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Last Wednesday Lunch Program

  • Photos of KSU School of Art and Design Professors: Jonathan Fisher, Matt Haffner, Joseph Karg, and Joe Remillard.

    Last Wednesday Lunch

    Last Wednesday Lunch is a monthly, half-hour lecture series offering visitors quick, weekday opportunity to connect with art and ideas on display at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. Each event will take place from 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm and will feature a new guest speaker.

    The spring 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch program will feature faculty artists represented in the Spring 2021 Faculty Exhibition. Each month several faculty members will share their perspective on the creative work they practice. Each of these lively and provocative prerecorded talks will be unique and may cover such topics as inspiration, ideation, process, or problem-solving. They will be delivered through virtualArtsKSU. Please RSVP to receive your link to the recording.

    We look forward to shining a spotlight on many of the wonderful artists we are honored to have in our KSU community.

    Featured image of SOAAD Professors: (clockwise from top left) Jonathan Fisher, Joseph Karg, Matt Haffner, and Joe Remillard. 

EQUINOX Symposium Programming  

  • Cover of Diane Burko's publcation, "Endangered: From Glaciers to Reefs."

    Diane Burko and JD Talasek virtual lecture

    Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm 

    As part of the international forum EQUINOX, scheduled to take place virtually March 15 – 19, 2021, the ZMA will feature programming supporting the 2021 United Nations sustainable development goal of Climate Action. CIFAL Atlanta, a center of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research housed at Kennesaw State University, works to make the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals more widely known and implemented. The virtual lecture will be moderated by Cynthia Nourse Thompson and Elizabeth Thomas of the ZMA.  

    Diane Burko, a research-based artist whose practice is grounded in the intersecting arenas of art, science, the environment, and climate action will discuss her collaborations and investigations with scientists, which augment her ongoing study of the natural world and climate change in a 45-minute lecture presentation. Her expeditions from the ice fields in Greenland and Antarctica to the glaciers in New Zealand, to the coral reefs in American Samoa have served as inspiration for her paintings. Public engagement is integral to her practice. Burko often participates in symposia with the scientific community to create a bridge between art and science and contributes to podcasts, blogs, interviews – all speaking to the urgency of environmental issues. 

    Following Diane Burko’s talk, noted curator and scholar JD Talasek will discuss his work as a curator and director of cultural programs at the National Academy of Sciences, both of which explore the intersections between science, medicine, technology, and visual culture. His work has also focused on climate action. In 2014, Talasek curated the exhibition Imagining Deep Time, and more recently was affiliated with the exhibition, Endangered: From Glaciers to Reefs, both of which included the work of Diane Burko. Talasek serves on an advisory panel that is currently exploring the creation of an art exhibition program at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

    • Photo of artist at work, Diane Burko.

      Diane Burko’s practice is at the intersection of Art, Science and the Environment focused on climate change. As a research-based artist, she collaborates with scientists, using their data, visiting their labs and bearing witness. She has investigated the ice fields of Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard and Alaska as well as Antarctica, Argentina’s Patagonia, and the melting glaciers in New Zealand’s southern alps. She next tackled our ocean’s coral reef eco-systems, making expeditions to Hawaii and American Samoa. She most recently spent a month exploring Chile’s Rapa Nui and Atacama Desert - yet another area of the world threatened by climate change.  
       
      Such experiences augment her ongoing study of the natural world inspires a studio production resulting in over 100 exhibitions throughout the country. Her work is found in such institutions as The Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Hood Museum, Michener Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tang Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art and the Zimmerli Museum.  
      Public engagement is integral to her practice. Burko often participates in symposia with the scientific community to create a bridge between art and science, and contributes to podcasts, blogs, interviews – all speaking to the urgency of global warming, urging her audiences to reject fossil fuel dependency and be responsible citizens. 

      “My inclination to witness, translate, and communicate scientific information is expressed through paintings, photographs and time-based media. It’s how I personally and professionally counter climate doubt – it’s my way of entering into the public discourse with the goal of moving the viewer to reflect, take responsibility and act.” 

