Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory
Distinguished Visiting Artist Program
Arms Are Overrated, an Artist’s Talk by Stanya Kahn
January 17, 2013, 6pm
Room 102 Lasserre Building
University of British Columbia (UBC)
403 – 6333 Memorial Road
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada
Stanya Kahn is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in video, with a practice that includes performance, writing, sound design, drawing, animation and digital media. Kahn’s hybrid media practice borrows from pop vernacular, documentary tropes, improvisation, comedy and experimental film/video praxis in its re-working of signs, function and meanings in narrativity. The work often inhabits spaces between fiction and document and stems from an extensive background in live performance. Integrating the scripted 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 (2008); the California Biennial (2010); The Museum of Modern Art, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; The Getty Center, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Sundance Film Festival; Migrating Forms Film Festival; the Center for Art and Media, Karlsrühe; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Contemporary Center for Art,Vilnius, Lithuania; MIT, Cambridge; ICA, Philadelphia; Kunstalle Bonn; The Brooklyn Museum; Hayward Gallery, London; Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles; and Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, 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.
The Distinguished Visiting Artist Program brings senior practicing artists to the Department to lead an intensive seminar, participate in graduate student critiques and assist MFA students in the development of their work and early professional career.
Past visiting artists include:
Rebecca Belmore / Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol / Mark Boulos / David Claerbout / Maria Eichhorn / Andrea Fraser / Melanie Gilligan / Dan Graham / Brian Jungen / Mary Kelly / Michael Krebber / Scott Lyall / Ken Lum / Josephine Pryde / Jeanne Randolph / Stefan Romer / Cheyney Thompson / Kerry Tribe / Francesco Vezzoli / Ian Wallace / Li Yifan
The Distinguished Visiting Artist Program is made possible by the generous support of the Rennie Collection. All events are free and open to the public.
The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVAT) aims to foster critical and reflexive thinking within an inclusive and supportive environment.
The Masters of Fine Arts Program in Visual Art is a highly competitive graduate program and one that has an enviable international reputation. MFA students participate in an intensive weekly studio seminar that is also a forum for critical discussions about leading issues in contemporary art and cultural theory. Students take additional academic coursework to enrich their particular focus and may work in any area of contemporary art production and related interdisciplinary form. The MFA in Studio Art degree is awarded after 26 months and the successful completion of all course work, critiques, roundtables, major paper and a final exhibition.
