Weepy, pale, Victorian ghost ladies mourning their long-lost-loves are all well and good, but why should they have a monopoly on the visual culture of sadness? Curator Nana Adusei-Poku offers alternative iconographies of mourning, loss, and grief in this lecture, starting with the medieval alchemical idea of “black bile” as a source of melancholy and connecting the dots between art history, autobiography, and contemporary art. Adusei-Poku’s goal in this lecture, and in the recent group show she curated at Bard College in New York, is to unsettle one-sided ideas about who is allowed to be sad, making space for visions of despair that can actually inspire comfort and connection.  by Martha Daghlian