Past Events and Programs

Matthew Kirk: Windgate Artist-in-Residence Lecture

Thursday, November 7, 5:00pm at the ZMA

Matthew Kirk (b. 1978, Ganado, AZ) is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. A self-taught artist, Kirk has worked for over twelve years in New York City as a professional art handler— a trade that has often influenced his artistic practice in terms of utilizing readily available materials to make his art. His gestural paintings and abstract assemblages are steeped in symbolism and iconography that relate to the visual language of the Navajo, while his use of the grid as compositional armature takes structural inspiration from traditional Navajo weavings and rugs, as well as topographical maps and urban landscapes. Kirk states, “Just as family, work, current events, and city life are reflected in the work, my Indian heritage plays an important, but nuanced role.”

Artist Lecture with Jeffrey Gibson & Collector Jordan Schnitzer

Thursday, October 17, 7:30pm at the Morgan Concert Hall

In association with INTERCHANGE

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation presents a sweeping survey of over thirty-five objects spanning fifteen years. The exhibition includes prints, photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and video. The inclusion of contemporary adornment in fashion is influenced by intertribal powwows as well as the dance clubs where Gibson found safe spaces as a teenager. The exhibition’s centerpiece is an expansive and immersive work titled To Name An Other—fifty-one printed elk hide drums and fifty wearable garments, which was originally commissioned as a performance by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in 2019. Born in Colorado in 1972, Jeffrey Gibson is of Cherokee heritage and a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw. His vibrant work, which is represented in more than twenty permanent collections across the United States, is a call for Indigenous empowerment as well as queer visibility. Gibson has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Master of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art, London. Gibson is representing the United States at the Venice Biennale 2024—the first indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in the American Pavilion. This traveling exhibition is organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Washington State University and curated by Ryan Hardesty, Executive Director.

_{Organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Support for this exhibition and related education and outreach programs has been made possible by a grant from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.}

INTERCHANGE

Thursday, October 17, 7:00pm at the ZMA

The Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, a unit of the School of Art and Design, presents INTERCHANGE an annual collaboration featuring faculty from all disciplines of the College of the Arts. This unique presentation of live performances celebrates the creativity that all artistic disciplines share with one another and celebrates the many talents of our COTA faculty. This year, selected ArtsKSU faculty will perform in response to the exhibition Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. Jeffrey Gibson will be present to speak about his work and in conversation with Jordan Schnitzer who will also be in attendance.

Community, Empowerment, and Visibility: National Coming Out Day

Friday, October 11, 12:30pm at the ZMA

In partnership with Department of Student Engagement and Belonging & LGBTQ Center at KSU

Please join us at the Zuckerman Museum of Art on National Coming Out day for monologues from students in Theatre Performance Studies and an empowering words poster printing workshop! This event is a collaborative effort with Department of Student Engagement and Belonging and the LGBTQ Center at KSU.

Visiting Artist Lecture: Rhiannon Skye Tafoya

Friday, October 11, 10:00am via Zoom

Rhiannon Skye Tafoya is an interdisciplinary artist from the Eastern Band of Cherokee and the Santa Clara Pueblo Tribes. She earned a BFA in printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM, and an MFA in print media from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. She published her first artist book, Ul’nigid’ in 2020, and has exhibited work nationally and abroad in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She has been an artist-in-residence at notable institutions such as Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (Pendleton, OR) and Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA) and University of Iowa Center for the Book (Iowa City, IA.) Her work is housed in many special collections, including the US Library of Congress, Kohler Art Library, the Bainbridge Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Museum of the Cherokee People. She currently lives and works in Cherokee, NC. Tafoya will present an artist talk along with a selection of her prints, paper weavings, and artist books for viewing before presenting a demonstration on processes related to her artistic practice.

Printing for Pride

Wednesday, October 9, 11:00am at the ZMA

Join the Zuckerman Museum of Art and the LGBTQ+ Center to create a poster and t-shirt you can use at the 2024 Atlanta Pride Parade! Celebrate Pride with a hand-printed design made in the Museum and inspired by the colorful and complex art of queer artist Jeffrey Gibson.

Cherokee Printing: Then and Now

Thursday, October 3, 11:00am via Zoom

The ZMA will present an online conversation between an expert Cherokee syllabary scholar and printer, Frank Brannon and the curator of the KSU Cherokee collection held in the Bentley Rare Books Museum, JoyEllen Williams. Brannon will discuss his work creating a letterpress typeface of the Cherokee syllabary and using it to create hand-bound, hand-printed letterpress printed books in the Cherokee language.

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation Reception

Wednesday, October 2, 8:00pm at the ZMA

In partnership with Atlanta Art Week

Please join us for a special reception of Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation as we celebrate and support Atlanta Art Week's programming.

