores the connections between racial inequality and the cultural imaginary of Cockeysville marble as deployed in the built environment of Baltimore.