Assignment due 04.05.12: Parsons Visiting Artist Lecture Series

Part of Parsons Visiting Artist Lecture Series
Wednesdays at 6:15pm in Kellen Auditorium
66 Fifth Ave., Lobby

Choose one of the following lectures to attend. Both of these artists engage with particular communities. Write a 2 paragraph response to their work, as well as how they presented it, and post it here as a comment. If you attend and comment on both lectures, we'll give you extra credit. Be prepared to discuss in class on 04.05.12.

Feb 22 – Doug Ashford
Doug Ashford is a teacher, artist and writer. He is Associate
Professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
where he has taught three-dimensional design, sculpture, public art
and theory seminars since 1989. Ashford’s principle visual practice
from 1982 to 1996 was the artists’ collaborative Group Material that
produced over 40 exhibitions and public projects internationally.
Group Material developed the exhibition into an artistic medium and
critical site where audiences were invited to imagine democratic
forms. Since 1996, Ashford has continued to make paintings, write, and
produce museum and public projects. His most recent public effort
ended in the production of the book Who Cares, (Creative Time, 2006),
a publication built from a series of conversations between Ashford and
an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression,
beauty, and ethics. Currently he is most occupied with painting
pictures.

March 21 – Antonio Vega Macotela
Antonio Vega Macotela lives in Mexico City and Amsterdam. He graduated
from The National School of Fine Arts ENAP-UNAM in 2001 where he began
his public and social art research. His work is multidisciplinary,
site-specific and often engages particular communities. It explores
notions of exchange, specifically regarding currency as a mediation
device through which social relations are established. His recent
project Time Exchange proposed the replacement of money with a
time-sharing system. He carried out this project through individual
exchanges with inmates at the Santa Martha Acatila prison in Mexico.
He was the co-editor of the publication Multiple Media 2 in 2008. His
works have been exhibited in such places as the Museo de Arte Moderno
(MAM), Museo Carrillo Gil, the Laboratorio Arte Alameda Mexico City
and the 29th Sao Paolo Biennial (Brazil). He is currently in residence
at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and his work is featured in the
Generational exhibition at The New Museum.