Virtual Artist Lecture: Didi Dunphy

Thursday, September 12, 7:00pm via Zoom

Didi Dunphy is the juror for the Art Educators Biennial on view in the Fine Arts Gallery at KSU from September 3 to October 4, 2024. Dunphy will discuss her artistic practice and her most recent exhibition that was installed at Whitespace in Atlanta. Didi Dunphy is the former Program Supervisor at the Lyndon House Arts Center, a civic arts campus dedicated to incorporating visual art and arts education with the mission of enriching the community of Athens GA, and beyond. Dunphy is a former Visiting Scholar and Professor in contemporary and digital media arts at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA, who works as an independent curator in partnership with regional art museums. Her current program, Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Picture This is traveling throughout the state.

man holding a walktalkie to his ear on the cover art for a comic book

Indigenous Resistance in Graphic Novels: Visual Stories That Lead

Tuesday, September 3, 4:00pm via Zoom & at the ZMA

In this virtual presentation with Indigenous Mvskoke Artist Johnnie Diacon, Diacon will present his recent graphic novel in conversation with KSU faculty Dr. Miriam Brown Spiers, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Graduate Program Director of American Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies coordinator and Shuchita Mishra, Assistant Professor in Illustration and Sequential Art, School of Art and Design.

Virtual Artist Lecture: Ato Ribeiro

Wednesday, April 24, 12:00pm via Zoom

Ribeiro will discuss his artistic practice and his newly commissioned work on view at the ZMA. Ribeiro is a multidisciplinary artist working in a variety of media including sculptural installation, drawing, and printmaking. He was born in Philadelphia, PA and spent his formative years in Accra, Ghana. He is currently serving as a 2022/2023 MOCA GA WAP Fellow and was recently a 2022 Atlanta Artadia Awardee and a MINT 2021 Leap Year Artist. Ribeiro was the 2017 Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Emerging Artist Award recipient, Artist in Resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany, and received Fellowships at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, The Studios at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Madison, ME among others. He earned his B.A. from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and his M.F.A. in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Mindful Drumming

Thursday, April 18, 2:00pm at the ZMA

Mindful Drumming is an experiential workshop based on the healing power of meditative drumming and mindfulness practices. Both traditions have been used by cultures around the world to help people better attune to themselves and others. Attend this hour-long workshop to learn and experience how drumming and mindfulness can help you relax, feel more alive, and even reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Instruments will be provided, and no musical experience is required.

Dr. Greg Stevens Ph.D.

This workshop will be led by Greg Stevens, a Licensed Psychologist and the Associate Director of Clinical Services at the Kennesaw State University Counseling and Psychological Services. Before training as a psychologist, Greg performed as a musician for over a decade. During his doctoral training, he had the unique opportunity to learn about meditative drumming and develop an ongoing therapy group with a colleague that incorporated this with mindfulness. He has since continued leading Mindful Drumming therapy groups and workshops for the past seven years.

College of the Arts Spring Faculty Research Forum

Thursday, April 11, 3:00pm at the ZMA

This year's COTA Spring Faculty Research Forum will include the following presentations:

Dasha Chapman: Grounding Practice: Dancing Haiti on Tè Glise

In this talk, Dr. Dasha A. Chapman discusses her first monograph, Grounding Practice: Dancing Haiti on Tè Glise, a multi-sited dance ethnography that traces the ways Haitian dance functions as a place-making practice through the teachings of six Haitian dancers in the years following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the compiling difficulties since.

Ed (Edward) Eanes: The Flashback Project

This presentation concerns the sustainability of an “Intangible Cultural Heritage ” (ICH, UNESCO, 2015b) with a focus on the band, Flashback, in Owings, South Carolina. This includes a description of the bi-weekly gatherings of the musicians who focus primarily on Old Time Music. The presentation will also address the community of listeners who support this tradition with personal donations as well the prospects for the preservation of this tradition.

Matt Haffner: Half Light – An Exhibition of Mixed Media Work

Abstract: Half Light is an exhibition of large-scale, site-specific installations, alongside mixed media artworks that address the artist’s personal narratives combined with mythology and historical folklore. These works use humble materials and simple processes elevated through innovation, attention to detail, and meticulous craft. This exhibition takes visitors on a visual journey of quiet landscapes at dusk that are interspersed with surreal and otherworldly experiences.

Ming Chen: Essential Vectorworks Skills for Scenic and Production Designers: Drawing, Modeling, Rendering, Drafting, and Presenting

The first book in the field of scene design that explores the application of state-of-the-art technology both as the subject of inquiry and as the method of content delivery. It aims at challenging traditional scenic and production design curricular in universities by mingling the teaching of various key scenic design skills in a single setting and with higher efficiency to meet today's industry demands for creative, competent, efficient, and competitive designers.

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Leandra Urrutia - Windgate Artist-in-Residence Lecture

Thursday, April 11, 12:00pm at the ZMA

Urrutia is the Windgate Artist-in-residence at the School of Art and Design for four weeks during spring semester 2024. In this lecture, the artist will share insights regarding new works created during her residency in the context of her evolving creative practice. See the Project Walls listings and her lecture on February 29th above for more on this artist.

