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Join us for a Sound Salon with Author, DJ and Music Historian Adrian Loving as he discusses his recent books Disco! Music, Image, Dance and Fade To Grey: Androgyny, Style & Art In 80s Dance Music.
Author, DJ, and Music Historian Adrian Loving will discuss his recent book project Disco! Music, Image, Dance, and Fade To Grey: Androgyny, Style & Art In 80s Dance Music, and discuss their historical significance and importance in the history of disco as an important musical and social movement. Loving will also discuss the importance of archiving histories and the process of book-making.
Adrian Loving is a published contemporary art and music historian, educator, visual artist, and DJ. Throughout his 20+ year career in the arts, Loving has curated exhibitions, music festivals, and public programming at various museums, cultural institutions, and art fairs including the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art (NMAFA), IDB International Development Bank, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) and the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), Miami Art Week and CAN Art Fair Ibiza.
Loving’s consistent participation in music festivals, art fairs, and conferences has further developed his unique perspective on contemporary pop culture, and is currently developing research on Black dance music history and culture in Spain, Italy, Brazil and other countries in the African diaspora. In his most recent book project Disco! Music, Image, Dance (2025, Oxford University Press). Loving explores concepts around historical imaging and music in his essay Reflections on Black Excellence and Aesthetics in the Disco Era.
In his first book, Fade to Grey: Androgyny, Style and Art in 80s Dance Music Loving explores the intersection of androgyny, art, and fashion with a focus on musicians from the 1980s, including David Bowie, Grace Jones, and Prince. Loving was invited to speak at the Disco Conference at the University of Sussex, UK, in 2018 and the Harvard / NYU Black Portraitures Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2016. His continued research in club culture has resulted in a series of panel discussions called Shoot to Thrill: Picturing Identity In Underground Dance Music and Walk The Night: Nightclub Culture 1977-1990 at Miami Art Week 2023. Adrian has also appeared in the 2021 PBS documentary Making Black America and the Emmy Award-winning 2024 PBS documentary A Chocolate Lens.
Loving is a working DJ and producer, which has him traveling extensively in the USA and abroad to Brazil, Malta, Spain, and South Africa to collaborate with musicians creating electronic soundscapes and dance tracks for his album series Inner Temples: Travelscapes Vol.1 and the forthcoming installation project Inner Temples: Blacklight Jungle (2026). Adrian’s talents for spotting music artists rooted in Jazz, Funk, Soul, and Afro-Diasporic music, has led to his curatorial development of the Annual Rock The Park DC: Weekender Series (2021-2023) featuring international talent including Jazzy Jeff, J.Rocc, Moodymann, Trouble Funk, and Lisa Shaw. He has performed at prominent spaces and events such as The White House Correspondent’s Dinner, First Avenue: 7th Street Entry, CCCB in Barcelona, and Worldwide Festival in France. Loving recently transitioned from an 11-year art faculty position at Georgetown Day High School to dedicate himself fully to artmaking, curating events, and music production - furthering his positive impact on the cultural landscape.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Musical Performance | Author Talk |
