Lincoln, Neb.--Ten artists will be presenting Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar lectures this fall in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Art, Art History & Design. The series begins with conceptual artist and photographer Mickey Smith on Sept. 4.
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.
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.
Smith is a master chronicler of libraries, having turned her camera to these repositories of knowledge for over 20 years. Her prolific series explores the life cycles of library collections and the dedicated labor of those who care for them. Her exhibition, “Morphologies,” presents Smith’s profound insights, showcasing work from her long-term documentary project “Volume,” alongside selections from “As You Will,” “Believe You Me,” “Denudation” and new work created during her residency at Macalester College’s DeWitt Wallace Library. The exhibition reflects Smith's deep engagement with her long-term subject, as well as her collaboration with Macalester College students and library staff during her residency from 2022-2024.
Smith’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally. Her works belong to public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library, North Dakota Museum of Art, Sheldon Museum of Art and Weisman Art Museum. She has received grants and awards from the McKnight Foundation, CEC Arts Link, Americans for the Arts and Creative New Zealand.
Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in photography from Minnesota State University Moorhead and a diploma in jewelry design from Hungry Creek Art & Craft School in New Zealand.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
• Sept. 11: Suze Lindsay. Lindsay owns and operates Fork Mountain Pottery in western North Carolina. She hopes her pots entice the user to enjoy everyday activities, inviting participation, promoting hospitality, starting a day with coffee in a comfortable mug, going out into gardens to fill a vase with freshly picked flowers, then to end the day with table settings, bowls full of food, candles lit in candlesticks, for an intimate dinner.
• Oct. 9: Linda Fernandez and Keir Johnston/Amber Art & Design. Fernandez and Johnston 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.
• Oct. 16: Margaretta Lovell. Lovell is a cultural historian working at the intersection of history, art/architectural history and anthropology. 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.
• Oct. 30: Adrian Arleo and Jane Shellenbarger. The UNL Clay Club welcomes two visiting artists who will present successive lectures on Oct. 30. 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.
• 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.
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.