       

    • Photo of curator, JD Talasek

      JD Talasek is the director of Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington DC), a program that is focused on the exploration of intersections between science, medicine, technology, and visual culture. He was the creator and organizer of the international on-line symposium on Visual Culture and Bioscience and co-editor of the published transcripts (distributed by D.A.P., March 2009). The second in this series of on-line symposia, Visual Culture and Evolution, was held from April 5 through April 14, 2010. Talasek is creator and moderator for a monthly salon called DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER) held at the NAS focused on cross-disciplinary discussion and community building. In 2014, Talasek will assume the position of Scholar in Residence at the Umlauf Museum and Sculpture Garden, Austin, Tx where he will help develop a Texas Art Science Evening Rendezvous program similar to the one in DC.

      Talasek holds an MFA in studio arts from the University of Delaware, an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, and BS in Photography from East Texas State University. He is currently on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in the Museum Studies Masters Program.

      Talasek has curated several exhibitions at the National Academy of Sciences including Imagining Deep Time (2014), Visionary Anatomies (toured through the Smithsonian Institution, 2004 - 2006), Absorption + Transmission: work by Mike and Doug Starn, The Tao of Physics: Photographs by Arthur Tress, Cycloids: Paintings by Michael Schultheis. At the University of Delaware, he organized and curated Observations in an Occupied Wilderness: Photographs by Terry Falke and LightBox: the Visual AIDS Archive Project. Additionally, Talasek serves on the Contemporary Art and Science Committee (CASC) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

      He is the art advisor for Issues in Science and Technology Magazine published by the University of Texas at Dallas, Arizona State University and The National Academies. Talasek is chair-elect for Leonardo’s Art Education and Forum. He is a member of: the College Art Association; Society of Photographic Educators; the Society for Literature, Science and Art; and the American Association of Museums.

      He was born in 1966 in Dallas, Texas.

    HERstory Month: Women’s Leadership in the Arts Lecture Series

    • Photo of Alice Gray Stites

      HERstory Lecture: Alice Gray Stites

      Friday, March 19, 2021, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm  

      Stites curates exhibitions and oversees commissions, cultural programming, and museum operations for 21c Hotel’s multiple venues, in addition to collaborating with founders Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown on art sourcing and acquisitions. Stites will discuss her work as a prominent curator in the field and will also focus on her exhibition, The Future is Female, which is on view at the 21c Hotel in Durham. 

      “Thirty years ago, theorist Judith Butler published her influential book, Gender Trouble, which posits that gender is performative, challenging the binaries long established by the patriarchy: “Precisely because ‘female’ no longer appears to be a stable notion; its meaning is as troubled and unfixed as ‘woman.’” The fluidity of gender and sexual identity is today widely accepted, and yet as the art featured in The Future is Female illuminates, the struggle for equality and inclusion persists: much progress is needed before Woolfalk’s fantasy of the utopian world of the Empathics reflects lived reality.”, states Stites regarding the exhibition. 

      Prior to this role with 21c, Alice was Director of artwithoutwalls, Adjunct Curator for the Speed Art Museum, and has served in various editorial roles for ARTnews, Contemporanea, and Art & Auction. 

      Funding for this speaker was provided by the COTA DEI Committee Guest Lecture Grant.

      • Alice Gray Stites is Museum Director and Chief Curator at 21c Museum Hotels. A multi-venue museum founded by collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, 21c is located in Louisville, Cincinnati, Bentonville, Durham, Lexington, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Kansas City, and Chicago. Stites curates exhibitions, site-specific installations, and a range of cultural programming at all 21c Museum Hotels, and oversees the curation, maintenance, and conservation of a 3,500- works collection of contemporary art, which includes painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, VR and AR. In addition, 21c actively loans to and from the collection to domestic and international institutions. Between 2012 and 2020, 21c has commissioned twenty-five site-specific, permanent installations by artists from the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

        21c also collaborates on arts initiatives with artists and other cultural and civic organizations worldwide. Under Stites’s leadership, 21c has engaged in collaborative exhibitions and programs with Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, North Carolina Museum of Art, Speed Art Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Creative Capital Foundation, FotoFocus, Creative Time, ArtPrize, Pen & Brush, For Freedoms, EXPO Chicago, and others. Since opening in Louisville in 2006, 21c has presented over 100 exhibitions. Recently, Stites has curated Hybridity: The New Frontier; Aftermath: Witnessing War, Countenancing Compassion; Seeing Now; Wild Card: The Art of Michael Combs; Dis-semblance: Projecting and Perceiving Identity; Albano Alfonso: Self-Portrait As Light; Labor&Materials, Fallen Fruit: The Practices of Everyday Life; The Future is Female; Truth or Dare: A Reality Show; The SuperNatural; Refuge; Wim Botha: Still Life with Discontent; and This We Believe.

