The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Art, Art History and Design will bring eight artists to campus this fall as part of the annual Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series.
The series brings notable artists, scholars and designers to Nebraska each semester to enhance the education of students. Each lecture takes place at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall, Room 15. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Opening the fall series is visual and performance artist Vanessa German, who will present her lecture Sept. 4.
German is based in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood, which is the driving force behind her powerful performance work. As a citizen artist, German explores the power of art and love as a transformative force in the dynamic cultural ecosystem of communities and neighborhoods. She is the founder of Love Front Porch and the ARThouse, a community arts initiative for the children of Homewood.
Her work is displayed in the private and public collections of Everson Museum of Art, Figge Art Museum, Flint Institute of Arts, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, David C. Driskell Center, Snite Museum of Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College.
German’s art has also been featured in CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Huffington Post, O Magazine and Essence Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2015 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, the 2017 Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2018 United States Artist Grant and, most recently, the 2018 Don Tyson Prize from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
Sept. 11: Bill Arning, contemporary art advisor based in Houston, Texas. Arning was the director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston from 2009-2018 and was previously the curator at MIT’s Last Visual Arts Center from 2000-2009.
Sept. 18: Aleksander Wozniak, printmaker. Wozniak is a Poland-based artist, printmaker and teacher at the University of Warmia and Mazury in the city of Olsztyn.
Oct. 9: Dornith Doherty, photographer. A 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Doherty’s work has been featured in exhibitions around the world and in publications such as American Way magazine, BBC’s Focus magazine, National Geographic and New Yorker.
Oct. 16: Suzanne Hudson, art historian and critic. A Los Angeles-based art historian and critic, Hudson is associate professor of art history and fine arts at the University of Southern California. She writes on modern and contemporary art, with an emphasis on abstraction, painting, art pedagogy and American philosophy.
Oct. 30: Lauren Gallaspy and Sunkoo Yuh, ceramicists. These guest artists are also sponsored by the UNL Clay Club. Gallaspy is a studio artist in Los Angeles, who was recognized by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts as an Emerging Artist in the field in 2013. Yuh is professor at the Lamar Dodd School at the University of Georgia in Athens. His current focus is on type of architectural-scale sculpture and pushing his medium to its limits of size.
Nov. 6: Sara Langworthy, book artist. Langworthy lives and works in Iowa City, Iowa, where she maintains a private studio and is associate professor of practice at the University of Iowa Center for the Book.
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 and Design at 402-472-5522 or email schoolaahd@unl.edu.
