Shenkman Lecture Series

The opinions expressed by the speaker are not necessarily those of the institution.

University of Guelph and the School of Fine Art and Music
present the 7th annual
Shenkman Lecture in Contemporary Art
Wednesday March 20, 2013, 6:00pm
War Memorial Hall, University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Admission Free

Featuring: Dave Hickey

"It Takes A Village To Make Bad Art"

Dave Hickey will talk about the downside of economies of scale in art practice, art education, and art education in the age of  Global Art and the digital Global Village.  He will explain why bigger isn't necessarily better. 

Dave Hickey is a free-lance writer of fiction and cultural criticism.  He has recently retired as Professor of Practice at the University of New Mexico. He has served as owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place in Austin, Texas, as  director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York City, as executive director of Art in America Magazine in New York City, and as contributing editor to the Texas Observer, The Village Voice, Art Issues, and Context.  He has written for most major cultural publications in the United States and abroad.  These include The Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Harpers Magazine, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Nest, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.  Hickey also wrote Revisions, a monthly column for Art in America Magazine.  He writes for the Art Newspaper, The London Review of Books and Frieze International in the UK, Situation in Paris and Parkett in Zurich.

He has published a volume of short fiction, Prior Convictions, SMU Press, 1982, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Art Issue Press, 1993, The Invisible Dragon: Revised and Expanded, University of Chicago Press, 2008, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy, Art Issues Press, 1998, selected as one of the most important books of the century in 2009 by Newsweek Magazine, Stardumb, Artspace Press, 1999, about artist John DeFazio, Hot Stuff: Essays on the Art of Women Artists, University of Chicago Press, 2012. Future works include: Connoisseur of Waves: More Essays on Art and Democracy, a sequel to Air Guitar in preparation by the University of Chicago Press to be released in 2013; Pagan America, forthcoming from Free Press in 2013; Pirates and Farmers: Essays on Culture and the Marketplace, Karsten Schubert, London, to follow publication of Pagan America; Feint of Heart: Essays of Individual Artists in two volumes in preparation at Chicago Press.

Hickey has also written 300+ exhibition catalogue monographs on contemporary artists including Nancy Rubins, Kenneth Price (2), Bridget Riley (2), John Chamberlain (2), Anthony Caro, Ellsworth Kelly, Ann Hamilton, Lari Pittman, Richard Serra (2), Robert Gober, Edward Ruscha (6), Terry Allen (5), Andy Warhol (5), Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Tom Wesselmann, Joan Mitchell, Vija Celmins, James Turrell, Vernon Fisher, Luis Jimenez, Barbara Bloom, Sol Lewitt, Sharon Ellis, and Michaelangelo Pisteletto, among others.

He has lectured extensively at universities and institutions in America and abroad.  These include Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Penn, Brown, Stanford, Duke, the Smithsonian Institution, the Rhode Island School of Design, Hunter College, the School of Visual Arts, Bard College, the University of Texas at Austin, Art Center of Pasadena, Otis Institute in Los Angeles, the Hirshorn Museum and the National Gallery in Washington, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Dia Center for the Arts, the Walker Art Center, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth and Miami-Basel in the United States.  He has lectured often in the United Kingdom at the Tate Modern, the Frieze Art Fair, the Royal College of Art and the Insitute of Contemporary Art.

He has received associated unsolicited grants and fellowships.  He was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for 2002-2007.  In May 2003, he received an honorary degree from The Rhode Island School of Design.  More recently, he received the 2006 Peabody Award for public journalism in recognition of his work as Project Advisor and Associate Producer for Ric Burns' four-hour biographical documentary of Andy Warhol for the American Masters series on PBS in November 2006.

Hickey has organized many exhibitions including Site Santa Fe in Sante Fe, New Mexico, July 2001-January 2002, which won the 2001-2002 Best Show in a Kunsthalle Award from the Association of International Critics of Art.  He is presently engaged in preparation for Ed Ruscha: Too Marvelous for Words for venues in Asia. He is also working as Project Advisor and Associate Producer on a PBS American Masters film on the artist Michael Heizer.

The annual Shenkman Lecture was established in 2007 through an endowment by Dasha Shenkman, a Canadian art collector who lives in the United Kingdom.

