VALS Lecture—Dara Birnbaum—Tuesday Dec 4, 6:30pm

 

VALS: Dara Birnbaum
Tuesday, December 4th, 6:30-8pm
Prentis 101
Dara Birnbaum is an American video and installation artist. Birnbaum entered the nascent field of video art in the mid-to-late 1970s challenging the gendered biases of the period and television’s ever-growing presence within the American household. Her oeuvre primarily addresses ideological and aesthetic features of mass media through the intersection of video art and television. She uses video to reconstruct television imagery using materials such as archetypal formats as quizzes, soap operas, and sports programmes. Her techniques involve the repetition of images and interruption of flow with text and music. She is also well known for forming part of the feminist art movement that emerged within video art in the mid-1970s. Birnbaum currently lives and works in New York.

Poster by Rachel LaBine, MFA ’19

VALS Lecture—Lynne Tillman—Tuesday Nov 27, 6:30pm

 

 

 

VALS: Lynne Tillman
Tuesday, November 27th, 6:30-8pm
Prentis 101
Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. Her novels are Haunted HousesMotion SicknessCast in DoubtNo Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and American Genius, A Comedy. Her nonfiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965–1967, with photographs by Stephen Shore; Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co.; and What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Her most recent short story collections are Someday This Will Be Funny and The Complete Madame Realism. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital Arts Writing Fellowship. Tillman is Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at The University of Albany and teaches at the School of Visual Arts’ Art Criticism and Writing MFA Program in New York. She lives in Manhattan with bass player David Hofstra.

Poster by Kate Liebman, MFA ’19

VALS Lecture—Alex Da Corte—Tuesday Nov 20, 6:30pm

VALS: Alex Da Corte
Tuesday, November 20th, 6:30-8pm
Prentis 101
Alex Da Corte was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1980. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art. His most recent solo exhibition THE SUPƎRMAN, was held at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, Germany (2018) Other recent solo exhibitions include C-A-T SPELLS MURDER, Karma Gallery, New York, New York (2018) Slow Graffiti, Secession Building, Vienna, Austria; A Man Full Of Trouble at Maccarone Gallery, New York; 50 Wigs at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark; A Season in He’ll at Art + Practice, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Free Roses MASS MoCA, North Adams (2016); Die Hexe at Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York; Devil Town at Gio Marconi, Milan; Le Miroir Vivant at The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2015); Easternsports at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2014, together with Jayson Musson). Da Corte’s work was also included in 57th Carnegie International. Past group exhibitions include Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; the 13th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France among many others. In 2012, Da Corte was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

 

Poster by Cara Lynch, MFA ’20

VALS Lecture—Seth Price—Tuesday Nov 13, 6:30pm

 

 

VALS: Seth Price
Tuesday, November 13th, 6:30-8pm
Prentis 101
Seth Price (born December 13, 1973, East Jerusalem)
In 2017-2018, Seth Price presented a comprehensive survey exhibition, Social Synthetic, at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands which then travelled to the Brandhorst Museum, Munich, Germany. His exhibition Danny, Mila, Hannah, Ariana, Bob, Brad was on view at MoMA Ps1 over the summer of 2018. He will have a forthcoming exhibition at the Petzel Chelsea gallery in November 2018. He also has had solo exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Art, London; MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy; Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland; Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, England (with Kelley Walker); Petzel Gallery, New York; Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan, Italy (with Michael Smith); Artists Space, New York; and Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York. Group exhibitions include dOCUMENTA (13), the 2011 Venice Biennale ILLUMInations, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Altermodern, the fourth Tate Triennial at Tate Britain, UK; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Le Plateau, Paris; Air de Paris, Paris; Greater New York at P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Kunsthalle Basel; SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York; the 2002 and 2008 Whitney Biennials; 2003 Ljubljana Biennial; Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Florida; and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, among others.
His video works have been screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival; Tate Britain, London; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Eyebeam, New York; and Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Saint-Gervais, Geneva, among others.
His work is included in the collections of the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Price currently lives and works in New York.