        Prior to joining 21c as Chief Curator in 2011, Stites was director of artwithoutwalls, a non-profit, non-collecting public arts organization, curating exhibitions and installations in Louisville, Miami, and Stockholm. Stites began her career as an arts writer and editor in New York, at Art&Auction, ArtNews, Contemporanea, and Abbeville Press. From 1995-2006 was adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Speed Art Museum, where she curated The Theatre of Self-Invention; The Body in Pieces; Contemplating the Contemporary Still Life: Mary Ann Currier, A Retrospective; and other exhibitions; and she worked with the patrons’ group that supports acquisitions of contemporary art. Stites has lectured at universities and conferences such as Art Basel Conversations, Leaders in Software and Art, TEDx Stockholm, Moving Image Spotlight, PULSE Perspectives, the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, NewInc at the New Museum, Creative Mornings, Skift Global Forum, and FotoFocus, and has served on juries including ArtPrize, FotoFocus, the Kentucky Triennial, PULSE Prize, Moving Image New York, and Creative Capital Foundation, where she served as lead juror, visual art, for the 2019 awards. In addition to numerous exhibition texts, Stites is the author of Ansel Adams, The National Park Service Photographs (Abbeville Press, 1994); Contemplating the Contemporary Still Life: Mary Ann Currier, A Retrospective (Speed Art Museum, 2005), and Wim Botha: Still Life with Discontent (North Carolina Museum of Art/21c, 2019). Stites graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia, and holds an M.A. from Columbia University. In 2019, Observer listed Stites on the Arts Power 50: The Changemakers Shaping the Art World.

      • Judith K. Brodsky

        HERstory Lecture: Judith K. Brodsky 

        Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm 

        Judith Brodsky is an artist, author, printmaker, and founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper which she relocated from New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the newly named Brodsky Center at PAFA. The Center is highly acclaimed for a prominent history of consistently and extensively supporting women artists, artists of color, and artists who have historically been under-represented in the arenas of printmaking, papermaking, contemporary art and in museum collections. Producing over 300 collaborative editions in handmade paper and print with a broad range of established and emerging artists, diversity has always been the prevailing hallmark of the Center’s mission and remains a testament to Brodsky’s far-reaching dedication to inclusivity. She will discuss The Brodsky Center, as well as her recent book, Junctures: Case Studies in Women’s Leadership, in which she and Ferris Olin profile female leaders in music, theater, dance, and visual art. The diverse women included in the book have made their mark by serving as executives or founders of art organizations, by working as activists to support the arts, or by challenging stereotypes about women in the arts. The contributors explore several important themes, such as the role of feminist leadership in changing cultural values regarding inclusivity and gender parity, as well as the feminization of the arts and the power of the arts as cultural institutions.

        “There will never be too many books teaching Women’s Herstory. Brodsky and Olin’s case studies describe the outrageous and humiliating strangleholds all women have endured and continue to face. Brodsky and Olin champion us to reach our goals.” 
        -- Elizabeth A. Sackler, PhD ― Founder, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum 


        “New histories need to be written. Preserving stories that complicate and enrich mainstream narratives is vitally important, and the inspired and inspiring contributions groundbreaking women have made to our cultural world deserve to be celebrated. In addition to leading this charge themselves in their own remarkable careers, with the publication of Junctures in Women’s Leadership: The Arts, Judith Brodsky and Ferris Olin have given us the gift of expanding the canon through these remarkable case studies in creative leadership in the arts.” 
        -Catherine Morris ― Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Brooklyn Museum 

        Funding for this speaker was provided by the COTA DEI Committee Guest Lecture Grant.