For more information contact:

Sandra Sabatini Ph.D.
Dean's Office, College of Arts
University of Guelph
519.824.4120. x53869
sabatini@uoguelph.ca

A free bus will leave Mercer Union (1286 Bloor Street West) in Toronto at 2:30 p.m. and leave Guelph to return to Toronto at 9:00 p.m

MFA Open Studio 2013

The MFA students in the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph are pleased to welcome the public to their annual Open Studios.

Open Studios offers visitors a rare inside look at the development of new work within the hothouse environment of an art program.  The public is invited to preview work in progress and chat with the artists in the informal environment of the studios.

On Wednesday, March 20 from 3:00 - 5:00 pm and again from 7:00 - 9:00 pm, visitors are invited to drop by the studios of graduate students.   This event is scheduled in conjunction with the Shenkman Lecture in Contemporary Art, presented at 6:00pm in War Memorial Hall by American cultural critic and fiction writer, Dave Hickey.

Open Studios 2013 features work by graduate candidates:

Jen Aitken
Laura Anderson
Maryanne Casasanta
Jennifer Carvalho
Stephanie Cormier
Rachel Crummey
Laura Findlay
Denise Higginson
Aryen Hoekstra
Benjamin Klein
Amy Lockhart
Jenine Marsh
Ella Dawn McGeough
Matt Schust
Dustin Wilson

Click here to see the 2013 Open Studios Brochure.

And introduces work by Specialized Studio undergraduates in Alexander Hall: Whitney Arnott, Patrick Beh, Paul Chartrand, Sarah Cordeaux, Zoe Downie-Ross, Juliane Foronda, Nicolas Good, Nadine Maher, Tyler Muzzin, Jazmyn Pettigrew, Laura Phan, Yusuf Rahmaty, Colleen Savage, Kimberley Vanderweyden, David Winfield, and Alexandra Zieger.

The University of Guelph offers a two year Master of Fine Arts Degree that combines intensive studio concentration with seminars in theory and pedagogy. Exceptionally committed graduate faculty and limited student enrolment result in a community that is intensely involved in contemporary art and its discourse. A consistently excellent program of visiting artists, critics and curators extends this community.

Alumni from Guelph's MFA program include Derek Sullivan, Kristan Horton, Katie Bethune-Leaman, Martin Golland, Melanie Authier, Zin Taylor and David Urban.

University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario, NIG 2W1
Press contact:
Ella Dawn McGeough, Open Studios Student Coordinator, email
Susan Dobson, Faculty Coordinator, email 519-824-4120 x56112

A shuttle service between buildings is available between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. and again between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.  Volunteers will provide directions and guided tours.

Open Studio Locations

Located at BLACKWOOD HALL, FIREHALL, AND ALEXANDER HALL.

2013 Open Studios Tour Map2013 Open Studios Tour Map

 

  

Sponsored by: BMO Financial GroupSponsored by: BMO Financial Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previous Shenkman Lectures in Contemporary Art

Mike Nelson
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 6:00pm
War Memorial Hall, University of Guelph

In his installations, British Artist Mike Nelson functions like a novelist, but not a traditional one. The materials of his storytelling are not characters and plot but objects and space.  His desire in fabricating these rooms, through a combination of persuasion and seduction, is to involve the viewer in the 'atmosphere' in which they find themselves. He regarded an early piece from 1996, called Trading Alpha Station, as a storeroom of ideas from which he could make subsequent works and following from that idea, Nelson's installations have always been fascinatingly self-reflexive. His way of putting it is that he is being pursued by his own history, what he calls a kind of "retrospective, introspective backward glance". The legend of the Ouroboros - the snake that eats its own tail - is an apt image for an art that continually curls back upon itself, using its creative past to frame and construct an aesthetic presence. He makes and then un-makes with equivalent intelligence. So "I, Imposter", his piece for the British pavillion at the Venice Bienniale this year, he substituted images of Istanbul from a work he made for the 2003 bienniale there, superimposed them in Venice in 2011. The resulting installation of a photographer's darkroom was a compelling accommodation between displacement and re-creation, the making of a migratory, changeable narrative between two cities, Istanful and Venice, and two frames of mind, the east and the west. The way viewers react to this work is consistent with other of his installations, mystery mixed with uncertainty, even a tinge of fearfulness.  The atmosphere of this piece has about it an unmistakeable disquieting beauty. See images from the British Pavillion at the 2011 Venice Bienniale at britishcouncil-venice.org/images.php

Mike Nelson was born in Longborough, UK, in 1967. He lives and works in London and in the last decade has been included in major group and solo exhibitions around the world, including the ICA in London; the 13th Sydney Bienniale; the 8th International Istanbul Bienniale; the 3rd Singapore Bienniale; PS1, New York; the Moderna Musset, Stockholm; Modern Art, Oxford; the Tate Triennial; and the Hayward Gallery, London.  In 2001 he was the recipient of the Paul Hamlyn award and has twice been short-listed for the Turner Prize.

