Visiting Artist Program Returns to USU's Art Department

Five distinguished artists and an art historian will travel to Utah State University this year as part of the Department of Art’s Visiting Artist Program. The program brings nationally and internationally known artists and writers to campus for two- to five-day visits to interact with students, faculty and members of the community. All guests present a public lecture that is free and open to the public.

The first guest this fall, art historian and photographer Joel Snyder, is on campus and opens the Visiting Artist Program Sept. 16 and 17. His public lecture is Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m. in The Performance Hall (approximately 1090 E. 675 North, Logan). His talk, “Conceiving Photography,” deals with the history of photography and difficult questions about what photographs are.

 

Snyder will also meet with students and interested members of the community in an informal seminar Wednesday, Sept. 17, beginning at 9 a.m. in the Tippetts Gallery balcony (approximately 1200 E. 700 North) located in the Chase Fine Arts Center.

 

Snyder is a professor at the University of Chicago. His areas of specialization are the history of photography, theory of photography and film, history and theory of perspective, Medieval and Renaissance theory of vision, critical theory, aesthetics and the theory of representation. He has an extensive list of publications.

 

USU art department faculty member Alexa Sand described Snyder’s work and his place in the art world.

 

“Joel Snyder’s work is important because it deals with some of the deep questions that face us as artists and art historians,” Sand said. “In particular, there is the question of the relationship between representational works of art and what we think of as ‘reality.’ His visit is a great opportunity for our students to explore the philosophical basis of art making and art criticism, giving them a more intellectual and sophisticated relationship to their own production and viewing of art.”

 

Snyder said it is important to look at the language used to discuss art.

 

“Introducing some critical rigor into the language we use to talk about art makes us better art historians and artists,” he said.

 

Snyder’s work has, over several decades, proven consistently rigorous and has pushed the disciplines of art history and especially photo-criticism in new directions, challenging comfortable ideas about what it means to make and to view pictures, Sand said.

 

Future guests in this year’s Visiting Artist Program include painter Alexis Rockman from New York (Nov. 11), photographer Steve Smith from Rhode Island (March 23), potter Chris Gustin from Massachusetts (April 1) and graphic designer Golan Levin from Pennsylvania (April 8). All guests are selected and invited to USU as a result of their national and international reputations, the ways in which their art reflects diversity with respect to the media used, and their varied backgrounds. The Visiting Artist Program organizes the visits and coordinates the additional lectures, workshops, group discussions and possible exhibitions by the artists. All activities are free and open to the public.

 

The presentations and discussions offer a unique opportunity for the northern Utah audience to interact with artists and scholars, said program director Marilyn Krannich.

 

The Visiting Artist Program is funded by a grant from the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Utah Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Utah Arts Council, with funding from the State of Utah, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

For information about the Visiting Artist Program at USU, contact Krannich (435)797-7373.

 

 

Contact: Marilyn Krannich (435) 797-7373
Source: Art Department