MFA Studio Lecture Series

The new PSU MFA Studio Lecture Series brings together artists from a variety of disciplines to explore the subjects of their own work before a live audience. Lectures are held throughout the year, most often at 1914 SW Park Avenue in Shattuck Hall's Central Auditorium (room 212) on Wednesday nights at 7 pm.

The PSU MFA Studio Lecture Series is supported in part by the Autzen Foundation, Utrecht Art Supplies, the Ace Hotel and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.

The lectures are FREE and open to the public.

Spring 2013 Lectures

Richard Jackson
Wednesday, May 29, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Shattuck Hall Annex

Based in Los Angeles since the early 1970s, Jackson has expanded the definition and practice of painting more than any other contemporary figure. His wildly inventive, exuberant, and irreverent take on "action" painting has dramatically extended its performative dimensions, merged it with sculpture, and repositioned it as an art of everyday experience.

Jackson has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include, 'The Little Girl's Room,' David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2011) and 'Accidents in Abstract Painting,' The Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA (2012). The latter saw Jackson fly and crash a radio-controlled, model military plane with a fifteen-foot wingspan, filled with paint, into a twenty-foot wall that read "accidents in abstract painting." He was most recently subject of a retrospective exhibiton entitled Richard Jackson: Ain't a Painting a Pain, at the Orange County Museum of Art. Jackson is represented by Hauser and Wirth.
http://hauserwirth.com/artists/15/richard-jackson

Winter 2013 Lectures

Anna Craycroft
Wednesday, January 16, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Shattuck Hall Central Auditorium, Rm. 212, 1914 SW Park

Anna Craycroft received an MFA from Columbia University in 2004. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the 2005 "Greater New York" show at PS1, and "Freedom: American Sculpture" at Den Haag Sculptuur, The Hague. Solo exhibitions include "The Agency of the Orphan" in 2008 at Tracy Williams, Ltd., New York, "The Intimate Furnishings of Ignis Fatuus" at Le Case D'Arte, Milan, Italy, in 2005 and "Staging the Phenomenal Character," a solo exhibition in conjunction with a performance series she curated in 2009.

Julia Dault
Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 7:00 pm
Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75, 1620 SW Park

Julia Dault is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. This year she presented a solo exhibition as part of the series "Inside the White Cube" at White Cube Bermondsey, London, and participated in "Roundtable," the Ninth Gwangju Biennale, and "The Ungovernables," the second New Museum Triennial. Her work has been exhibited at the Marrakech Biennale, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, and other international venues, and is part of the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. She is on the faculty of the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons, the New School of Design.

Fall 2012 Lectures

Brian Bress
Wednesday, November 28, 2013
Shattuck Hall Annex, 7:00 p.m.

 

Brian Bress is a Los Angeles-based artist, whose dryly comic, character-driven photos and videos are populated with richly collaged and constructed sets and costumes. Recent solo shows include: Cherry and Martin, LA; New Museum, New York, USA (both 2012);  Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2012); and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, USA (2011). Forthcoming exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Italy and Galeria Marta Cervera, Madrid, Spain (both 2013

Stanya Kahn
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Shattuck Hall Annex, 7:30 p.m.

Stanya Kahn is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in video, with a practice that includes performance, writing, sound design, drawing and digital media. Kahn’s kinetic relationship to humor informs a hybrid media practice infused with pop vernacular, documentary tropes, improvisation, comedy and experimental film/video praxis. The work inhabits spaces between fiction and document and stems from an extensive background in live performance. Integrating the performative with the candid, Kahn addresses issues like agency, power, trauma and the uses and failings of language.

In addition to her solo work, she has been in collaborative teams with artist Harry Dodge and with the performance company CORE. Her solo and collaborative works have shown in numerous venues nationally and internationally including The Whitney Biennial (08); The California Biennial (10); MoMA/NY; MOCA/LA; The Getty Center/LA, the Hammer Museum/LA; the Sundance Film Festival; Migrating Forms Film Festival; the Center for Art and Media/Karlsrühe; PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art/NY; Contemporary Center for Art/Vilnius, Lithuania; MIT, Cambridge; ICA, Philadelphia; Kunstalle, Bonn, GDR; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; The Hayward Gallery, London; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles and Elizabeth Dee Gallery/NY, among many others. Recently solo shows include the New Museum in New York and currently on view at Cornerhouse in Manchester is a survey of her solo works from 2008 to the present with an accompanying book. Kahn is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow in Film/Video.

Past Lectures

Sara G. Rafferty
Wednesday, October 19, 2011.
Shattuck Hall Annex, 7:30 p.m.

Sara Greenberger Rafferty received a BFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, and an MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University School of the Arts in Ne w York. Selected Solo Exhibitions include Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY (upcoming 2009); Bananas, The Kitchen, New York, curated by Matthew Lyons (2009); Recent Photos and Videos, Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, Amherst College, Amherst, MA (2009). Her work has been exhibited in New York at venues including a current project for the Public Art Fund at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, as well as P.S.1, Artists Space, Museum 52, Mary Boone Gallery, Wallspace Gallery, K.S. Art, Andrew Kreps Gallery; at Sandroni Rey Gallery and Champion Fine Art in Los Angeles; PICA in Portland; Sutton Lane in Paris; ARTSPACE in Auckland; and in Pescara, Italy. Sara was co-editor of the annual publication North Drive Press from 2005-2007. Her own writing about art and comedy has been published in several notable art and culture publications. Sara Greenberger Rafferty is represented by Rachel Uffner Gallery and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

www.racheluffnergallery.com

Yvonne Rainer
Thursday, November 17, 2011, 6:30 p.m - 8:30 p.m.
Co-sponsored with Pacific Northwest College of Art. PNCA Main Campus, Swigert Commons

Trained as a modern dancer, Yvonne Rainer began to integrate short films into her live performances, then quickly transitioned into filmmaking. She has since completed seven experimental feature films. In 2000, Rainer returned to dance with a piece called After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Most recently, she choreographed a re-visioning of George Balanchine’s Agon (1957); of Vaslav Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913); and of Spiraling Down (2009), a meditation on soccer, aging and war.