College of the Arts Spring Undergraduate Research Forum

Wednesday, March 27, 2:00pm at the ZMA

This year's COTA Spring Undergraduate Research Forum included the following presentations:

Owen Anderson: Jazz Propaganda: The Cold War Jazz Ambassador Program

George Chavez: The Story of Their Misfortunes: Connecting Misfortune and Joy through Embodied Storytelling

Chloe Taylor: Exploring the Fluid of Gender Fluid through Twelfth Night and Ranma 1/2.

HERstory: Liz Andrews

Wednesday, March 27, 12:00pm via Zoom

Liz Andrews joined the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art as Executive Director in the fall of 2021. Prior to joining the Spelman Museum, Andrews was Executive Administrator in the Director’s Office of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her curatorial projects at LACMA included The Obama Portraits Tour and Black American Portraits, an exhibition covering 200 years of portraiture. Andrews holds a B.A. in American Studies from Wesleyan University, a M.A. in Arts and Politics from Tisch School of Arts at NYU, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from George Mason University. Andrews will discuss her career and work in the museum field.

Mindful Drumming

Thursday, March 21, 2:00pm at the ZMA

Mindful Drumming is an experiential workshop based on the healing power of meditative drumming and mindfulness practices. Both traditions have been used by cultures around the world to help people better attune to themselves and others. Attend this hour-long workshop to learn and experience how drumming and mindfulness can help you relax, feel more alive, and even reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Instruments will be provided, and no musical experience is required.

About the host: Greg Stevens Ph.D.
This workshop will be led by Greg Stevens, a Licensed Psychologist and the Associate Director of Clinical Services at the Kennesaw State University Counseling and Psychological Services. Before training as a psychologist, Greg performed as a musician for over a decade. During his doctoral training, he had the unique opportunity to learn about meditative drumming and develop an ongoing therapy group with a colleague that incorporated this with mindfulness. He has since continued leading Mindful Drumming therapy groups and workshops for the past seven years.

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HERstory: Allison Glenn

Wednesday, March 20, 12:00pm via Zoom

Allison Glenn will speak about her work as a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. She is one of the curators for the Counterpublic 2023 triennial, presenting the work of Sir David Adjaye OM OBE, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Maya Stovall, in collaboration with The Griot Museum of Black History and the George B. Vashon Museum.
Glenn received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the 2021 groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. The New York Times selected the exhibition as one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021.
Her writing has been featured in catalogs published by The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Prospect New Orleans, Princeton Architectural Press, Studio Museum in Harlem, California African American Museum, Kemper Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and she has contributed to Artforum, ART PAPERS, Hyperallergic, Fresh Art International, ART21 Magazine, and Gulf Coast Quarterly, amongst others. She was listed on the 2022 ArtNews Deciders list and the 2021 Observer Arts Power 50 List.

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HERstory: Sandy Edwards

Wednesday, March 6, 12:00pm via Zoom

Sandy Edwards will discuss her career and work in the museum field. Edwards recently concluded her role as senior director in January 2023, departing after a 15-year tenure with a significant focus on fundraising efforts and key initiatives that furthered the museum’s mission of providing access to all. Sandy Edwards’ career exemplifies her deep commitment during her 46-year career to improving quality of life through arts and education. Edwards joined Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2007, playing a vital role in the conception, planning, building and opening of Crystal Bridges. She was instrumental in the establishment of endowments for the museum’s operations, acquisitions, and capital improvements, as well as grants that provide free admission to the museum and underwrite the costs of school visits. Serving as deputy director, she has overseen departments responsible for growth in audiences, promoting access, fundraising, community development, and creating a national presence for the museum.

Prior to Crystal Bridges, Edwards and her late husband, Clay, served as the management team for University of Arkansas’s development program directing the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century. At Penn State University, she created the first comprehensive advancement program in the field of continuing and distance education at a university, where she held a post from 1992 to 1998. Prior to her involvement in university development, she was recognized nationally for her work in the fields of major concert promotion and performing arts. As an advocate of access to quality education, Edwards served as a trustee on the board of her alma mater, Lenoir Rhyne College; received the Penn State’s Outreach Pioneer Award for Distance Education; was named honorary alumna of the University of Arkansas; and received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters and Distinguished Alumna Award from Western Illinois University where she received a master’s degree.

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Virtual Artist Lecture: Renée Stout  

Tuesday, March 5, 3:30pm via Zoom

In association with the current exhibition, Reflections: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Future, Ten Years of the Zuckerman Museum of Art  at the ZMA, January 25 – May 11, 2024

The ZMA is pleased to announce artist Renée Stout will provide a virtual lecture about her work and artistic practices. Artwork by Stout is currently on view in the exhibition Reflections: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Future, Ten Years of the Zuckerman Museum of Art  at the ZMA from January 25 – May 11, 2024. These featured works by Stout were published by the Hand Print Workshop International with late master printer Dennis O’Neil and will become part of the ZMA permanent collection due to a generous donation by Dennis O’Neil’s wife. 
 
Renée Stout received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1980. Based  in Washington, DC, she is the recipient of awards from several institutions, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Driskell Prize, presented by the High Museum of Art. She was a 2018 recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art. Stout has shown throughout the U.S. and her work is in several national and international museums and private collections. She is an avid roller skater and perfume collector with over 300 bottles of contemporary and vintage scents.

