Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen – Guest Vinnie Bagwell, Renowned Sculptor

The BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center (TPAC) presents Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen – Guest Vinnie Bagwell, Renowned Sculptor.

Vinnie Bagwell began sculpting in 1993. Currently, Bagwell is leading the development of “The Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden”–an urban-heritage public-art project for the City of Yonkers, New York, to commemorate the legacy of the first enslaved Africans to be manumitted by law in the United States, 64 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.

Bagwell has been commissioned to sculpt a statue that honors enslaved women who were experimented upon. It’s called “Victory Beyond Sims,” a statue of an angel to replace the J. Marion Sims on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street for New York City. Bagwell’s first commission: “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald” was commissioned by the City of Yonkers in 1996. It was the first sculpture of a contemporary African-American woman to be commissioned by a municipality in the United States.

Other commissions include “Legacies” at Chickasaw Heritage Park to honor the Chickasaw Native Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, and “Frederick Douglass Circle” which is a 24” high sculpture of Frederick Douglass, and also a bronze three-quarter, life-sized bust of President Theodore Roosevelt to name a few.

Vinnie co-authored a book titled A Study of African-American Life in Yonkers From the Turn of the Century with Harold A. Esannason in 1992. In the mid-90s, many followed her compelling articles about the diversity of Yonkers’ organizations, businesses and cultural events in her weekly column for the Herald Statesman (Gannett Suburban Newspapers). She was also a contributing writer for The Harlem Times.

Cost: Free

RVSP to receive the Zoom information.

“Person Place Thing” is an interview show based on this idea: people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that are important to them. The result? Surprising stories from great speakers.

For twelve years Randy Cohen wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for the The New York Times Magazine. His first television work was writing for Late Night with David Letterman for which he won three Emmy awards.

For more information, contact the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center (TPAC).

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