Tania Bruguera, Poetic Justice (2002-3), used tea bags, video excerpts

The Art Department is fortunate to have visiting artists throughout the year funded through the Vail Visiting Artist Fund. The visiting artists for 2005-2006 included:

Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera, a Cuban artist whose work, performance and installations are shown internationally, presented "Documents of Behavior," on Monday, February 20 to a packed audience. Professor Bruguera met with the Performance Art class and the Sculpture I class, and held individual student critiques.

Tania Bruguera is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in behavior art, performance, installation and video. She has been a participant in Documenta 11 (Germany) as well as in several biennales such as Venice (Italy), Johannesburg (South Africa), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Shangai (China), Havana (Cuba), and Site Santa Fe (United States.)

Her work has also been exhibited at The New Museum of Contemporary Art (United States); The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago (United States); Boijmans van Beuningen Museum (The Netherlands); Museum für Moderne Kunst (Germany); Helsinki Art Museum (Finland), The Whitechapel Art Gallery (England); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Cuba) and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba). She has performed in venues such as The Kunsthalle Wien (Austria); Stedjlick Museum von Actuele Kunst (Belgium); Museo X-Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico); Museo de Bellas Artes (Venezuela) and The Institute of International Visual Art (England.)

She has lectured extensively internationally among others at The New School in New York, The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, The Royal College of Art in London and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 1998 she was selected as a Guggenheim fellow (United States).  She is on the faculty of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sergio Vega, video projection over butterflies' wings (art deco tray)

Sergio Vega

Originally from Argentina, but currently teaching in Florida, artist Sergio Vega was on campus from October 27-29, 2005. The title of his public lecture was, "Paradise in the New World," as he uses the notion of earthly paradise as a recurring point of departure in his artwork. Sergio spoke in the Introduction to Art History class and did critiques in the Practicum class.

Sergio Vega attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study program in 1991-92 and received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 1996. He has been a full time faculty at the University of Florida since 1999 and currently teaches in the photography and sculpture departments. He has participated in numerous international exhibitions including The 51st Biennale di Venezia, Italy, The 5th Biennal de Lyon, France, Soonsbeek 9, Arnhem, The Netherlands, The 5th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, South Korea, The 1st Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, Japan, and The second Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa. In June of 2006 he presented "Crocodilian Fantasies" at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, his first solo exhibit at a European museum and will presented in November 2006 "Tropicalounge" a solo show as part of the "Momentum" series at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, Art News, Freeze, Artnexus, Atlantica, Bomb Magazine, Camera Austria, Flash Art, Bijutsi Techo, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, Il Manifesto, Il sole, Le Monde, and Time Magazine.

Heather Williams

Heather Williams served as a visiting artist/lecturer in the Real and Recorded Time class on November 1, 2005. Heather has a BFA in photography from Minnesota-Twin Cities and a MFA from OSU. As an artist, she collects and displays the intimate details of people's lives. She helped students with installation and video work as they embarked on their own installation projects. Heather conducted individual interviews with each student as they began their projects.

Cynthia Greig, camera

Cynthia Greig

Artist Cynthia Greig shared her experience of concocting the identity and work of another artist in "An Imitation of Life: Inventing Isabelle Raymond" on September 22. This event was open to the public. She also spoke with the Introduction to Art History students on Friday, September 23. Cynthia was here during the opening of the art gallery and was able to talk with students at that event also. Born in Detroit, MI, Greig studied printmaking at Washington University in St.Louis, MO after which time she worked in the curatorial departments of various art museums in the Midwest and Northeast. Her experience with museums and background in art history combined with a fascination with looking at old family photographs have greatly influenced her thinking about the role both photographs and public institutions play in preserving the past and constructing our concepts of reality.

After receiving her MA in modern art history from the University of Iowa in Iowa City IA, where she worked with Dada scholar Stephen C. Foster and photo historian Joy Sperling, she studied filmmaking. She later worked on a number of independent and experimental films which eventually led her to study photography with Joanne Leonard at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The concepts behind her photographs, installations and videos are inspired by the early debates regarding the invention of photography and are influenced by the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp, Christian Boltanski, David Lynch, Cindy Sherman, among others. Her gallery and museum exhibitions include The Alternative Museum in New York, Houston Center for Photography, San Francisco Camerawork, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography in Canada, and Focal Point Gallery in England. In 2002 she received the Houston Center for Photography Fellowship Award and in 2001 she was awarded an artist residency at Light work in NY.

Marlon Barrios Solano

In conjunction with "Contained," new media artist Marlon Barrios Solano gave an artist talk on Tuesday, October 4 to students of the new media class as well as any others that wished to participate. Marlon also allowed the Practicum class to sit in on a dress rehearsal of "Contained."  Marlon Barrios Solano is a Venezuelan independent dance/new media artist, teacher and researcher, based in USA since 1994 (New York City and Columbus,Ohio). He holds an MFA in Dance and Technology (Independent track: Dance improvisation, real-time multimedia and cognition) from The Ohio State University.

Since 2001, with dancer collaborator Kristin Hapke, Marlon directs, performs, researches and designs improvisational performances and within digital real-time environments under the art/research project Unstablelandscape. Recently, he collaborated with the programmer and sound designer Patrick Delges (Belgium) on the development of interactive systems for improvisational dance and with the choreographer Bebe Miller (USA) on the real-time video design of her new work on DCDC Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (premiered in February 2005). He has been an artist in residence at The Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design, The Ohio State University, at STEIM (The Netherlands), and Swarthmore College (USA); participated in festivals and lectured internationally on improvisation, interactive media and perspectives on embodiment in Venezuela, Austria, Scotland, Great Britain, Poland, Estonia, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Greece and the USA.

