From the Chair

Oct 22, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

I often revisit texts which have had an impact on me in the past. Reading them in the present re-positions those essays, chapters, and books in my personal knowledge map. Some move toward the front, some recede into the background. It is a kind of knowledge tourism...

From the Chair

Oct 15, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

Leaving the airport in Phoenix, Arizona last week, I took a cab to my next destination. I chatted with the driver about sports, in particular baseball, and he told me about sports he played growing up in Somalia, games that sounded like stickball or capture the flag...

From the Chair

Oct 8, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

BANKSY AUCTION STUNT LEAVES ART WORLD IN SHREDS My class this morning, was discussing the aggressive and often violent ideas of the Futurists and others in the early part of the 20th century. I was still thinking about Tomasso Marinetti, Tristan Tzara, and other...

From the Chair

Oct 1, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

The very principle of photography is that the resulting image is not unique, but on the contrary infinitely reproducible. Thus, in twentieth‐century terms, photographs are records of things seen. -John Berger, Understanding a Photograph In John Berger’s book, About...

From the Chair

Sep 17, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

Earlier today I spoke to my class about context, and how important it is to critique or engage a work of art in-situ, within the context of its own time and space and within the political framework of its era, as well as the expressed desires of its makers. I saw an...

From the Chair

Sep 10, 2018 | Essay, From the Chair

Quite regularly I walk by a small printed sign on a door in the art building. It may be on the woodshop door or another studio, but I remember the text of the sign quite distinctly: Go forward with curiosity not expectations. Artists and creatives tend to post...