Visual Arts lecture series

BENNINGTON- Bennington College’s Spring Visual Arts Lecture Series centers on the theme “Transvisualities: Crossings, Counter-narratives, Collaborations” with lectures from Chitra Ganesh, Dr. Monica Bravo, Cyle Metzger, ‘08, Vincent Valdez, Candice Hopkins, Clyde Petersen, and Lauren Halsey. All lectures are free, open to the public, and will take place from 7 to 8:30 pm in Tishman Lecture Hall on the college’s campus.
On Tuesday, March 5, Ganesh will speak as the 2019 Adams-Tillim Lecturer. The Adams-Tillim Lecture was established in 1992 by alumnus David Beitzel in honor of former visual arts faculty members Pat Adams and the late Sidney Tillim, both of whom Beitzel studied with while at Bennington. The annual lecture brings leading visual artists, curators, and critics and art historians to campus.
Ganesh’s wide-ranging works (charcoal drawings, digital collages, films, web projects, photographs, and wall murals) are focused on the marginalized and excluded figures and narratives in art, history, and literature. Ganesh’s work presents alternative narratives in which women possess a dangerous sexuality and are invested with strength and power.
Beitzel died suddenly in January. He was a well-known gallerist and private art dealer in New York who specialized in international contemporary art, with a focus on new emerging talent. He was actively engaged with the college since receiving his MFA in Painting in 1983; he served as trustee from 1995 through 1999, as a volunteer for a range of other efforts, and hosted many alumni events in his SoHo gallery over the years.
On Tuesday, March 26, VALS welcomes Bravo, assistant professor of history and theory of photographic media at California College of the Arts, who specializes in the history of photography and the modern art of the Americas. Bravo’s current book project examines exchanges between United States modernist photographers and modern Mexican artists working in painting, poetry, music, and photography, resulting in the development of a greater American modernism in the interwar period.
On Tuesday, April 2, Metzger returns to campus. Now a doctoral student in the art history department at Stanford University studying art and architectural history as it relates to queer history and theory, Metzger is particularly interested in working with the visual materials of transgender history and culture.
On Tuesday, April 16, Valdez, an artist most recognized for his monumental portrayal of the contemporary figure, will speak. Valdez most recently garnered national attention over the sale of his “The City I,” a larger-than-life depiction of modern day Klansmen purchased by the University of Texas at Austin.
On Tuesday, April 30, VALS welcomes curator and writer Hopkins. She is co-curator of the Canadian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, opening in May, which will feature the media work of Isuma Productions, a collective based in Igloolik and Montreal. Her recently published essays include “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind and “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier” for the documenta 14 Reader.
On Tuesday, May 14, Petersen, a Seattle-based artist working in film, animation, music, installation, and fabulous spectacle, will speak. Petersen is the director of “Torrey Pines,” an autobiographical stop-motion animated feature film, which premiered in October 2016 and toured the world with a live score. He travels the world with his punk band Your Heart Breaks and hosts the internet film series “Boating with Clyde” in a small handmade boat in the Washington Park Arboretum.
VALS concludes on Tuesday, May 21 with a lecture from Halsey, winner of Hammer Museum 2018 biennial’s $100,000 Mohn Award. Halsey works at the intersection of art, architecture, fantasy and community engagement to pay homage to the people and places that are important to her and address the social justice issues with which people of color, the queer community, and the working class are particularly concerned.
For more information and schedule updates visit www.bennington.edu/events.