For each week that Art=Text=Art was on view at the Zimmerli Art Museum (September 4, 2012 – January 6, 2013), we invited one moderator to lead a conversation about a particular aspect of the art on display. Below are links to these open discussions, which were managed by Nathan Langston.
The Creative Potential of a Blank Sheet
September 4, 2012
Marilyn Symmes, Curator of Drawings and Prints & Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts at the Zimmerli Art Museum, leads a discussion inspired by Ed Ruscha, Robert Barry, John Fraser, Bronlyn Jones, and Jill O’Bryan.
Dancing About Architecture
September 10, 2012
Nathan Langston leads a discussion on the ancient Greek concept of Ekphrasis and how it applies to this exhibition of contemporary drawings. Nathan considers the works of Frank Badur, Trisha Brown, Ray Johnson, Jón Laxdal, and others.
Code
September 17, 2012
Emily Sessions, doctoral student at Yale University, leads a discussion on the intersection between artwork and the chart, examining works that encode information–or just give the impression of doing so. The discussion focuses on works by Stephen Dean, Mark Lombardi, Stefana McClure, and Lawrence Weiner.
Word is a Two-Sided Act
September 24, 2012
Patricia Brace, Part-time Lecturer, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, explores issues of authorship, originality, appropriation, and adapting texts originated by others, as exemplified by selected works in the exhibition.
Reading into Things
October 1, 2012
Artist and wordsmith Karen Schiff thinks about how artists “turn their reading into things,” generating physical works from the act of reading.
Banal Details
October 8, 2012
Susan L. Miller, a Russell Teaching Fellow at Writers House, in the English department of Rutgers University, considers John Waters’s 35 Days and looks at how many of the works in Art=Text=Art transform commonplace aspects of life into something worthy of our attention.
Verbal and Visual: Arguing into Each Other
October 15, 2012
Bob Grumman, author of April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagoras Times Now (2008) and columnist for Scientific American, discusses the territorial battle or game that takes place as language and image strive for preeminence within a single work.
Writing as Ritual
October 22, 2012
Artist and writer Susanna Harwood Rubin leads a discussion on the ritual significance of writing, typing, inscribing, and drawing as forms of meditation or purging. Looking at works by Elena del Rivero and Annabel Daou, Rubin asks, “When is the act of writing a meditation that produces meaning? And when can the point of writing be the ritual itself?”
What Does a Drawing Sound Like?
October 29, 2012
N. Elizabeth Schlatter, co-curator of Art=Text=Art and Deputy Director & Curator of Exhibitions, University of Richmond Museums, considers how to engage sound when looking at several works in the exhibition.
Drawing=Choreography=Drawing
November 5, 2012
Jeff Friedman, Dance History and Theory Associate Professor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, leads an exploration of drawings by experimental choreographer Trisha Brown.
Language as Lure
November 13, 2012
Artist Annabel Daou has several works in Art=Text=Art. Join her in conversation as she thinks about how language can be used to draw a viewer into a work–in a manner that image cannot.
Organizing the World: Charts, Graphs, and Tables
November 19, 2012
Kate Scott, Graduate Curatorial Assistant at the Zimmerli Art Museum, examines the ways in which many of the works in Art=Text=Art organize information.
Meaning, Pictures, and Reality
November 26, 2012
David Backer examines the connection between Ludwig Wittgenstein and the works of Mel Bochner and the metaphysically significant interplay between meaning and pictures.
Drawing With Words
December 3, 2012
Artist Molly Springfield refocuses the discussion upon how many of the works in Art=Text=Art use words to record “such things as cannot be described by words.” In using drawing techniques to create physical space, these works expand the traditional mode of drawing.
Erasure is a Point Between Absence and Presence
December 9, 2012
Donna Gustafson, Andrew W. Mellon Liaison for Academic Programs & Curator at the Zimmerli Art Museum, asks how erasure measures against making marks.
