Artists as Changemakers with David M. Rubenstein

In honor of our free exhibition We the People: The Radical Notion of Democracy, we invite you to join us for a conversation in the Great Hall with David M. Rubenstein​, philanthropist and Co-founder and Co-chairman of The Carlyle Group.

Mr. Rubenstein will be joined onstage by Luis C. Garza, photojournalist and curator known for his work recording the tumultuous social events of the 1960s and 1970s for La Raza magazine; multidisciplinary artist Bethany Collins, who uses language to explore American history and the nuance of racial and national identities; and multimedia artist Sandow Birk, whose work deals with contemporary life in its entirety with an emphasis on social issues.

Tickets are $15 ($12 for members, $5 for students), reserve your spot online or by calling Guest Services at (479) 657-2335 today.

This talk will also be livestreamed by Arkansas PBS as seen below. Sign up for eNews for updates on other related program livestreams.

David M. Rubenstein

David M. Rubenstein is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Established in 1987, Carlyle now manages $376 billion from 26 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Trustee of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Constitution Center, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; and a Director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society, Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Boards of Duke University and the Smithsonian Institution, and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned non-profit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.

Mr. Rubenstein is a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the US government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the first map of the US (Abel Buell map), and the first book printed in the US (Bay Psalm Book).

Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS and Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV; and the author of The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians, a book published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019, How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers, a book published by Simon & Schuster in September 2020, and The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream, a book published by Simon & Schuster in September 2021.

Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

From 1973–1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975–1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977–1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).

Luis C. Garza

Luis C. Garza began his artistic career as a photojournalist recording the tumultuous social events of the 1960s and 1970s for La Raza magazine—the journalistic voice of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles. His images captured the attention of many, and later led to his multifaceted career in documentary production, arts marketing, event coordination, arts consulting, and exhibition curation. As an independent curator, Garza co-curated the exhibition Siqueiros in Los Angeles: Censorship Defied at the Autry Museum of the American West, which elevated awareness of his work as a curator as well as a photographer. He then collaborated with UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and The Autry on the blockbuster exhibition La Raza for The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Time Refocused: The Photographs of Luis C. Garza was his first solo exhibition. An expanded exhibition of his work (The Other Side of Memory: Photographs by Luis C. Garza), accompanied by a catalog, is now in production for a national tour. To learn more, visit Cause Connect.

Bethany Collins

Bethany Collins (b. 1984 Montgomery, AL) lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Collins received an MFA from Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, and a BA from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Select solo exhibitions include Cadence (2022), PATRON, Chicago, Illinois; America: A Hymnal (2021), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Evensong (2021) Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennesee; My destiny is in your hands (2021), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama; Chorus (2019), Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St Louis, Missouri; Benediction (2019) The University of Kentucky Art Museum, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky.

Select group exhibitions include Language Between Worlds (2022), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Illinois; Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with the Block’s Collection (2021), The Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois; Promise, Witness, Remembrance (2021), Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2021), Richmond, Virginia, and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2021), Houston, Texas; Jacob Lawerence: The American Struggle, Seattle Art Museum (2021), Seattle, Washington, The Phillips Collection (2021), Washington, DC and Peabody Essex Museum (2020), Salem, Massachusetts; The Long Dream (2020), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; and Great Force (2019) Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.

Her work is included in the public collections of the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York, and several others.

Sandow Birk

Los Angeles artist Sandow Birk is a well-traveled graduate of the Otis/Parson’s Art Institute. Frequently developed as expansive, multi-media projects, his works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety. With an emphasis on social issues, frequent themes of his past work have included inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. He was a recipient of an NEA International Travel Grant to Mexico City in 1995 to study mural painting, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Fulbright Fellowship for painting to Rio de Janeiro for 1997. In 1999 he was awarded a Getty Fellowship for painting, followed by a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship in 2001. In 2007 he was an artist in residence at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2008. His most recent project involves a consideration of the Qur’an as relevant to contemporary life in America.

Lectures & Talks sponsored by

We the People: The Radical Notion of Democracy is sponsored by Kenneth C. Griffin.

Learning and engagement programming for We the People: The Radical Notion of Democracy is sponsored by

Sarah and Ross Perot, Jr. Foundation | Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates, & Woodyard, P.L.L.C. | Johnny and Jeanie Morris, Bass Pro Shops | Alturas Foundation | Harriet and Warren Stephens, Stephens Inc. | Sotheby’s | Bob and Becky Alexander | Marybeth and Micky Mayfield | Lamar and Shari Steiger | Jeff and Sarah Teague / Citizens Bank | Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities | Avis and Bill Bailey | Scarlett and Neff Basore | June Carter Family | Terri and Chuck Erwin | Jackye and Curtis Finch | The Harrison and Rhonda French Family | Jim and Susan von Gremp | Laurice Hachem | Shannon and Charles Holley | Valorie and Randy Lawson / Lawco Energy Group | Donna and Mack McLarty | Steve and Susan Nelson | Neal and Gina Pendergraft | Helen Porter | JT and Imelda Rose | Lee and Linda Scott | Stella Boyle Smith Trust, Catherine and Michael Mayton, Trustees | William Reese Company