Speaking on early Picasso, 2 June 2023 in New York City

Speaking on early Picasso, 2 June 2023 in New York City
I’m delivering a paper, “Subliminal Sexual Positioning: Picasso’s Placements of Texts, Before the Demoiselles,” at the 2023 annual conference of the Society for Textual Scholarship. This year’s conference theme is “Design and Text”; it will be at The New School, 65 West 11th Street. My panel, "Making Texts Visible," is on Friday, June 2 (1:15-2:30 p.m.), Room 407. A full conference program is [here].

"Consideration As an Antidote to Critique" discussed in Iceland

"Consideration As an Antidote to Critique" discussed in Iceland
A nice surprise!  My essay “Consideration As an Antidote to Critique” was chosen by Jóhannes Dagson, a philosopher and a visual artist, for discussion at Nýló (the Living Art Museum) in Reykjavik on March 2, 2023. The moderator was Anna Líndal, who also edited the “Contagion” issue of VIS: Nordic Journal of Artistic Research in which I published an exposition reflecting on drawings I made during pandemic lockdowns. The “Consideration” essay started as a CAA presentation in 2013 (for the panel “Critiquing Criticality”) and was published in the anthology Beyond Critique: Contemporary Art in Theory, Practice, and Instruction (ed. Pamela Fraser and Roger Rothman, Bloomsbury 2017).

Open Studios at the Core program, in Houston -- April 8, 2023

On Saturday, April 8, 2023, 3-5 p.m., the Core program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston held an Open Studios event.

"Made Strange" at Core exhibition, March-April 2023

"Made Strange" at Core exhibition, March-April 2023
“Contact Personalities” was a group show that was part of the annual MFAH Core exhibition, running March 8 through April 14, 2023 in the Orton Gallery on the third floor of the Glassell School of Art at the MFAH. It was curated by my critical studies colleague, Valentin Dianocov, and reflected on various aspects of the “alien” and alienation. I painted a pedestal (using the materials and methods of gallery painting) to defamiliarize viewers’ spatial experience of the pedestal.

Visiting Artist-Critic at MICA, February 2023

On February 21, 2023, I spent an inspiring day with MFA students at the Leroy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, at Maryland Institute College of Art. Individual and group discussions about their work were probing, generous, and thorough. Many thanks to Director Joan Waltemath for inviting me, and especially for requesting an artist’s talk that included art, writing, and how they intertwine.

Moderated panel on Hebrew letters in visual art

On May 19, 2022, I moderated the online "Artist Panel: Working with Hebrew and Yiddish Type" for the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The panelists -- Lynne Avadenka (MI), Gabriella Boros (IL), Noam Sienna (MI), and Shani Avni (NY) -- use various media including drawing, printing, and calligraphy, and I opened the event with an overview of some conceptual and historical frameworks. The panel was curated by Robyn Awend (MN) who also uses Hebrew letters in her artwork.

Article published on "Designing for a New Wilderness" at Harvard's GSD

On May 19, 2022, my article about three Spring 2022 courses dealing with the wilderness, at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, was published on the GSD website. “Redefining Wilderness: How Designers are Grappling with the Radical Interconnectedness of Nature and Culture” contains details about courses by professors Nina-Marie Lister, Chris Reed, and Abby Spinak.

Lecture on April 7: “New Angles on Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’”

Lecture on April 7: “New Angles on Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’”
On Thursday, April 7, 2022, during the annual exhibition of the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, I gave an in-person lecture about new ways of viewing Picasso’s landmark painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. For more details, click <here>.

Core Program exhibition in Houston, March-April 2022

Core Program exhibition in Houston, March-April 2022
The 2022 Core Program Exhibition ran March 10 – April 22, 2022 in the Glassell School of Art, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. I had two mixed-media drawings in our group exhibition in the Orton Gallery, Sketches & Addenda. The base texts are book reviews of the most recent monograph on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting that is the topic of my ongoing research.

Article published on my corona-era drawings

Article published on my corona-era drawings
My article about the drawings I have been making during the pandemic, “Viral Drawings: Transmission BC / QT / AV,” was published 10/19/21 in VIS: Nordic Journal for Artistic Research. The theme of issue #6 is “Contagion” (guest editor: Anna Líndal), so I considered the drawings in terms of both physical and intellectual transmissions.

Article published on “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”

Article published on “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”
My article, “Books at the Borders of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” was published in the journal Textual Cultures (vol. 14, no. 1, August 2021, pp. 147-73). This essay was originally accepted as a presentation for an annual Society for Textual Scholarship conference, which was due to happen at the University of Pennsylvania in March 2020, but which was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Artwork chosen for Jason McCoy Drawing Challenge XXII

Artwork chosen for Jason McCoy Drawing Challenge XXII
This drawing, “Untitled (Whispers)” (graphite and charcoal on paper, 28 x 22 inches), was chosen in May 2021 to be exhibited online by the Jason McCoy Gallery in Manhattan, in response to an excerpt from Joan Didion's Blue Nights (2011):  
“Time passes.
Memory fades, memory adjusts,
memory conforms to what we think we remember.”

Presented on Gertrude Stein at Society for Textual Scholarship annual conference

Presented on Gertrude Stein at Society for Textual Scholarship annual conference
I presented a short paper, “What If… Alternative Sources for Well-known Items by Gertrude Stein,” during a lightning round at the annual conference of the Society for Textual Scholarship. The panel took place online on May 22, 2021, and I offered new ways to account for “A rose is a rose...” as well as “I am I because my little dog knows me” and the conceptual framework behind The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.