Alfred University art history faculty to present at Oct. 20 Artists’ Speaker Series

ALFRED, NY—The Weekly Wednesday Artists’ Speaker Series at Alfred University continues on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. with presentations by three faculty members from the School of Art and Design’s Division of Art History.

In the Weekly Wednesday Artists’ Speaker Series, faculty and staff in the School of Art and Design/Performing Arts Division, as well as guest artists, present short talks on their creative practice outside of the classroom. The series—offered both in-person and virtually—aims to engage the Alfred community by creating a unique sharing space focusing on the arts.

The Oct. 20 event will feature Meghen Jones, associate professor of art history; James Hansen, assistant professor of art history; and Gerar Edizel, professor of art history. It will be held at 7 p.m. in Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. For those who prefer to take in the presentation virtually, it will be offered via Zoom.

Future talks in the series include:

Oct. 27 (7 p.m.): Guest Artist Talk with Fafnir Adamites presented by the School of Art and Design’s Division of Sculpture/Dimensional Studies. Adamites holds an M.F.A. degree from the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in photography and women’s studies from University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are currently a visiting assistant professor in the fibers area at Indiana University, Bloomington. Their work mixes papermaking, felting, and weaving to create installations which act as meditations on trauma, memory, and generational emotional legacies.

Nov. 3, (7 p.m.): Remote Connections presented by Fosdick-Nelson Gallery and Expanded Media. Speaker TBD.

Nov. 10, (7 p.m.): International Randall Chair Dr. Lewis Johnson presents “Art as Intervention: Vision, Space and Narration,” a review of some key moments in the emergence and recurrence of art as intervention along with a theorization of what differentiates this kind of artistic work from performance or installation. Addressing issues of location and duration, vision and witness, space and what Pope.L referred to as "social geometry," Johnson aims to provide a useful history of this genre of work, from Duchamp, John Sloan and Gertrude Drick via Yves Klein, Daniel Buren, Gordon Matta-Clark, Orlan, Jenny Holzer, Mona Hatoum and Aslı Çavuşoğlu.

Nov. 17 (7 p.m.): Performing Arts Division faculty Colleen Wahl, assistant professor of dance; Eliza Beckwith, visiting professor of theater; and Maureen Weiss, associate professor of performance design and technology.