 

Hou Hanru Exhibitions: making places
Wednesday March 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm
War Memorial Hall, University of Guelph

For the past several decades, exhibition curating has become a central component in the system of art production and distribution.  With the growth of biennials, contemporary art museums, and public interventions, and their proliferation across the globe, curatorial practices are going through intense processes of experimentation and innovation.  Exhibitions are not only expanding to accommodate creative activity from all around the world, they are also turning into sites of production new artistic visions, concept forms and social relationships.  Ultimately, they are a driving force in the making of new cultural localities in the age of globalisation.

Hou HanruHou HanruHou Hanru is currently the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies, San Francisco Art Institute.
 
Born in 1963, Guangzhou, China, Hou Hanru graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing in 1985 (BA) and 1988 (MA). He lived and worked in Paris, France as an art critic and curator from 1990 - 2005.  Since then, Hou Hanru has been based out of San Francisco. 
Besides the regular exhibitions and public programs at the San Francisco Art Institute, he has independently curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions including: “By Day, By Night, or some (special) things a museum can do,” Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2010, “The Spectacle of the Everyday," the 10th Biennale de Lyon, 2009, “Too Early for Vacation,” EV + A 2008, Limerick, Ireland, March – May 2008, “Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary – Optimism in The Age of Global Wars," the 10th Istanbul Biennial”, Istanbul, 2007, “Everyday Miracle, four woman artists in the Chinese Pavilion (Shen Yuan, Yin Xiuzhen, Kan Xuan, Cao Fei),” the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007, “Transient City,” Urban Interventions, Luxembourg 2007, “Laboratoire pour un Avenir Incertain (Laboratory for an Uncertain Future),” Grand Palais, Paris, France, 2006, “Beyond, the 2nd Guangzhou Triennale,” Guangzhou, China, 2004-2006, “Go Inside,” the 3rd Tirana Biennale, Tirana, Albania, 2005, “Nuit Blanche 2004,” Paris, 2 Oct. 2004, “The Fifth System – Public Art in the Age of Post-Planning,” the fifth Shenzhen international public art exhibition, 2003, “Z.O.U. – Zone Of Urgency,” the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003, “Gwangju Biennale 2002,” Gwangju, Korea, “Shanghai Spirit -- Shanghai Biennale 2000,” Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2000, "The French Pavilion (with Huang Yong Ping)," Venice Biennale, “Cities on the Move," 1997 - 2000, Wiener Secession, (Vienna, Austria, CAPC, Bordeaux, France, PS1, New York, Louisiana Museum, Denmark, The Hayward Gallery, London, UK, various venues, Bangkok, Thailand, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland), "Hong Kong, etc.," the Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg, South Africa 1997, "Parisien(ne)s," 1997, Camden Arts Centre, London, “China/Avant-Garde,” China National Art Gallery, Beijing, 1989, etc. 

As an art and culture critic and curator, Hou Hanru has focused on the dynamic relationship between art, architecture, urbanism and social change in the age of globalisation. Collaborating closely with professionals and the public from various domains, his curatorial and writing projects are highly experimental and propose new understandings of the tension and interactions between global and local, between past, present and future, in order to envision new conditions for cultural production. 

Hou Hanru has lectured in numerous international institutions and served on international juries of art and architecture awards.  His international credits are extensive and varied.  He has served as Advisor (professor) at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, Netherlands, as a visiting Professor, HISK, Antwerp/Ghent, Belgium, a member of the Asian Art Council, Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, a member of International committees for Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Culture Foundation, Turkey, the Deutsche Bank Collection, and the Yokohama Triennial, Japan Foundation, among others.  He has also served as a contributer and guest editor for several magazines, such as Flash Art International, Urban China, Yishu, and Art Asia Pacific.  He is a frequent contributor to exhibition catalogues, art and architecture magazines and books.  Hou Hanru's book, On The Mid-Ground, was published by Timezone 8, Beijing-Hong Kong, in 2002.

Hou Hanru received the honours of Chévalier des ordres des arts et des lettres of the French Cultural Ministry, 2008.   

 
 

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