Graduate Commons spring 2019 lecture series: Conversations in Contemporary Art

Rhode Island School of Design is pleased to announce the lineup for the Graduate Commons spring 2019 lecture series Conversations in Contemporary Art.

Chrissie Iles, “An Inadequate History of the Projected Image”
Wednesday, April 10, 6:30pm, Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center/RISD Museum

This lecture proposes new readings of the history of the projected image in American art since the 1960s, foregrounding issues around the black cinematic to propose alternative models to the assumptions of whiteness that have dominated the history of moving image art, and challenging the presumed neutrality of cinematic tropes including the camera, the screen, light, the gaze, opacity and surveillance.

Chrissie Iles is the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She specializes in the work of emerging artists, moving image art and art of the 1960s and 1970s. She has co-curated two Whitney Biennials and numerous exhibitions.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Film/Animation/Video department at RISD.

Ed Schlossberg, “Art Design Life”
Thursday, April 25, 6:30pm, Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center/RISD Museum
conversation to follow

Ed Schlossberg has been working all his life to engage simultaneously in goals, projects and tools. He will continue to explore this odyssey in his talk.

Schlossberg is the founder, president and principal designer at ESI Design. An internationally recognized pioneer in experience design and audience engagement, he launched his career in 1978 with the design of one of the world’s first interactive museums, The Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Since then he has been at the forefront of design and technological innovation. Schlossberg holds a PhD in Science and Literature from Columbia University. Singled out as “a leader in interactive design” by Wired magazine, he has authored 11 books.

Kader Attia, ”On Repair”
Thursday, May 2, 5 pm, Contemporary Gallery, RISD Museum, 224 Benefit Street
conversation to follow

Kader Attia’s sociocultural research has led to the notion of repair as a constant in nature (and thus in humanity). He posits that any system, social institution or cultural tradition can be considered an infinite repair process closely linked to loss, wounds, recuperation and re-appropriation. He has been developing this concept in his writings and symbolically in his oeuvre as a visual artist.

Attia grew up in Paris and Algeria. His work has been shown in such group exhibitions as the 57th Venice Biennial and dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel as well as high-profile venues such as Met Breuer, New York; Kunsthalle Wien; MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2016 he founded La Colonie in Paris, which focuses on decolonization, not only of peoples but also of knowledge, attitudes and practices.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the RISD Museum as part of Repair and Design Futures.

Lynne Cooke, “Contesting Borders: Interchanges between Uncredentialed Artists and American Vanguards”
Thursday, May 9, 6:30pm, Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center/RISD Museum

Since the last century, the relationship between vanguard and self-taught artists has been defined by contradiction. The established art world has been quick to make clear distinctions between trained and untrained artists, yet at the same time it has been fascinated by outliers whom it draws selectively and intermittently into its orbit.

Lynne Cooke is senior curator for special projects in modern art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where she recently curated Outliers and American Vanguard Art. Previously, she was deputy director and chief curator at the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain and curator at the Dia Art Foundation.

About the lecture series
Conversations in Contemporary Art is organized by RISD faculty member Leora Maltz-Leca, with the support of the RISD Provost’s Office. It is a collaboration among RISD’s Divisions of Graduate Studies, Fine Arts and Liberal Arts.

All lectures are free and open to the public. Events will be streamed at livestream.com/risd. To view the video archive of past events, for descriptions of the current lectures and for further details, please go to thad.risd.edu.