Enjoy winter break!

Winter classes begin January 6, 2020.

Tom Cramer (American, b. 1960) is widely known for his intricate relief paintings, which celebrate the lushness of nature and the mysteries of the cosmos. This exhibition explores his parallel practice in drawing.

Dissolving the artificial boundary between human society and wild nature is the goal of this special exhibition, featuring work from two of the artist’s recent series, "Dreams Before Extinction" and "Under the Earth, Over the Moon."

Spend three weeks in the unique landscape of the Greek islands and Athens to receive six quarter credits. Through a series of lectures, fieldwork, daily excursions to archaeological sites and museums, contemporary galleries, and engagement with land and sea, students will have the opportunity to weave their experience of place and consideration of history and art into the practice of making art. Our methods will be interdisciplinary and open to various modes of expression, which might include but are not limited to, drawing and painting, text, performance, photography, sound, and video. The emphasis is less on a technique or process and more on developing a methodology that creatively articulates your response to your surroundings and experience of travel. 

 

Program Dates:

Summer - June 22 - July 12

Application Deadline(s):

Priority - February 15 (receive $100 program discount)

Final - March 15

Find out more or APPLY TODAY!

https://geo.uoregon.edu/programs/greece/studio-art-in-athens

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: “Wearables: Helpful or Harmful”

Starting by reviewing two recent exhibitions Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher curated at SFMOMA- Far Out: Suits, Habs and Labs (2019) and Designed in California (2018), that include a trajectory of wearables from the spacesuit to personal health monitors- this presentation will also include newer wearables which dictate behavior and define well-being and will be followed by a conversation on who benefits from wearables, biodesign and neuroaesthetics.

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher is the Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design and Head of the Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Since 2008, she has organized several key acquisitions and exhibitions with a focus on bold visionary works of design from the late 20th century to today. Her recent curatorial projects include Far Out: Suits, Habs and Labs for Outer Space (co-curator) (2019), The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment and Idealism (co-curator) (2018), Designed in California(2018), Typeface to Interface (co-curator) (2016) and forthcoming projects Tatiana Bilbao: Architecture from Outside In (2020), Conversation Pieces (2020) and Neri Oxman (2021). She holds a B.A. in Art History from New York University in Art History, a M.A in Curatorial Studies from Bard College and a M.Des in Architecture History and Theory from Harvard University.   

This lecture is sponsored by the Departments of Art, Architecture, History of Art and Architecture, and Product Design.

A Necessary Irritant, a 90-minute roller coaster ride through the Ceramic Revolution, is the final lecture on luminary intellectual and provocateur Garth Clark’s last international tour. This multi-media presentation draws from over 80 books, 400 monographs, essays, and reviews that Clark has authored over the last five decades to weave his biography with seminal moments in Contemporary Ceramic Art throughout the 20th and 21st century. This event is organized in collaboration with the Center for Art Research, the Portland Art Museum, and Eutectic Gallery and is hosted by the Northwest Art Council.

Garth Clark, known for his wit, deep scholarship, and innovative curatorial projects, has been a leading voice in contemporary Craft and Ceramics since the 1970s. Clark first discovered his interest in Ceramic Art during his upbringing in South Africa. After receiving his master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, London, in modern ceramic history he became an expert in British pottery and is responsible for some of the field’s most seminal works about 19th, 20th, and 21stcentury Ceramics. He co-founded and co-operated Garth Clark Gallery in Los Angeles, Kansas City, New York London with Marc Del Vecchio for 27 years before becoming the founding Editor-in-Chief of CFile Foundation, an online journal and publishing enterprise.

 

Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, curator, and educator based in Portland, OR. Wiggers is the Director of the recently launched Master of Arts in Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College, North Carolina. This low residency program, the first of its kind, focuses on critical and historical craft studies. She is the Director and Co-Founder of Critical Craft Forum, an online and on-site platform for dialogue and exchange about craft, with an active and lightly moderated international Facebook Group of more than 12,000 members, host of annual sessions at College Art Association since 2009, and  soon-to-be-relaunched podcast. From 2014-17, Wiggers taught in MFA Applied Craft + Design, co-administered by Oregon College of Art + Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, Oregon College of Art + Craft, and at Portland State University. From 2004-14, she served as Curator (2004-2012) and then Director and Chief Curator (2012-14), Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR.

Wiggers contributes regularly to online and in-print journals and books. She serves on the Editorial Boards ofGarland magazine and Norwegian Crafts; from 2014-18, Wiggers served as the Exhibition Reviews Editor, The Journal of Modern Craft. Recent curatorial projects include: Across the Table, Across the Land with Michael Strand for the National Council on Ceramic Education in the Arts; Everything Has Been Material for Scissors to Shape, a textile-focused exhibition at the Wing Luke Museum of Asian American Experience, Seattle; a forthcoming publication with Wiley Blackwell Publishers; and Gender + Adornment, an ongoing research project with Benjamin Lignel.  She serves on the Board of Trustees, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and is a former board member of the American Craft Council, and The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design.

Julia Haft-Candell: “Building a Visual Vocabulary”

“I work intuitively and analytically, building from a conceptual groundwork that questions language, semiotics, identity and gender. Drawing influence from Philip Guston, Audre Lorde, Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse, my work uses humor and sensibilities of the handmade to critique systems of power and absurdities of existence. My most recent body of work expanded from a 2017 printed zine titled Glossary of Terms and Symbols in which I created personal definitions for historically symbolic forms, such as infinity symbols, arches and knots. The new sculptures refer to symbols of intersection, such as hands interlocking, a foot stomping on mud or water slipping between fingers. They capture my reaction to current political situations, specifically feelings of frustration, struggle and a search for empathy. I consider the trajectory of my work to be one continuous body evoking movement and motion through universal symbols to address an overarching primordial narrative.” - Julia Haft-Candell, 2019

Julia Haft-Candell (b. 1982, Oakland, CA) received a BA from University of California, Davis before graduating from the MFA program at California State University, Long Beach in 2010. She spent a summer residency in 2016 at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison, ME, and has been awarded multiple grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation and most recently the California Community Foundation Fellowship in 2019. Haft-Candell has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally, and is represented by Parrasch Heijnen Gallery in Los Angeles.

In this farcical, intentionally inept PowerPoint presentation, Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi dons her persona as Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Metaphysical & Digestive Clown Research to offer findings on the art world, camp aesthetics, and (naturally) their correlation to ancient human sacrifice. You'll laugh along as Carla lampoons the sometimes disingenuous realm of art theory and inspires us to think about why we look at art and its subjects the way we do. The performance will be followed by a longer, sincere artist talk—with Anthony Hudson taking over from underneath the clown makeup—followed by Q&A and conversation with the audience, for a two-hour total engagement.

Cosponsored by the University of Oregon Office of the President, LGBT Education and Support Services, Department of Art, and Department of the History of Art and Architecture, with additional support from Carolee von Shillagh.  

Included with regular admission; free for MNCH members and UO ID card holders. Show your Oregon Trail or other EBT card for an admission discount.  

Theo Triantafyllidis: “Escapism: The Boundaries of Virtual Space”

In this lecture, artist Theo Triantafyllidis will present recent work together with a sneak peek in current projects and behind the scenes material. The focus of the presentation will be on the use of the game engine as an artistic tool and the construction of alternative realities, performative systems and open narratives. 

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, GR) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and the interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Sargent’s Daughters and Young Projects. He was part of Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.