UK School of Art and Visual Studies Announces Fall's Visiting Artist Series Lectures
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 24, 2021) — The University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies kicks off its Visiting Artist Series this October with a talk about the state of American art and institutions by curators Lauren Applebaum and Adam Thomas. Each year, the school hosts a series of free, public talks with scholars and artists concerned with contemporary visual culture. The Visiting Artist Series features lectures, exhibitions and workshops in cooperation with the Art History and Visual Studies program.
Find this fall's artists and presentations for the Visiting Artist Series below:
Visiting Scholars in Conversation: Lauren Applebaum and Adam Thomas
"American Art and Its Institutions in a Time of Transformation”
4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12
Zoom
Lauren Applebaum is the Jim and Betty Becher Curator of American Art North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh, North Carolina. Applebaum’s curatorial practice centers on the visual and material culture of North America, with a particular focus on the intersection of art and craft with histories of technology and communication practices. Her most recent exhibition, "Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change" at the Toledo Museum of Art, focused on the voices and experiences of underrepresented artists — including women; Black, Indigenous and people of color; immigrants; people from diverse faiths; and LGBTQ+ communities — while also foregrounding a traditionally marginalized medium of artistic expression: quilts and textile-based crafts. She is currently in the process of reinstalling the American Galleries at NCMA and will speak about this process, the state of the field and her curatorial practice.
Adam Thomas is curator of American art and affiliate assistant professor of art history at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University. Thomas' research centers on late 19th and early 20th century painting in the United States. He has been involved with a wide range of exhibitions, including at the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hispanic Society of America in New York. Most recently he contributed a catalog essay to the Minneapolis Institute of Art's traveling exhibition, Supernatural America, titled “How to Paint a Ghost around 1900.” He has also reflected on museums as spaces of mourning in a recent publication for Panorama and will discuss this topic along with the state of the field of American art.
Email Miriam.Kienle@uky.edu for Zoom link.
Dana James: Visiting Artist Lecture
12:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14
Dana James is a painter and New York native, based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Since graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 2008, her work has been exhibited extensively and can be found in private and public collections around the world. For more information, contact Brandon Smith, brandon.smithart@uky.edu.
Shana Moulton: Virtual Artist Lecture
1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15
Online
Shana Moulton lives and works in Santa Barbara, California. Over the past 18 years she has been developing her ongoing video/performance series "Whispering Pines," in which she plays the role of “Cynthia,” both a fictional figure and the artist’s alter ego. Email jrsouthard@uky.edu for talk details.
Brad Vetter: Visiting Artist Lecture
1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18
Brad Vetter is a designer, letterpress printer, artist and educator currently based in Louisville, Kentucky. After graduating from Western Kentucky University, where he studied graphic design and printmaking, he began working at the legendary Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee. At Hatch, he did everything from sweeping the floors to training the interns, all while printing posters for his favorite bands and bringing a fresh new approach to working with the antiquated process of letterpress.
Erin Harmon: Virtual Artist Lecture
10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 28
Bolivar Art Gallery
Erin Harmon was raised in the suburbs of Southern California where the natural desert is sated by hundreds of miles of aqueducts to produce obsessively groomed lawns. After graduating from San Diego State University with a bachelor's degree in studio art, she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Rhode Island School of Design. Contact John Norris at John.Norris@uky.edu for lecture's Zoom link.
John Paul Morabito: Visiting Artist Lecture
6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15
Bolivar Art Gallery
Transdisciplinary weaver John Paul Morabito engages the medium of tapestry reimagined in the digital age. Their work outputs woven forms, moving images and relational actions to imagine queer grace.
The UK School of Art and Visual Studies, part of the College of Fine Arts, offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the fields of art studio, art history and visual studies, art education, curatorial studies and digital media design.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.