Poster by Vikram Divecha, MFA ’19

VALS Lecture—Jennifer Packer—Thursday Nov 8, 6:30pm

 

VALS: Jennifer Packer
Thursday, November 8th, 6:30-8pm
Prentis 101
Jennifer Packer creates expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that suggest a casual intimacy. Packer views her works as the result of an authentic encounter and exchange. The models for her portraits – commonly friends or family members – are relaxed and seemingly unaware of the artist’s or viewer’s gaze.
Packer’s paintings are rendered in loose line and brush stroke using a limited color palette, often to the extent that her subject merges with or retreats into the background. Suggesting an emotional and psychological depth, her work is enigmatic, avoiding a straightforward reading. “I think about images that resist, that attempt to retain their secrets or maintain their composure, that put you to work,” she explains. “I hope to make works that suggest how dynamic and complex our lives and relationships really are.”
Born in 1984 in Philadelphia, Jennifer Packer received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2012. She was the 2012-2013 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, from 2014-2016. Her most recent solo show, Tenderheaded, exhibited at the Renaissance Society, Chicago in the fall of 2017 before traveling to the Rose Museum at Brandeis University in March of 2018. Packer currently lives and works in New York and is an assistant professor in the painting department at RISD.
Poster by Susanna Koetter, MFA ’19

VALS Lecture—Sable Elyse Smith—Tuesday Oct 23, 6:30pm

 

 

Sable Elyse Smith

Tuesday, October 23

Prentis 101

6:30pm

 

Sable Elyse Smith is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator based in New York & Richmond Virginia. Using video, sculpture, photography, and text, she points to the carceral, the personal, the political, and the quotidian to speak about a violence that is largely unseen, and potentially imperceptible.  Her work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art,  MoMA Ps1, New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem,  SIGNAL Gallery, Rachel Uffner Gallery, and Recess Assembly, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Artist Television Access, San Francisco, CA; Birkbeck Cinema in collaboration with the Serpentine Galleries, London. Her writing has been published in Radical Teacher, Studio Magazine and Affidavit and she is currently working on her first book. Smith has received awards from Creative Capital, Fine Arts Work Center, the Queens Museum, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Franklin Furnace Fund, and Art Matters. She is currently Assistant Professor of Sculpture & Extended Media at the University of Richmond.
 Poster by Rafael Domenech, MFA ’19

VALS Lecture—Naama Tsabar—Tuesday Oct 16, 6:30pm

 

Naama Tsabar

Tuesday, October 16

Prentis 101

6:30pm

 

 

Naama Tsabar (b. 1982, Israel) Lives and works in NYC. received her MFA from Columbia University in 2010. Solo exhibitions and performances of Tsabar have been presented at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, Museum of Art and Design (New York), The High Line Art (New York), Kunsthuas Baselland, Switzerland, Palais De Tokyo (Paris), Prospect New Orleans, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Herziliya Museum for Contemporary Art in Israel, MARTE-C (El Salvador), Frieze Projects New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York), Paramo Gallery (Guadalajara), Dvir Gallery (Israel), Spinello Projects (Miami). Selected group exhibitions featuring Tsabar’s work include TM Triennale, Hasselt Genk, Belgium, ‘Greater New York’ 2010 at MoMA PS1, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens (Belgium), The Bucharest Biennale for Young Artists, Hessel Museum of Art at CCS Bard, Casino Luxembourg (Luxembourg), ExtraCity in Antwerp (Belgium).Tsabar’s work has been featured in publications including ArtForum, Art In America, ArtReview, ARTnews, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Frieze, Bomb Magazine, Art Asia Pacific, Wire, and Whitewall, among others.