Euan Macdonald
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Shattuck Hall Annex, 7:30 p.m.

Euan Macdonald, born Edinburgh, Scotland, 1965, lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had numerous solo shows in international museums and galleries including Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto; Kunstbunker Kinstverein, Nuremberg; and University Art Museum, Long Beach; as well as major group shows, Treble, 2004, Sculpture Center, Queens, NY; Irreducible, 2005, The Wattis Center for Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Seville Biennale, 2004; Gimme Shelter, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Fresh, 2000, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; and 010101: Art in Technological Times, SF MoMA, 2001. The artist is represented by Cohan and Leslie, NY.

Matt Connors
Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 7:00pm
Shattuck Hall Central Auditorium, room 212

Matt Connors was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1973. He received his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2006. He has been featured in several recent solo exhibitions including: Cherry and Martin, Los Angles (2010); CANADA, New York (2008); Luttgenmeijer, Berlin (2008); The Breeder, Athens (2007); Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York (2005). Recent Group shows include: Praz-Delavallade, Paris (2010); and Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2008). He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Jennifer West
Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 7:00pm
Shattuck Hall Central Auditorium, room 212

In 2011 Jennifer West had a solo exhibition at Vilma Gold, London;  Franklin Arts Works, Minneapolis and in 2010 solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Western Bridge, Seattle and Kunstverein Nürnberg, Germany. West has exhibited widely in museums in the past, including at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, and Seattle Art Museum (2010), Tate Modern and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philidelphia (2009), Drawing Center, New York, Aspen Art Museum and Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2008),CAPC Musee d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France, Contemporary Art Museum, Detroit, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, ZKM Museum for New Media, Karlsruhe and Tate St. Ives (2007). In 2011 she was included in exhibitions at: White Flag Projects, St. Louis; Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara; White Columns, New York; and the Rubbell Family Collection, Miami. West has been commissioned to produce special projects at The Aspen Art Museum (2010) and for the turbine hall at TATE Modern (2009) and she was Artist in Residence at the MIT List Visual Arts Center this year. Upcoming projects include a performance based work and exhibition at Highline Art, New York, curated by Cecelia Alemani, "Out of Focus Photography" at the Saatchi Gallery, London and "Painter's Panting" at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center.

Jennifer West was born in Topanga, California. She received her MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and a BA from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Currently, she is a Faculty Member at University of Southern California's Roski School of Fine Art in Los Angeles, CA. She is represented by MARC FOXX in Los Angeles and Vilma Gold in London.

http://www.marcfoxx.com/artist/view/1444

Wendy White                         
Wednesday, April 4, 2012, 7:00 pm    
Shattuck Hall Central Auditorium, room 212

Wendy White has had solo exhibitions at leo Koenig in New York, Galeria Moriarty in Madrid, Van Horn in Dusseldorf, and Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago. She has participated in group exhibitions at Harris Lieberman Gallery, Nicole Klagsbrun, Fredericks & Freiser, and John Connelly Presents, all in New York; Country Club Projects in Los Angeles; The Bemis Center in Omaha; Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art; CCA Andratx in Mallorca, Spain; Fred Gallery in Leipzig, Germany; Galerien Markus Winter in Berlin; Aschenbach & Hofland in Amsterdam; amd Motus Fort in Tokyo. Her work has been reviewd in Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, Artpapers, Time Out New York, New York Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail. White holds an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and a BFA from the Savannah College of Art & Design. She received a 2008 grant from The Artista Fellowhip in New York, a 2005 George Segal Painting grant, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation studio grant in 2004. Her work is included in Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting, published by Phaidon. White is represented by Leo Koenig and lives in New York City.

Olaf Breuning
ARTIST TALK AND WEST COAST PREMIERE OF HOME 3!
Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 7:00 pm

NEW LOCATION: Fifth Ave Cinemas, 510 Southwest Hall Street

Olaf Breuning was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 1970 and currently lives and works in New York, NY. Breuning studied professional photography in Zurich, Switzerland and went on to complete postgraduate studies in photography at the HSFG Zurich. Breuning has had solo exhibitions in Metro Pictures, New York; Migros Museum, Zurich; Chisenhale, London; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Magasin, Grenoble. He has also been included in several international group exhibitions, including Whitney Biennial 2008, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; ‘Looking At Music’ at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008); ‘All About Laughter’ at Mori Art Museum, Japan (2007); ‘Let’s Entertain’ at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Georges Pompidou.

In the past years Breuning made a series of films based on collage and fragmentation, addressing delicate social issues and conventions. The way he combines a large dose of dark humour and a critical view with the autonomous references and interpretation of his themes shows a strong connection to Tinguely. As does his keen sense for present-day social misconceptions. In ‘Home 2′ for example, he ridicules the Western need to visit primitive cultures and the conviction that their authenticity and purity can save us from our cultural doom, or can at least make us feel better about ourselves. In ‘Home 3′, Breuning further continues this method around the relation between modern man and his technological environment. Hoping for liberation from his tasks by (communication) technology, this human becomes more and more entangled in obligations and interaction.