Art historian Darby English probes art's interaction with instituted forms of historical subjectivity and experience, focusing on artistic and other cultural manifestations of discomposure and optimism. He is the author of 1971: A Year in the Life of Color; How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness; and To Describe a Life: Essays at the Intersection of Art and Race Terror. He is a University of Chicago professor and an adjunct curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art.