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Permanent Collection Tour - Spotlight on Women Artists

Tuesday, March 5, 2:30pm at the ZMA

The Zuckerman Museum of Art and the KSU Women’s Resource Center will host a spotlight tour of the works of several important female artists in the ZMA permanent collection. Open to the campus and community at large, in this tour of limited focus, we will look closely at some new acquisitions of recently made art as well as works from decades past. How does gender play a part in the making and interpretation of art? How might that have changed over time? Join us for an examination of different approaches to artmaking and consideration of what was important to each woman in her approach. No experience necessary.

Permanent Collection Tour Spotlight on Women Artists will be in conjunction with the Virtual Artist Lecture with Renée Stout.

EQUINOX 2024

Friday, March 1, 1:00pm via Zoom

EQUINOX 2024: Emmeline Edwards and Susan Magsaman,
“The NeuroArts Blueprint: Advancing the Science of Arts, Health, and Wellbeing"

As an academic and artistic arena, the Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to partner with the KSU Research Center for Sustainable Communities during the annual EQUINOX Symposium to facilitate engaging lectures and exhibitions as presented through the lens of artistic practice and visual culture. The 2024 panel will focus on the arts serving as a catalyst for health and well-being. Speakers will include Emmeline Edwards, Director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and Susan Magsamen, Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab, a pioneering neuroaesthetics initiative from the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint in partnership with the Aspen Institute.

Additional speakers include Melissa Jordan Love, the Carol R. Angle Academic Curator of The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, and Marcia Day Childress, Professor Emerita of Medical Education and Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita of the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Love and Childress will also conduct on-site workshops at the ZMA utilizing works from the permanent collection on view in Reflections: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Future Ten Years of the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Mortin and Don Russell Clayton Galleries January 25 – May 11, 2024.

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Virtual Artist Lecture: Leandra Urrutia

Thursday, February 29, 7:00pm via Zoom

The ZMA is pleased to have ZMA exhibiting artist, Leandra Urrutia, jury the annual New Visions student exhibition. Urrutia, an object maker and storyteller based in Corpus Christi, Texas, will present a virtual lecture on her artistic practice. Borrowing parts of the human form, she makes powerful compositions and installations that showcase her wild and unconventional creative sense. Her studio work illustrates compelling female-centered struggles between body and mind, especially as one experiences injury, healing, and the aging process. Her Mexican American heritage, Catholic upbringing, interest in aggressive sports, and visits to China continue to bring an unorthodox influence on the ceramic and mixed media sculptures she dreams up.

Image Credit: Leandra Urrutia, Periphery, 2016, Chinese Stoneware and Wire. Courtesy of the artist.

True Beauty: Loving Oneself from the Inside Out

Thursday, February 29, 12:00pm at the ZMA

Beauty is often presented as an external construct. Body acceptance reinforces the notion that “true beauty” is not simply skin deep. Come to the ZMA for a meditative reflection and colorful drawing activity designed to put you in touch with the internal and external traits that make you beautiful. You will have an opportunity to view how various artists approach representation of the body in their art. Elizabeth Thomas and Nicole Phillips will guide this workshop focused on the ways your body has supported you thus far in life and the creation of art to celebrate that success! No experience is necessary to participate. All materials will be provided.

This is a KSU Love Your Body Week event sponsored in collaboration by the Zuckerman Museum of Art and KSU Counseling and Psychological Services.

2023

EQUINOX

Wednesday, March 1 | 1:00 - 3:00 pm

The multi-sponsored annual EQUINOX Week initiates and unfolds a diverse set of multidisciplinary programs across both KSU campuses in cross-sectoral dialogue with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Fostering cross-pollination, team formation, and action, EQUINOX brings together institutions of higher education, professionals, policymakers, stakeholders, community members, and advocates. Through various disciplinary lenses, EQUINOX focuses on the interconnected UN SDGs to promote innovative research, scholarship, and practices in sustainability from micro to macro scales – for people and the planet. The EQUINOX 2023 program will feature artists Dawn DeDeaux and Tina Freeman in conversation with Cynthia Nourse Thompson.

HERstory Month Lecture: Alice Gray Stites

Wednesday, March 15 | 12:00 pm, via Zoom

During the month of March, the Zuckerman Museum of Art is proud to present HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. This annual programming in March offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large. These engaging educational opportunities serve to highlight the crucial role of women in the arts and their notable, and many times ground-breaking, impact on creative fields, humanity, society, and young women's lives—inspiring them to become future leaders and cultural ambassadors of the arts.

On Wednesday, March 15, Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator at 21C Museum Hotels, will discuss her career and practice as a curator at 21c Museum Hotels. 21c Museum Hotels are a multi-venue museum founded by collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, now located in ten cities across the U.S. Stites curates exhibitions, site-specific commissions, and a range of cultural programming at all 21c Museum Hotels. Since opening in Louisville in 2006, 21c has presented over 100 exhibitions.

Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me Exhibition Reception

Thursday, March 16 | 5:00 - 7:30 pm

Wilderness, Light Sizzles Around Me features a uniquely inspired group of sculptures and two-dimensional works more than a decade in the making. The exhibition represents Dill’s ongoing investigation into the significant voices and personas of America’s past. For Dill, the “American” voice grew from early America’s obsessions with divinity and deviltry, on fears of the wilderness “out there” and the wilderness inside us. The extremes of both shaped history and gave pulse and heat to the words of activists like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Mother Ann Lee, and Dred Scott. Dill writes, “These personas and their times stir something deep in my own family history and sense of self. I am compelled to this restrictive time-period of limited access to a diversity of written word, and the bravery of these figures’ response.” The book Lesley Dill: Wilderness, Light Sizzles Around Me by Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich is available in conjunction with the exhibition and features essays by Nancy Princenthal, Andrew Wallace and others.

HERstory Month Lecture: Alexandra Schwartz

Wednesday, March 22 | 12:00 via Zoom

During the month of March, the Zuckerman Museum of Art is proud to present HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. This annual programming in March offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large.

Alexandra Schwartz is a New York-based curator and historian of modern and contemporary art. She serves as a Guest Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design NYC, is the author of Garmenting: Costume and Contemporary Art and is also an adjunct professor at FIT. Schwartz will discuss her career and the most recent exhibition she curated for the Museum of Arts and Design, Garmenting: Costume and Contemporary Art.

HERstory Month Lecture: Valerie Cassel Oliver

Wednesday, March 29 | 12:00 pm, via Zoom

During the month of March, the Zuckerman Museum of Art is proud to present HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. This annual programming in March offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large.
Please join us virtually for our final herstory month lecture with Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Valerie Cassel Oliver will discuss her career as a curator of numerous notable exhibitions, including the recent traveling exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse. The Dirty South makes visible the roots of Southern hip-hop culture and reveals how the aesthetic traditions of the African American South have shaped visual art and musical expression over the last 100 years.

Expressive Type Workshop

Workshop 1: Saturday, April 1 | 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Workshop 2: Saturday, April 29 | 1:00 – 3:00 pm

In this two-part workshop series, graphic designer and Kennesaw State instructor Valentina Caver will guide participants in exploring different ways to create expressive letters and combine them into a dynamic composition as well as touch on fundamentals of typography. Come prepared to explore typography in an interactive, engaged, and hands on approach. All materials will be provided. No previous knowledge of typography or letter creating is necessary. Sign up for one or both sessions, as they will each be unique.

Valentina Caver is a graphic designer, artist and illustrator currently teaching graphic communication classes at Kennesaw State University. With a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Georgia State University, Valentina is pursuing her passion - teaching and sharing knowledge and work experiences with her students. In addition to teaching, Valentina enjoys working on projects in which digital and hand created art can be combined.

Valentina has experience working with clients from the US and Germany and speak three languages. Her love and passion for art and design is deeply rooted in the desire to solve problems and see beauty and purpose in all things. The trust in the problem-solving process as a designer and artist gives her confidence in her work. In Valentina's research she is interested in how cultural backgrounds help us interpret the language of design. Within language and culture, typography is one of Valentina's most interesting subjects to explore and study.

ZMA After Hours

Friday, April 14 | 5:00 - 9:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to offer an after-hours opportunity to connect with the art and ideas on view in the museum's spaces. Please visit the museum from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm and enjoy special programming!

From 7:00 – 8:00 pm, join us for an onsite lecture with the exhibiting artist, Lesley Dill.

Edgewood String Quartet will perform for one night only, join us for an evening celebrating the arts in collaboration!

Visiting Artist Lecture: Imi Hwangbo

Tuesday, June 27 | 3:30 pm

The selected work by Hwangnbo, Lepidoptera, is a large-scale work from the artists' The Portal Series, created from hand-cut mylar and is currently displayed on the ZMA’s Project Wall. Imi Hwangbo received her B.A. in Studio Art from Dartmouth College and her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Stanford University. Ms. Hwangbo has been the recipient of numerous international artist fellowships and residencies and she is a professor of art at the University of Georgia.

Celebration of Stone Carving

Tuesday, September 19 | 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

Campus Green in front of the Student Center, Kennesaw Campus

The Zuckerman Museum of Art and the Year of Senegal invite you to attend the Celebration of Stone Carving, an annual event and mini-festival celebrating the art of stone carving, in honor of Ruth Zuckerman’s birthday! This year’s program focuses on the stone carvings and artists of Senegal! At this event you will learn about the ancient origins of stone carving, see Ruth Zuckerman’s tool set, and learn how the tools and techniques from ancient times are still used today. You can also try some of the hands-on activities: chisel a real block of marble, carve your own small plaster sculpture, or sign up in advance to carve your own small sculpture out of sandstone. While there, enjoy a birthday treat in honor of Ruth Zuckerman!

