When Gray is All Theory: Writing in Spaces of Capital and Crisis – Christopher Ray Perez

When Gray is All Theory: Writing in Spaces of Capital and Crisis

Christopher Rey Pérez

Christopher Rey Pérez writes from spaces of conflict. Central to an untitled poem that he will read on this occasion is the pronouncement, originally by Goethe and later repeated by José Revueltas, that “all theory is gray.” Although the proceeding line suggests that “forever green is the tree of life,” maybe it’s in this gray space that a practice of writing against amnesia and duplication might turn words into a different color of narration. Discussing Malevich’s black square, a 1910 Texas lynching of Antonio Rodriguez, and other events across history that are informed by both capital and the colony, this lecture drifts as an act of looking to inscribe place onto the body and see what lived experience is there in exchange.

About the Curt F. Dale Guest Lecture

The Curt F. Dale Guest Lecture in Architecture was established in 2003 in memory of 1969 Iowa State architecture alumnus Curt F. Dale, who died in a skiing accident that year. Dale’s family and his firm, AndersonMasonDale Architects, Denver, Colorado, created the endowed fund for the ISU architecture department to bring distinguished practitioners to campus as guest lecturers.