        Photo of Judith K. Brodsky by Andrea Warriner.
        • Photo of Jennifer Inacio

          HERstory Lecture: Jennifer Inacio

          Friday, March 26, 2021, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

          Jennifer Inacio will present a lecture on her recent group exhibition,  
          at the Pérez Art Museum Miami titled MY BODY, MY RULES. This exhibition examines the mainstream portrayal of women, confronting the stereotypes, violence, limitations, and ideals imposed on the disputed image of the female body. Featuring a roster of approximately 20 diverse women artists working across mediums—including painting, sculpture, photography, and video—the works in the show are unified by a strong commitment to contemporary discussions on gender, race, body politics, resilience, and self-representation amid today’s social landscape.  
           
          MY BODY, MY RULES is conceived as a chant of empowerment, with the aim of stimulating awareness and asserting women’s authority and power over their own experiences. By condemning inequalities, revisiting traditional roles, deconstructing labels, and reclaiming power, the works in this exhibition offer a platform from which to reflect on contemporary female image narratives through a feminist lens. Together with a number of accompanying programs, the exhibition showcases the artists’ diverse cultural influences, prompting a collective, in-depth dialogue on how women have the right to own their lives and their bodies.

          Funding for this speaker was provided by the COTA DEI Committee Guest Lecture Grant.

          • Jennifer Inacio is associate curator at Pérez Art Museum Miami. She recently curated MY BODY, MY RULES (2020) and is currently working on the upcoming exhibition Felipe Mujica: The Swaying Motions on the Bank of the River Falls (2021). At PAMM she has curated Barbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Estás vendo coisas (2019); Pedro Neves Marques: A Mordida (2018); the museum's first Augmented Reality exhibition Felice Grodin: Invasive Species (2017–20); and Sid Grossman: Photography, Politics, and the Ethical Image (2018). She has been involved in developing and conceptualizing public programs at PAMM, where she has curated the film series Black Audio Film Collective at PAMM (2017), along with other exhibition related symposia. Inacio holds a Masters in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London (2014). She is an ambassador of The55Project. 

           

          National Poetry Month Programming

          • Photo of writer and poet, Tom Sleigh.

            Virtual lecture and reading: Tom Sleigh

            Tuesday, April 6, 2021, at 7:00 pm

            Tom Sleigh's many books include House of Fact, House of Ruin, Station Zed, Army Cats (John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), and Space Walk (Kingsley Tufts Award). His most recent book of essays, The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees, recounts his time as a journalist in the Middle East and Africa. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, A Lila Wallace Award recipient, and has received two NEA grants in poetry. His new book of poems,The King's Touch, will be published by Graywolf in 2022. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Threepenny Review, Poetry,The Southern Review, and many other magazines. He is a Distinguished Professor in the MFA Program at Hunter College. 

            Sleigh will discuss his work as a writer and journalist, and how his work has been integrated into the artwork of Lesley Dill. In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, Lesley Dill will provide a virtual lecture on Friday, April 9, 2021 at 12:00noon – 1:00pm that will address the use of language and poetry in her artwork and will additionally provide insight into her artistic studio practice where the intersection of language and fine art materialize as printmaking, sculpture, installation and performance and explore the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Dill transforms the emotions of the writings of Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Tom Sleigh, Franz Kafka, and Rainer Maria Rilke, among others, into works of paper, wire, horsehair, foil, bronze and music—works that awaken the viewer to the physical intimacy and power of language itself.

            • Tom Sleigh was born in Mount Pleasant, Texas. He attended the California Institute of the Arts and Evergreen State College, and earned an MA from Johns Hopkins University. Sleigh is the author of several books of poetry, including House of Fact, House of Ruin (Graywolf Press, 2018); Station Zed (Graywolf Press, 2015); Army Cats (Graywolf Press, 2011), winner of the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Space Walk (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award; and Far Side of the Earth (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), winner of an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also published a translation of Euripides's Herakles and two books of essays, The Land between Two Rivers: Poetry in an Age of Refugees (Graywolf Press, 2018) and Interview with a Ghost (Graywolf Press, 2006).