Visiting Artist Lecture: David Antonio Cruz

Sunday, October 8, 2023 | 1:00 pm

David Antonio Cruz explores the intersectionality of queerness and race through painting, sculpture, and performance. Focusing on queer, trans, and gender fluid communities of color, Cruz examines the violence perpetrated against their members, conveying his subjects both as specific individuals and as monumental signifiers for large and urgent systemic concerns. A recent series explores the notion of ‘chosen family’, the nonbiological bonds between queer people based in mutual support and love. Each painting depicts the likeness of the artist’s community, and at the same time the portraits strive to capture much more than the physical representation of the figures; they venerate the overall structure of queer relationships, captured through intimate moments of touch, strength, support, and celebration. David Antonio Cruz will speak about his artistic practices and discuss the works on view in the exhibition at the ZMA.

Interchange 2023

Tuesday, October 10 | 7:30 pm

This presentation is a collaboration across all disciplines of COTA.
The Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, a unit of the School of Art and Design, will present INTERCHANGE an annual collaboration featuring faculty from all disciplines of the College of the Arts. This unique presentation celebrates the creativity that all artistic disciplines share with one another and celebrates the many talents of our COTA faculty. Attendance is free and open to the public.

Windgate Artists in Residence Lecture: Maya Gelfman and Roie Avidan, aka Mind the Heart!

Thursday, November 2nd | 10:00 am

Mind the Heart! (est. 2009) is a worldwide art project by Israeli artists Maya Gelfman & Roie Avidan. In the past decade, the project has reached more than 100 cities across 5 continents. The project works at the intersection of art and social awareness. It engages the public domain with the aim of getting both the artists and the audiences to be fully present, to ‘be here now’. This is achieved through tangible street art but expands across mediums and disciplines, to temporary installations in the wild, performances, poetry and public actions.

Virtual Artist Lecture: Polly Apfelbaum

Thursday, November 9 | 7:00 pm

In association with the ZMA exhibition NIRVANA

Apfelbaum will speak about her artistic practice and artworks on view at the ZMAS in a virtual lecture on Thursday, November 9 at 7pm. Nirvana features large-scale installations of ceramics, prints, and textiles by artist Polly Apfelbaum. Best known for combining a variety of media with vibrant saturated colors and patterns to obscure the lines between painting, installation, sculpture, and everyday objects, Apfelbaum actively interrogates the boundaries between art, craft, and design. Polly Apfelbaum graduated from the Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. She has exhibited consistently since her first solo show 1986. Her work has been recognized with a Pew Center for Arts Grant, a Creative Capital Award, and the 2012 Rome Prize at the American Academy. She has also received a Joan Mitchell Grant, The Diebenkorn Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an Anonymous Was a Woman Grant, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
2022
Carson Fox Virtual Lecture
Thursday, January 20 | 7:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art presented a virtual lecture with Carson Fox, the selected juror of the New Visions 2022 Annual Juried Student exhibition. During the talk, Fox shared insight into her artistic practice and experience jurying the student exhibition.

Carson Fox

American artist Carson Fox received her MFA from Rutgers University, her BFA from University of Pennsylvania, and a four-year studio certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Over her career, she has had thirty solo exhibitions and has participated in over one hundred group exhibitions. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Arts and Design, The Royal Museum of Belgium, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum among others. Additionally, Fox has created multiple permanent installations of artwork in public and corporate venues, including with the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority, University of Arkansas, Temple University and Boston University. She has received honors acknowledging her accomplishments, including international residencies in China, Wales, Germany and Belgium, multiple artist grants and other awards, and has been invited to speak about her career at universities and museums across the United States and abroad. Her work has been reviewed in publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker magazine.

Fox lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is represented by Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL, Stanek Gallery, Philadelphia, PA and Cynthia Winings Gallery, Blue Hill, ME.
Ray Young Bear Virtual Lecture and Poetry Reading
Thursday, February 3 | 7:00 pm

In association with the spring 2022 exhibition Walk In Beauty, the Zuckerman Museum of Art presented a virtual lecture and peotry reading with Ray Young Bear on Contemporary and Traditional Tribal Literature in Relation to Linguistic Atrophy: After 50 years.

Ray Young Bear

Born in 1950, Ray Young Bear was raised on the Meskwaki (Red Earth People) Settlement in central Iowa. He graduated high school in 1969, the year he began publishing poetry, and attended Pomona College from 1969 to 1971. He has also attended the University of Iowa, Grinnell College, Northern Iowa University and Iowa State University. His books of poetry include Manifestation Wolverine: The Collected Poetry of Ray Young Bear (Open Road Media, 2015), The Rock Island Hiking Club (University of Iowa Press, 2001), The Invisible Musician (Holy Cow! Press, 1990), Winter of the Salamander: The Keeper of Importance (Harper & Row, 1980), and Waiting to be Fed (Graywolf Press, 1975). Young Bear is also the author of Black Eagle Child (University of Iowa Press, 1992) and Remnants of the First Earth (Grove Press, 1998), which received the Ruth Suckow Award as an outstanding work of fiction about Iowa.