 

Naama Tsabar in Bomb Magazine

Naama Tsabar at the Guggenheim (video)

Naama Tsabar in the Creative Independent

Naama Tsabar in Artforum

VALS Lecture—Justine Kurland—Thursday Oct 11, 6:30pm

 

 

Justine Kurland

Thursday, October 11

Prentis 101

6:30pm

 

Justine Kurland, known for her utopian photographs of American landscapes and their fringe communities, has spent the better part of the last twenty years on the road. Following in the photographic lineage of Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, and Joel Sternfeld, Kurland’s work examines the story of America—and the idea of the American dream juxtaposed against the reality. Since 2004, Kurland and her young son, Casper, have traveled in their customized van, going south in the winter and north in the summer, her life as an artist finely balanced between the demands of a parent and the demands of her work. Casper appears at different ages in the photographs, against open vistas and among the subcultures of train-hoppers and drifters around them. Kurland’s vision is in equal parts raw and romantic, idyllic and dystopian.

Recent work departs from the road trips she is known for and returns home: her apartment in New York City, her hometown of Fulton, New York, and her mother’s home in rural Virginia. Kurland invaginates fragments of this life (her cat, lovers, a bloodied tampon) with allusions to a matrilineage including Carolee Schneemann, Betty Tompkins, Judy Chicago, Hannah Wilke, and Emily Roysdon.

Justine Kurland (born in Warsaw, New York, 1969) received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and her MFA from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited extensively at museums in the United States and internationally. Recent museum exhibitions include The Open Road at the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan; More American Photographs, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; and Off the Grid #1 and #2, Fotodok, the Netherlands. She was the focus of a solo exhibition at Mitchell-Innes and Nash this spring and a two-person exhibition at Higher Pictures this summer, both in New York City. Her work is in the public collections of institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and International Center of Photography, New York, as well as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, among others.

Justine Kurland in Conversation with Her Son, Casper (via Aperture)

Justine Kurland for the New York Times Magazine

Justine Kurland in the New Yorker

 

 

VALS Lecture—Jon Kessler—Tuesday, Oct 2, 6:30pm

 

Jon Kessler

Tuesday, October 2nd, 6:30pm

Prentis 101

 

With his chaotic kinetic installations, Jon Kessler (b. 1957, Yonkers, New York) critiques our image-obsessed, surveillance-dominated world. His machines are at once complex and lumbering, combining mechanical know-how with kitschy materials and images. Structurally complex and narratively engaging, Jon Kessler’s multimedia sculptures often deliver an emotional punch beyond their humble means. With his distinct vocabulary, Kessler taps into our all-too-real modern-day anxieties, but at the same time, spirits us away into an exciting wonderland that is ultimately uplifting.

 

VALS Lecture—Rafa Esparza—Tuesday, Sept 25, 6:30pm

Rafa Esparza
Tuesday, September 25th
Prentis 101
6:30pm

rafa esparza is a multidisciplinary artist who was born, raised, and is currently living in Los Angeles. Woven into esparza’s bodies of work are his interests in history, personal narratives, and kinship. He is inspired by his own relationship to colonization and the disrupted genealogies that come forth as a result. Using live performance as his main form of inquiry, esparza employs site-specificity, materiality, memory and (non)documentation as primary tools to interrogate and critique ideologies, power structures and binaries that problematize the “survival” process of historicized narratives and the environments wherein people are left to navigate and socialize. esparza’s recent projects have evolved through experimental collaborative projects grounded by laboring with land vis a vis adobe, a labor inherited by his father Ramon Esparza, where the artist shares institutional space and resources to invited Brown and Queer artists and cultural producers. esparza is invested in working in the local geographies that are the Southwest including Mexico and Latin-America.

He has performed in a variety of spaces, public and private, throughout Los Angeles including AIDS Project Los Angeles, Highways Performance Space, REDCAT, Human Resources, Vincent Price Museum, LACE, has shown around the U.S. in places that include The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ballroom Marfa, and internationally at Oficina de Procesos, Mexicali, El Museo del Chopo, Mexico city, was part of the 2018 spring cohort at Artpace Artist in Residence program in San Antonio, Texas, and recently led a guerrilla processional performance with over 25 artists through the historic fashion thoroughfare market The Santee Alley as part of his project de la Calle at the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles summer of 2018.
press:     artforum / la times / bomb / frieze / x-tra