             

            • Photo of artist, Lesley Dill

              Lesley Dill Artist Lecture

              April 9, 2021,12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

              Location: online in Zoom, link provided to registered guests one week prior

              The Zuckerman Museum of Art will host a one-hour virtual lecture with renowned artist Lesley Dill on Friday, April 9, 2021 at noon via Zoom. This virtual lecture event is in conjunction with Some Early Visionaries, an exhibition in our Fine Arts Gallery featuring drawings and collages by Lesley Dill. The exhibit will be on view in our Fine Arts Gallery from Tuesday, March 16 through Saturday, April 10, 2021. 

              • Lesley Dill is an American artist working at the intersection of language and fine art in printmaking, sculpture, installation and performance, exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Dill transforms the emotions of the writings of Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Tom Sleigh, Franz Kafka, and Rainer Maria Rilke, among others, into works of paper, wire, horsehair, foil, bronze and music—works that awaken the viewer to the physical intimacy and power of language itself.

                Dill has had over one hundred solo exhibitions. Her artworks are in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2017 she was named a fellow of The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and is a Joan Mitchell Foundation Creating A Living Legacy artist and grant recipient.  Her opera, Divide Light, based on the poems of Emily Dickinson, was performed in San Jose in 2008. In April of 2018 the New Camerata Opera Company performed a re-staged version in New York City which was captured in a full-length film by Ed Robbins.

                In November 2019, Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans presented a collection of her work titled Drawings: Some Early Visionary Americans. In 2021, the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa will stage her exhibit Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me, which amplifies voices of the North American past as they wrestle with divinity, deviltry, and freedom.

                The artist is represented by Nohra Haime Gallery in New York and Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans.

                Lesley Dill lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

               

             

            Drawing in the GalleryDrawing in the gallery

            Time: Temporarily paused, usually Thursdays from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
            Location: Zuckerman Museum of Art

            RESERVE YOUR SPOT FOR SPRING EVENTS NOW

            Are you looking for more opportunities to practice your observational drawing skills? Or perhaps you would like to try drawing from life for the first time without enrolling in a costly course? Please join us on Thursday nights starting on September 10th for an opportunity to draw from life!

            Each week we will rotate the drawing location in our galleries and the subject of the program between a clothed model, nude model, and objects from our collection. This program is a bring-your-own material event – pencil and paper only. The museum will provide drawing boards to participants upon request.

             

            We appreciate all the love that has been demonstrated for Drawing in the Gallery this past semester! It is wonderful to see so many people practicing their drawing skills at the ZMA! We look forward to hosting this program again on Thursday nights in the spring semester, starting January 28, 2021. Check back for an updated schedule!

              • Date
                Gallery Location
                Subject
                Guest Artist?
              • 1/28/2021
                 
                 
              • 2/4/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 2/11/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 2/18/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 3/4/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 3/11/2021
                N/A
                Closed
                KSU Spring Break
              • 3/18/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 3/25/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 4/1/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 4/8/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 4/15/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 4/22/2021
                 
                 
                 
              • 4/29/2021
                 
                 
                 

            For our guests' safety, extensive cleaning protocols have been implemented. Please be aware of the following new policies and procedures for our Drawing in the Gallery program series:

            • Masks are required at all times in the ZMA.
            • We will now limit the number of participants at each Drawing in the Gallery event to 10 visitors.
            • Reservations ensure available seating as space is limited.
            • Guests have the option of signing up one or both of our 1-hour drawing blocks.
            • Seating will be provided to visitors at a safe distance from fellow participants.
            • We ask each visitor to remain in their selected seat and ask a staff member to assist with the movement of the seat if you wish to relocate during the drawing session.
            • We ask that all non-cohabitating patrons maintain a 6' social distance at all times.
            • We ask that all patrons follow the suggested traffic pattern as they move through the ZMA.
            • Hand sanitizing stations can be found at the entrances to the Museum and the entrance to both galleries.
            • Patrons without reservations are welcome but will gain access to our space on a first-come, first-served basis determined by the Museum's maximum capacity.

            Please direct any questions to Elizabeth Thomas, ethom142@kennesaw.edu.

            Coloring Pages

            Need a new activity? Activate your hands and quiet your mind with coloring pages shared by ZMA exhibiting artists. Download them here.

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