Young Bear has received numerous honors and awards, including a 2016 American Book Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an honorary doctorate in letters from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. He has taught creative writing and Native American literature at The Institute of American Indian Art, Eastern Washington University, Meskwaki Elementary School, the University of Iowa, and at Iowa State University. Young Bear and his wife, Stella, also co-founded the Woodland Singers and Dancers. Among his accomplishments, Young Bear cherishes the ability to speak and write in his first language. He presently lives on tribally owned land that was established by his maternal grandfather, a hereditary Chief, in 1856.
Traditional Native American Beadwork Presentation and Workshop

Saturday, February 12 | 1:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art hosted a workshop in Traditional Native American Beadwork led by Betty Vroman, a Native American educator and beadwork artist. Elder Betty Vroman of the Miami Nation of Indiana shared historical information about the traditional use of beads by Native Americans, including materials, techniques, and identity patterns from over 100 nations. Following the presentation, Ms. Vroman guided participants in the creation of a beadwork bracelet of their own design using the “right-angle weave” technique during the hands-on component of the program.

Walk in Beauty Closing Reception

Saturday, February 12 | 6:00 – 8:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art hosted a closing reception for the spring 2022 exhibition, Walk In Beauty. Curated by Cynthia Nourse Thompson, the exhibition highlighting Native American artists, featured prints from the permanent collection of the ZMA alongside prints produced by Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts [CSIA].

At 6:30 pm, KSU Art Historian Dr. Laura Wingfield and students in her Native North American Art class will provide narrative and contextual details for selected works from the Train of Ink print portfolio on display in the Walk In Beauty exhibition. These prints, created by Native American artists, respond to the practice during the 19th and 20th centuries of forced removal of tribal children and captured chiefs who were sent to boarding schools, such as The Carlisle School in PA and Castillo del San Marcos in FL.
Anthony Goicolea Artist Lecture
Thursday, February 24 | 7:00 pm

Spring 2022 Windgate Artist in Resident Anthony Goicolea presented a lecture in the Ruth Zuckerman Pavilion at the Zuckerman Museum of Art on Thursday, February 24, at 7:00 pm. The lecture was presented to in-person and virtual audiences, offering the opportunity to learn more about Goicolea's artistic process.

Windgate Foundation was established in 1993 and is a private, family foundation based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Windgate's goal is to advance contemporary craft and strengthen visual arts education in the United States. The foundation also supports children and youth in the State of Arkansas.

Watch the video

Anthony Goicolea

Anthony Goicolea is a first-generation Cuban American artist who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Anthony utilizes a variety of media- including painting, photography, sculpture and video installation- in the creation of his compelling and many times foreboding visual narratives. Goicolea will discuss his work in these varied mediums and the principal ideas and explorations addressed in his work which include personal history, heritage, identity and cultural tradition. These are reflective of his own personal familial experiences— his extended family fled Cuba, not long after Castro came to power, and immigrated to the US. His works are also powerful and engaging contemplations on displacement and alienation.
Equinox Symposium Panel Discussion
Tuesday, March 1 | 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Cynthia Nourse Thompson, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the ZMA moderated a discussion between artists Mary Mattingly, David Brooks, and Gabriela Salazar exploring their work and the synergies and indivisible connections between the realms of culture and nature.

David Brooks

David Brooks is an artist whose work considers the relationship between the individual and the built and natural environment. His work investigates how cultural concerns cannot be divorced from the natural world, while also questioning the terms under which nature is perceived and utilized. Brooks has exhibited at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT; MoMA/PS1; Tang Museum, NY among many others. Major commissions include Storm King Art Center, NY; Trust for Governors Island, NYC; and deCordova Museum, MA, as well as Desert Rooftops in Times Square, through the Art Production Fund. Brooks is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Rome Prize and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. David Brooks is currently on the faculty of New York University Gallatin, and lives and works in New York City.

Mary Mattingly

Mary Mattingly is an artist based in New York City. She founded a floating food forest on a barge in New York called Swale and recently completed a performative sculpture "Pull" at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana with the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY; the Seoul Art Center, Seoul, Korea; the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; and the Palais de Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been featured in Aperture, Art in America, Artforum, Art+Auction, Art News, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Financial Times, Le Monde, New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and on BBC News, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, WNBC, and on Art21. Her work has been included in books such as the Whitechapel/MIT Press Documents of Contemporary Art series titled Nature and Henry Sayer’s A World of Art, 8th edition. Currently, Mattingly is working on "Public Water" a sculpture and campaign about New York City's drinking water. The artist was also included in the exhibition, Indicators: Artist on Climate Change at the Storm King Art Center, with David Brooks.

