Panel: Serious Play: Radical Publications and Their Histories is March 11
calendar icon04 Mar 2021
Lincoln, Neb.—An art history panel discussion titled “Serious Play: Radical Publications and Their Histories” will take place virtually on Thursday, March 11 at 5:30 p.m. via Zoom. The panel is presented by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln School of Art, Art History & Design’s Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Lecture Series.
The panel discussion is free and open to the public. Access the panel at https://unl.zoom.us/j/91088525799.
The panel will feature Sampada Aranke, Assistant Professor of Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Julia Neal, Lecturer in African American Art History, Georgia State University; Alexis Salas, Assistant Professor of Art History, New Mexico State University; and Kieran Jack Wilson, a Lincoln photographer and activist.
The panel focuses on the role of printed ‘zines, broadsheets and signage in activist histories, and considers those histories’ effect on art and design movements of today. Each speaker will deliver a short five-minute talk exploring the ways that print material plays a key role in mediating global crisis, followed by a conversation moderated by Wilson.
“’Serious Play’ is an exciting event because it brings activists and scholars together to talk about media history and theory, art history and visual culture,” said Assistant Professor of Art History Katie Anania, who organized the panel. “It should be of great interest to makers and thinkers across campus, especially those interested in gender and race.”
Aranke’s research interests include performance theories of embodiment, visual culture and black cultural and aesthetic theory. Her work has been published in e-flux, Artforum, Art Journal, Equid Novi: African Journalism Studies, and Trans-Scripts: An Interdisciplinary Online Journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California Irvine. Aranke is currently working on her book manuscript titled “Death’s Futurity: The Visual Life of Black Power.”
An art historian, curator and writer, Neal specializes in modern and contemporary art within the United States, focusing on performance and conceptual-based practices attuned with, or impacted by, the politics of identity and its role within postwar sensibilities toward nationalism and transnationalism. Neal has contributed essays and articles to the International Review of African American Art Plus, Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others. She is currently writing her dissertation on Fluxus artist Benjamin Patterson titled “Who Taught You to Think (Like That): Benjamin Patterson’s Conceptual Aesthetic.”
Salas is an art historian of global modern and contemporary art with a specialization in the Americas (Latin America and the LatinX United States). Her curatorial projects, courses and scholarship explore fine art, as well as visual and material culture and emphasize the voices of people of color, as well as feminist and queer critique. Her recent scholarship focuses on digital activism in the Americas. Her first book, “Disparity at Play: The Artists and Projects of Temístocles 44 (Mexico City, 1991-2003),” currently a manuscript in progress, looks at how an artist collective in Mexico City used the conditions of neoliberalism to produce subversive collective projects. Her second book will focus on the relationship of art (practices, markets, patrons) and oil.
Wilson is a visual artist and activist whose passions are motivated by a need to contribute to the valuation and dignity of people, pleaces and things. The breadth of his work has grown to encompass not just varying art mediums, but varying topics. With his photography, Wilson as documented public health projects overseas. Using videography, he has drawn attention to the crisis of housing inequality worsened by the pandemic. And through public art installations, he has helped generate unavoidable conversations in his community around current civil rights movements, namely the Black Lives Matter movement.
The remaining spring schedule for the Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series includes:
• March 24: Deb Schwartzkopf, ceramics, 5:30 p.m. Schwartzkopf is a Seattle-based studio potter making fine porcelain tableware through Rat City Studios. Ceramics Monthly awarded her Ceramic Artist of the Year in 2019.
• March 31: Joel Damon, foundations, 5:30 p.m. Damon is co-founder and co-curator of Project Project, an independent, DIY contemporary arts space in South Omaha, Nebraska.
• April 7: Noel Anderson, printmaking, 5:30 p.m. Anderson is area head of printmaking in New York University’s Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions. Anderson utilizes print-media and arts-based-research to explore philosophical inquiry methodologies.
• April 14: Kristian Bjornard, foundations, 5:30 p.m. Bjornard is a designer, educator and sustainabilitist. He is the director of The Office of Kristian Bjornard, a graphic design practice focusing on books, identities, websites and digital tools.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln 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.
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.
For more information on the series, contact the School of Art, Art History & Design at (402) 472-5522.