 As a professional dancer in USA, he performed with New York choreographers Susan Marshal, Lynn Shapiro, Merian Soto, Dean Moos, Bill Young, among others, and with the musicians John Zorn, Philip Glass and Eric Friedlander.

Cesar Portilla

Cesar Portilla

Printmaker, Cesar Portilla, participated in the art department from September 12 through September 17, 2005. Trained as a printmaker, Portilla works on video and performance art and sound. His narratives talk about the every day life in Quito, Ecuador. Portilla earned his degree in art from the Central University of Ecuador in Quito. He has served as the director of Pan Con Cola Productions since 1998 and as a professor in the college of contemporary art at the University of San Francisco in Quito since 2002.

Kathy Herbert, White Flowers

Kathy Herbert

Kathy Herbert came to campus from Ireland the week of  April 2 -7. Her visit was funded through the McGregor/Academic Speaker Funds, as it tied in with Joy Sperling's FYS course, Art in Belfast. Ms. Herbert spent several sessions with Lauren Eisen's Drawing class working on individual interpretations of landscapes issues. She also gave a public presentation on Thursday, April 6, titled "Process and Progress: The Work of Kathy Herbert." Kathy was  here to see the Senior Symposium and Senior Show and provide critiques to students as well. 

Bekele Mekonnen & Chika and Marcia Okeke

Joanna Grabski hosted several African speakers. They included Bekele Mekonnen who spoke to her class in March. This was funded through the Art Department, Provost Speaker Fund, and Black Studies. Chika and Marcia Okeke were on campus April 20-22. They provided individual student critiques and gave public presentations on April 20. Chika presented "Homeland Drawings and Poems," and Marcia presented "Post-Partum Drawings and Other Recent Work."  There was a dinner hosted by Academic Support for the Post Colonial Film class prior to the presentation.

Modou Dieng

Modou Dieng presented "Transgressions, African Contemporary Art and the Postcolonial World: The Work of Modou Dieng," on April 25, 2006. He also visited the Digital Bookmaking and Print and Film classes.

Chris Miller photo

Christopher Miller

Architect and planner Christopher Miller, from Judson College, Elgin, Illinois, made several presentations during his visit to campus November 4-5, 2005. His visit was supported through funds from Vail and the McGregor Fund. Dr. Miller spoke to the First year studies class, Culture of Survival. Following that, he gave a presentation and held a question and answer session on "Visioning Urban Redevelopment: Case Studies from Grand Rapids, MI and Quincy, IL" in a special meeting of the Licking County Housing Initiatives. He also gave a public presentation on Friday afternoon titled, "Home Projects for Street People: Danli, Honduras and Elgin, Illinois." On Saturday afternoon, Dr. Miller had lunch with the first year studies class and went on a walking tour of east Newark, visiting a local shelter and the Monroe Street Habitat for Humanity development.

James Barsness

From the University of Georgia, James Barsness visited campus November 9-12,2005. He fuses medieval European religious paintings and 1960s pop art tocreate haunting and bizarre scenes to mock and celebrate human behavior. He is represented by the George Adams Gallery. James gave a public presentation on Thursday, Nov. 10. He also gave individual critiques to any students that signed up, as well as to the senior studio practicum students. He worked with students in the Painting I and Painting II classes.

Julie Taggart

Julie Taggart, Dean of Fine Arts and Associate Professor of Painting, Drawing and Color Theory, at the Columbus College of Art and Design was the first speaker in a series titled, "Connection to Place in Contemporary Painting," on February 13, 2006. Julie's presentation focused on urban realist landscape painting. Julie showed paintings of various sizes taken from her travelsthrough Ohio and Kentucky. Her work is represented by Gallery V in Columbus.

John Kortlander

The second speaker in the "Connection to Place in Contemporary Painting," was John Kortlander. He gave a public presentation on Wednesday, February 15. John is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the Columbus College of Art and Design. His presentation focused on Intuitive Abstract Paintings. John was the subject of The Documentary Gallery, produced by PBS. Professor Kortlander returned to campus on Friday, February 17, and critiqued work of students.

Gordon Lee

Gordon Lee, Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the Columbus College of Art and Design concluded the series on February 16 at 7 PM with "Connection to Place in Contemporary Painting." Gordon presented his images and impressions of Hong Kong and explained how they related to his personal life. Gordon also met with the practicum class and did individual critiques.

Mariola Kwasek

Mariola Kwasek, a former Professor of Micaela Vivero, visited campus from March 27 - April 4. Born in Poland, Kwasek has been at the School of Contemporary Arts and Communication at Universidad San Francisco de Quito since 1988. Her weavings and paintings are inspired by landscapes in Ecuador. Mariola met with several classes and did weaving with the students in the Fibers class. She donated one of her weavings to the art department. Mariola also did individual critiques, with the help of an interpreter. She spoke to a couple of Modern Language classes and gave a public presentation, Weaver of Light, on Thursday, March 2. An interpreter from Modern Languages helped with that presentation. Mariola also attended the Spring Department Art Marathon. She worked on a piece from 7 pm until about 3 AM, before heading back to the Buxton Inn. Along with the Art Department, her visit was funded by Modern Languages and the Laura C. Harris Fund.