Visiting Artist Lecture Series
- Lectures every Tuesday at 7PM
- Bigelow Physics Building Rm. 102 (Map)
- Some at the Fifth Street School (Map)
- ART 498/700 Syllabus
The annual series returns once again to the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, courtesy of the faculty of the Department of Art and the City of Las Vegas Arts Commission: the Visiting Artist Lecture Series for the Fall of 2009. The lectures will be held weekly at the UNLV campus in room 102 of the Bigelow Physics Building, or in some cases, in the auditorium of the Historic Fifth Street School in Downtown Las Vegas.
Currently enrolled UNLV students may elect to add the Seminar in Visual Arts course, listed as ART 498 for undergraduate credit or ART 700 for graduate-level credit, for attending and participating in this unique series.
For the latest updates on artists and events happening in the series and around the Department of Art, subscribe to the art.unlv.edu Events RSS feed, or become a fan on Facebook of the Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
- September 1: Glenn Nowak, Acoustical Installations and Larger Musings
- Glenn Nowak’s Resume
- Architecture Studies Library: Nowak’s Recommended Reading List
- Biography of UNLV School of Architecture
- Marnell Corrao Associates
- Cornell College of Art, Architecture, and Planning
Professor Nowak has been teaching at UNLV for three years and is a design consultant at Marnell Corrao Associates. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Ball State University and his post-professional Master of Architecture degree from Cornell University. His minor concentration in cognitive science has been applied to his research in psychoacoustics where the auditory signals of the built environment are analyzed with respect to their capacity to affect human perceptions of space and sound. The lecture, Acoustical Installations and Larger Musings, primarily focuses on a design process that yields curiously crafted space shells for small-room acoustical installations. The remainder of the discussion leads into projects where the concepts inherent in the process above are applied to large-scale art and architectural projects exploring space and sound at a bigger scale: building, urban infrastructure, cityscape, global environment.
“Well you’re in your little room / and you’re working on something good / but if it’s really good / you’re gonna need a bigger room / and when you’re in the bigger room / you might not know what to do / you might have to think of / how you got started in your little room” —Jack White, The White Stripes
- September 8: Robert Irwin
- Statement and Biography for PaceWildenstein
- The Central Garden at the Getty Center
- NY Times Biography
- Dia: Michael Govan on Irwin
- Irwin’s 1971 Installation at Walker Art Center
- Stuart Collection at UCSD
- Installing Irwin’s Primaries and Secondaries
- University of Colorado Interview with Irwin
- ArtForum: Robert Irwin
- Irwin’s Light and Space
(This lecture will be held at the Historic Fifth Street School in Downtown Las Vegas. More information about the Fifth Street School, including its location, can be found at the top of the page.)
One of the pioneering voices of installation art, Robert Irwin began his career in Abstract Expressionism before leaving the studio in search of ways to create spatially-sensitive art. His latest work is the design of the Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, an ever-evolving landscaping project that seeks to create a full sensory experience for viewers through the introduction of new plant species and the attraction of natural wildlife that has come to inhabit the area.
- September 15: Kim Stringfellow
- Kim Stringfellow’s Portfolio
- Kim Stringfellow’s Photography Portfolio
- The Green Museum’soverview of Stringfellow’s work
- Salmon in the City
Kim Stringfellow is an artist/educator residing in Los Angeles. Her work and research interests address ecological, historical, and activist issues related to land use and the built environment through hybrid documentary forms incorporating writing, digital media, photography, audio, video, installation, and locative media. She teaches in the Multimedia area as an Associate Professor in School of Art, Design, and Art History at San Diego State University. —Quoted from KimStringfellow.com
- September 22: Hugh Davies on Francis Bacon
- The Tate Britain’s Site and Interactive Tour of their 2008-09 Bacon Exhibition
- Chronological biography from Francis Bacon’s Estate
- NY Times Review of Bacon
- Guardian article on Bacon’s relation to the 20th century
- artnet: Francis Bacon
- Biography of Hugh Davies
- Amazon: Davies’ Francis Bacon: The Papal Portraits of 1953
- SD Union-Tribune on Davies
Francis Bacon, one of the most renowned painters of the post-Abstract Expressionist art world, is most well-known for his dark, sometimes simple, and often gruesome depictions of the human condition and Christian religious imagery. Hugh Davies is currently the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and in 2000, co-curated that year’s Whitney Biennial. Davies’ scholarship of Bacon’s work has lasted a great many years, and has resulted in numerous presentations in venues such as the Tate Modern in London and MCASD, as well the co-authorship of the book Francis Bacon: The Papal Portraits of 1953.
