Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist series features Polak, Scott
calendar icon23 Jan 2018
Lincoln, Neb.--Jenny Polak and Dread Scott will present the next Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist Lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 31.
The lecture begins at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. It is free and open to the public.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s 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.
Polak makes site/community responsive art that reframes immigrant-citizen relations, amplifying demands for social justice. Scott makes revolutionary art to propel history forward.
Polak examines detention centers, resistance to prison expansion, border control and strategies for surviving hostile authorities. Her work has been supported by NYFA, the Graham Foundation and Franklin Furnace, among many others.
Originally from England, Polak’s art draws on her background in architecture and includes public and socially engaged projects such as architectural installations, drawings and useful commemorative objects.
Scott first received national attention in 1989 when his art became the center of controversy over its use of the American flag while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The U.S. Senate outlawed his artwork when they passed legislation to “protect the flag.”
Scott is a recipient of grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, the MAP Fund, the Pollock Krasner Foundation and has been awarded a Socially Engaged Artists Fellowship from A Blade of Grass Foundation. He has been written about in The New York Times, Art In America, Sculpture Magazine, ArtNews, Artforum, Art21 Magazine, Time, The London Guardian and several other newspapers, magazines and books. He has appeared on numerous local and national TV and radio shows including Oprah, The Today Show, and CBS This Morning speaking about his work and the controversy surrounding it.
The couple's collaborations on state violence and transgression complement their solo work. In 2017 they were awarded a Camargo Foundation residency to work on a new collaboration exploring the intersections of contemporary migration from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe with the legacy of forced migratios of the slave trade.
The remaining lectures in the series are:
• Feb. 21, 2018: Sarah McEneaney. McEneaney’s paintings, drawings and prints are in many public collections, including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Woodmere Art Museum, The Neuberger Museum SUNY Purchase, Rhode Island School of Design, Mills College Museum of Art, The Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, Johnson and Johnson and Microsoft Corporation.
• Feb. 28, 2018: Trevor Amery. Amery represented the U.S. at the 2012 Kathmandu International Art Festival and has exhibited at such venues as Kiasma, the Skanzen Museum, MAMU Galerie, Moore College, and Gallery Protocol. He is currently exhibiting at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and is an artist in residence (A.I.R.) at Bemis in Omaha.
• March 28, 2018: Patricia Johnston. Johnston studies how early American arts were influence by global trade, especially trade with Asia. She is the Rev. J. Gerard Mears, S.J., Chair in Fine Arts and Chair of the Visual Arts Department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester Massachusetts, and a nationally recognized scholar of American art and its wider visual culture.
• April 5, 2018: Robert Storr. Storr is an artist, critic and curator. He was appointed professor of painting/printmaking and dean of the Yale University School of Art in 2006 and was named the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean in 2014.
• April 11, 2018: Raun Hoffman. Hoffmann is primarily known for his work in ceramics, but his practice is varied. He also produces art in other mediums including painting, printmaking, cartoons for tapestries and commercial product design.
Each lecture begins at 5:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 15. The lectures are free and open to the public.
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.