The Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar lectures continue in October with presentations featuring five artists and scholars. Each lecture will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Sheldon Art Museum’s Ethel S. Abbott Auditorium. The lectures are free and open to the public.
On Oct. 9, Linda Fernandez and Keir Johnston will present a lecture. They are founding members of Amber Art and Design, an artist collective based in Philadelphia that creates public art through engagement with community members. Fernandez is a multicultural artist, muralist and educator specializing in public art and community engagement. Johnston has worked with a wide range of populations—including incarcerated youth, prisoners serving life sentences elders, students and individuals with disabilities—leading them in mural production and community-based art projects.
On Oct. 16, Margaretta Lovell, a cultural historian working at the intersection of history, art/architectural history and anthropology, will present the lecture. She holds the Jay D. McEvoy, Jr., Chair in the History of American Art at the University of California Berkeley and studies material culture, painting, architecture and design in England, France and North America from the 17th century to the present.
Finally, on Oct. 30, Adrian Arleo and Jane Shellenbarger will present successive lectures. Their visit is sponsored by the UNL Clay Club. For the last 32 years, Arleo has lived and worked in Missoula, Montana. Her ceramic work is exhibited nationally and internationally and is in numerous public and private collections. In 1995, she was awarded a Montana Arts Council Individual Fellowship. Shellenbarger is a professor and graduate program director at Rochester Institute of Technology in the School for American Crafts. She established her studio pottery, Mill Station Pottery, in rural Hale, Michigan, in 1997.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
• Nov. 6: Julia Blaut. Blaut is the senior director of curatorial affairs at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Celebrating the artist’s centennial, Blaut will deliver a lecture about Rauschenberg’s enduring legacy with special attention to his prints.
• Nov. 20: Pablo Helguera. Helguera is a visual artist living in New York and often considered a pioneering figure in the field of socially engaged art. His practice involves performance, drawing, pedagogy, installation, theater and other literary strategies. Coming from a family of classical musicians, his work also frequently includes musical elements.
• Dec. 4: Kristina Paabus. Paabus is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores systems of power, particularly in Soviet and post-Soviet contexts. Working primarily in printmaking, she exhibits internationally and teaches at Oberlin College, where she is associate professor of studio art in reproducible media.
The School of Art, Art History & Design’s Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series brings notable artists, scholars and designers to Nebraska each semester to enhance the education of students. The series is presented in collaboration with Sheldon Museum of Art.
Underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment with additional support from other sources, the series enriches the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design. Each visiting artist or scholar spends one to three days on campus to meet with classes, participate in critiques and give demonstrations.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522 or e-mail schoolaahd@unl.edu.