- September 29: Robert Dorgan
- UNLV Downtown Design Center
- Historic Fifth Street School
- Institute for Small Town Studies
- UNLV Magazine: Extreme Makeover: Hangover Edition
- Las Vegas Sun article on Dorgan
Robert Dorgan received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota, and a Graduate Design Diploma from the Architectural Association in London, England. An award winning designer and educator, he has taught at the University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and UNLV. Professor Dorgan is the founding Director of the educational non-profit organization, the Institute for Small Town Studies, where he continues his role as editor of their quarterly journal, fishwrap. He currently serves as the Director of the Downtown Design Center in the UNLV School of Architecture.
- October 6: Jon Rappleye
- Rappleye at Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York
- Rappleye at Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles
- On Rappleye’s Forgotten Planet
- A Studio Visit with Jon Rappleye
- Photos from Rappleye’s Printmaking Residency at MICA
- Kohler Arts Center
Currently based in New Jersey, Jon Rappleye specializes in absurd, twisted, yet beautiful landscapes. Rappleye takes a surrealist bent to nature, using his paintings and prints to transform tree leaves into parliaments of owls, and the antlers of a deer into the tree limbs themselves. Among his many residencies are the Maryland Institute College of Art Printmaking residency and a stint at the prestigious John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
- October 13: Louis Kavouris & Robert Tracy
- Louis Kavouris’ website
- Louis Kavouris’ YouTube profile
- Robert Tracy’s Department Profile
- Follow Dr. Tracy on Twitter
- International Conference on the Arts in Society
- Venice Biennale
Professors Louis Kavouris (UNLV Department of Dance) and Robert Tracy (Department of Art) have developed consecutive collaborations the past two summers that respond to the overlapping shadows cast by Dance and Fine Art studios as well as the shadows emanating from the laboratories of science, engineering, and technology. Both are intrigued by the possibilities for the arts and sciences with the more recent advances in technology (particularly the computer, the internet, and access to software to develop film/music recording studios).
The first collaboration involved the development of a paper and 25 minute film entitled The Secret Whispers of Each Other’s Watch. Robert Tracy funded his travel to the University of Oxford (St Anne’s College but delivered at Rhodes House) for the presentation and to participate in the University of Oxford conference on the cultures of science and art. This Oxford collaboration was from 20-25 July, 2008 and was part of the Oxford Round Table: The Two Cultures—Balancing Choices and Effects.
The second collaboration, which was entitled Not A Person’s First Name Art Is, was part of the Fourth International Conference on the Arts in Society and was held in conjunction with the Venice Biennale (28-31 July 2009). This Venice Biennale collaboration resulted in a paper and 30 minute film.
Both Oxford and Venice papers and films are on professor Louis Kavouris’ website and they are on YouTube as well. The papers have been refereed and accepted for publication and will reference the on-line access to the films.
- October 20: Pasha Rafat on Art & Film
- Pasha Rafat’s Department Profile
- Pasha Rafat’s Portfolio
- Rafat’s Department of Art Faculty Web Gallery
- Pasha Rafat at Ace Gallery
Professor Pasha Rafat is the head of Color Photography at the Department of Art at UNLV. He has studied extensively the crossover between art and cinema since 1950, and has previously taught a course specifically on the subject.
Required viewing: Vertigo (1955) by Alfred Hitchcock (available from Lied Library’s Media Resources Desk); Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1955) by Laura Mulvey.
Recommended viewing: Truffaut-Hitchcock interview; Hitchcock’s Music by Jack Sullivan; Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Selected Writings; Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews
- October 27: Beth Campbell
- Public Art Fund: Beth Campbell
- espaces on Campbell’s Whitney Musueum show
- ArtsJournal on Campbell
- Art in America: Beth Campbell
- Beth Campbell on artnet
- Social Interactions: Beth Campbell / Stephen Willats
The work of Beth Campbell investigates notions of the everyday made strange and unfamiliar by the artist’s clever hand. For Campbell, this exploration is oftentimes personal, and she positions her installations, videos, sculptures, and drawings in close relation to her own subjective view. Yet complicating what appears at first glance to be a facsimile of life is the artist’s masterful ability to confound any expectation. Scenarios repeat in multiple and, in turn, what existed on the plane of the banal becomes twisted and distorted, challenging the limits of human perception. —Quoted from espaces art & objets.
