UK Visiting Artist and Scholar Series kicks off Sept. 20
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 16, 2024) — Each semester, the University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies (SA/VS) hosts the Visiting Artist and Scholar Series. The free, public talks feature scholars and artists concerned with contemporary visual culture through lectures, exhibitions and workshops in cooperation with UK’s Art History and Visual Studies program.
The fall 2024 series kicks off next week, with a panel discussion as part of the two-day Queer Art | Queer Archives Symposium, which begins 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 20, in the Bolivar Art Gallery.
The full schedule for the Fall 2024 Visiting Artist and Scholar Series includes:
Sept. 20 | 10 a.m - 5:30 p.m. | Bolivar Art Gallery (236 Bolivar St.)
Sept. 21 | 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. | University of Louisville’s Bingham Humanities Hassold Theatre (2216 S. First St.)
Co-hosted by the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, Queer Art | Queer Archives brings together experts specializing in queer art, theory, and archival methods for two days of presentations, discussions, and exhibitions. Historically, queer practices circumvented institutions and experimented with media not sanctioned by museums. Artists and art historians concerned with queer practices therefore often devise new strategies to scour archives for the ephemeral objects and documents that constitute much of this overlooked work. By convening scholars who conduct queer archival research, this symposium centers practices that have been systematically marginalized by narratives of American art history. Our aim is to generate new interpretive frameworks to analyze intersections of queerness with race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, and socioeconomic status.
Sept. 23 | noon | Hazel True Haunsz Fiber Arts Studio, Art and Visual Studies Building, room 229
Christine Tarkowski is an artist working in a variety of mediums, formats and collaborative conditions. Her artistic output includes; sculpture, architecture, printed matter, photography and song and ranges in scale from the ordinary to the monumental. Equally variable is the scope of production, incorporating the making of permanent public structures, propositional drawings, cast glass models, textile yardage, temporary printed ephemera and musical choirs. Many of her works point toward the flotsam of Western culture relative to systems of democracy, religion and capitalism. Those systems often intersect with or concern themes of conversion, salvation and belief and are malleable systems relative to a believer’s desires. Recent works are in pursuit of the abstract, drawing on history, craft tectonics and archetypes. She employs methods of dimensional abstraction to evolve narrative elements that refer to dissolution of order through employing alchemical processes.
Oct. 3 | 6 p.m. | Metal Arts Building (349 Scott St.)
Bret Price is a contemporary sculptor of monumental steel. Throughout his career, Price has been interested in the challenges of raw material against the forces of nature, first beginning his explorations in clay and gradually working up in size and complexity to reach heights of 35 feet and weighing up to 7.5 tons. Whether the work is large or small, Bret’s focus is to convey an unexpected sense of movement and balance.
Oct. 4 | noon | Bolivar Art Gallery
Josh Copus’ artist statement:
“Clay is a material accepting of impression. It is a record of every process, from its geological formation in the earth to its eventual transformation in the fire. My work with ceramics begins with the clay. By using local materials dug from the river bottoms and mountainsides of western North Carolina, my work gains a connection to place and establishes the materials as a valuable source of influence. I dig my own clay from a tobacco field alongside Turkey Creek and everything I make contains an element of my response to that experience.”
Oct. 10 | 4:30 p.m. | Lexington Public Library Marksbury Branch (2197 Versailles Road)
Oct. 11, 2024 | noon | Bolivar Art Gallery
Richard Lou artist statement:
“As a Chicano artist, the recurrent themes are the subjugation of my community by the dominant culture and white privilege. These works manifest themselves in the creation of counter-images and counter-definitions made in a self-determinant manner. As a contemporary image-maker, I am interested in collecting dissonant ideas and narratives allowing them to bump into each other, to coax new meanings and possibilities that dismantle the hierarchy of images. The work serves as an ideological, social, political and cultural matrix from which I understand my place in this world and to make a simple marking of the cultural shifts of my community. The artwork examines how communities use images and language to dehumanize the “Other” in order to ignore the Other’s basic human rights. It challenges unquestioned claims to territory and legal status.”
Oct. 25 | noon | Bolivar Art Gallery
Stephanie Berrie artist statement:
“I am heavily influenced by nature and our human relationships with the environments in which we live. My work questions what it means to have a body, as well as what it means to live in a world surrounded by other bodies. I feel a dissociation with my body that is explored through organic materials and imagery, which serve as metaphors for the emotional and physical matter beneath my skin. I combine multiple forms of printmaking, as well as printmaking with sculpture or painting to keep my work in a flux, fluid state. My work is ever-changing and allowing it to move and exist through different media reminds me of our ephemerality and infinite potential for growth.”
Michael Weigman artist statement:
“My work explores my suburban upbringing, fascinations with underground subcultures that were my escape and interest in industrial era history. These disparate sources clash, creating an abstract mythology used to illustrate my vision of contemporary issues. I employ printmaking as my primary medium due to its legacy as a communicative medium for the working class.”