- November 3: Zhi Lin
- Zhi Lin’s faculty profile at Gage Academy of Art
- Crossing History/Crossing Boundaries
- Per Contra Visual Arts Archive
- Zhi Lin’s resume at Howard House
- Google Images: Zhi Lin
“In my work with students, I attempt to build the students’ understanding and confidence through exercises that isolate and clarify particular aspects of visual art. These exercises develop basic skills and give a wide variety of experiences, but most importantly they investigate the underlying thought process of vision and problem solving. I believe it is here, in the formation of the students’ critical thinking and attitude, that I am most effective.
“Emphasis is placed upon questions raised by the process rather than upon the idea of correct answers or products and students are encouraged to discover an active and meaningful way to process their seeing and thinking. Since one of the optimal goals of an artwork is to establish a meaningful communication to recipients, I help them realize that an artwork must possess conceptual and formal integrity; content and form are two aspects of a single reality being inseparable and interdependent. The most important objective is for them to develop and form their own critical judgments to guide their own destinies.” —Artist statement from Zhi Lin, quoted from Gage Academy of Art
- November 10: Ed Fella
- Ed Fella’s Portfolio
- AIGA Profile: Ed Fella
- Graphis: “Ed Fella: Design Doodler”
- Biography from Emigre Fonts
Ed Fella is an artist, educator and graphic designer whose work has had an important influence on contemporary typography. He practiced professionally as a commercial artist in Detroit for 30 years before receiving an MFA in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1987. He has since devoted his time to teaching at the California Institute for the Arts and his own unique self-published work which has appeared in many design publications and anthologies. In 1997 he received the Chrysler Award and in 1999 an Honorary Doctorate from CCS in Detroit. His work is in the National Design Museum and MOMA in New York. His recently published book Edward Fella: Letters on America, Photographs and Lettering gives insight into his idiosyncratic world by combining and juxtaposing examples of his unique hand lettering with his photographs of found vernacular lettering. —Quoted from Emigre Fonts
- November 17: Sush Machida Gaikotsu
- Sush Machida’s Portfolio
- Sush Machida at Western-Project
- Trifecta Gallery: Sush Machida Gaikotsu and Brian Porray
- Sush Machida Gaikotsu at Rebecca Ibel
Sush Machida Gaikotsu received his MFA from UNLV in 2002, and is now represented in Los Angeles by Western-Project, alongside fellow UNLV graduate Aaron Sheppard; he is also represented by Rebecca Ibel Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. He recently participated in the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery’s Way Out West show, and also participated in a joint exhibition with current UNLV MFA Brian Porray at Trifecta Gallery.
- November 24: UNLV MFA Lectures
The current first, second, and third year candidates for the Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts degree in the Department of Art present their own work in the MFA lectures. For more information on the Master of Fine Arts program at UNLV, please visit the MFA subsite at finearts.unlv.edu/MFA.
- December 1: China Adams
- China Adams at Ace Gallery
- China Adams’ CV
- Exhibition page for Flights of Fancy (2008)
Born in 1970 in San Francisco, China Adams has lived in Los Angeles for nearly twenty years. She earned a BFA from UCLA (1995) and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2000). She has been featured in exhibitions around the world, including several solo shows at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles and one at Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles (2008). Adams makes conceptual art works in a range of media, with humor and a unique aesthetic. Doug Harvey writes, “the political implications of Adams’ work, issues of class gender and globalization, as well as broader anthropological concerns with taboos, stigma, consensus and authoritarianism, and an unavoidable critique of the art world’s, ber-materialism seem to arise incidentally alongside the humor and aesthetics from the artist’s stubborn willingness to try to make do with less.” China Adams produces objects as evidence of her actions and then records the occurrence with a notarized document. —Quoted from Steve Turner Contemporary
The Visiting Artist Lecture Series is coordinated by Department of Art professor Pasha Rafat. For additional information about the series or the course, he can be contacted at (702) 895-3110.