Gabriela Salazar

Through sculpture, drawing, writing, and site interventions, Salazar’s projects investigate the relationship between human-made spaces and structures and the unpredictable or invisible forces (the shifting of land, the pressures of gravity, the passing and layering of time) that act upon them. Ultimately, her work reframes how we are affected by the changes in what we create. Salazar uses found materials and sites, engaging in wordplay, psychogeography, and phenomenology to bring out new associations between the found, the altered, and the made. The artist was also included in exhibition, in the ever-changing world in which we live with artist David Brooks. Salazar received her BA from Yale University and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

Gabriela Salazar was born in New York City to architects from Puerto Rico. Her work examines the relationship of the built environment and material histories to our sense of self and place. She has had solo exhibitions at NURTUREart; The Bronx River Arts Center; The Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island; Efrain Lopez Gallery, Chicago, and with The Climate Museum, in Washington Square Park, NYC. Her work has been included in group shows at Socrates Sculpture Park, the Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, The Drawing Center, David Nolan Gallery and Storm King Art Center. Salazar’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail. Residencies include Workspace (LMCC); Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Abrons Arts Center, “Open Sessions” at The Drawing Center, and most recently, the Socrates Emerging Artist Fellowship. She holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, a BA from Yale University, and lives, works, and teaches in NYC
HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts
During the month of March, the Zuckerman Museum of Art is proud to present HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. The annual program offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large. These prominent educational opportunities serve to highlight the crucial role of women in the arts and their notable, and many times ground-breaking, impact on creative fields, humanity, society, and young women's lives— inspiring them to become future leaders and cultural ambassadors of the arts. Moreover, this dynamic programming highlights those who have historically been underrepresented within these arenas. The program's compelling themes, such as the role of women's leadership in promoting cultural values of inclusivity and gender equality and cultural institutions' impact on the arts, will further champion our students to reach their goals re-redefine women's creative roles in the arts. Ensuring and empowering the next generation of creative women makers, leaders, problem solvers, and researchers realize their full potential is the hallmark of this Zuckerman Museum of Art program.

Virtual Program Schedule

Margot Norton, Allen and Lola Goldring Curator, the New Museum, New York

Wednesday, March 2, 2021, 12:00 - 1:00 pm

Margot Norton’s talk focused on her role as a curator at the New Museum, and experience organizing the 2021 New Museum Triennial exhibition, titled Soft Water Hard Stone, co-curated with Jamillah James. Norton joined the New Museum in 2011 and has curated and co-curated many exhibitions with women artists such as Carmen Argote, Judith Bernstein, Pia Camil, Sarah Charlesworth, Tacita Dean, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sarah Lucas, Goshka Macuga, Pipilotti Rist, Mika Rottenberg, Kaari Upson, and Erika Vogt, among other solo and group exhibitions. In October 2017, she curated Sequences VIII: Elastic Hours, the Eighth Sequences Real Time Art Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Georgian Pavillion at the 2019 Venice Biennale with artist Anna K.E.. She has contributed to and edited numerous publications and exhibition catalogs, and regularly lectures on contemporary art and curating.

Jasmine Wahi, Holly Block Social Justice Curator, Bronx Museum, New York

Wednesday, March 16, 12:00 - 1:00 pm

A curator, activist, TEDx speaker, and a founder and co-director of Project for Empty Space, Jasmine Wahi's practice predominantly focuses on issues of femme empowerment, complicating binary structures within social discourses, and exploring multi-positional cultural identities through the lens of intersectional feminism.

Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, The Brooklyn Museum, New York

Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 12:00 - 1:00 pm

Carmen Hermo curated the Brooklyn presentation of Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985 (2018), Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection (2018–19), and Something to Say: Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, and formed part of the curatorial collective for Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After
Stonewall (2019).
Intersectionality of Color Panel Discussion
Tuesday, March 22 | 2:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art is thrilled to present Intersectionality of Color, a panel discussion surrounding the textile work of exhibiting artist Jamele Wright Sr.The panel will feature the artist alongside KSU professors, Jessica Stephenson, PH.D., Interim Graduate Coordinator and Associate Professor of Art History, and Seneca Vaught, PH.D., Coordinator of African and African Diaspora Studies and Associate Professor of History. September Gray, Director and Founder of September Gray Fine Arts Gallery, and ZMA Ambassador will moderate the vibrant discussion. Please join us on Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at 2:00 pm in our Ruth Zuckerman Pavilion for Intersectionality of Color. The panel will also be available to virtual audiences via live stream. Onsite visitors will have the opportunity to ask questions to the panelist at the end of the discussion.

Jamele Wright Sr.

Born and raised in Ohio, at the age of 22, Jamele Wright Sr. moved with his family to Atlanta, Georgia. While raising a family, Jamele produced art, jazz, and poetry events throughout Atlanta. Realizing that many young artists were not being represented, he started a gallery called the Neo-Renaissance Art House. After curating the gallery for over a year, Jamele was inspired to pursue his own artistic career. After several solo and group exhibitions, Mr. Wright graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in Art History. He concentrated on African and African American Contemporary Art. Jamele graduated with an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York. He completed a fellowship at Project for Empty Spaces in Newark, New Jersey. In August 2020, Wright was one of three artists selected for a collaboration between MARTA Artbound and Decatur Arts Alliance to create public artworks for the East Lake, Decatur, and Avondale MARTA stations. Wright's work will be featured in the upcoming Marietta Cobb Museum of Art (MCMA) exhibition, The Four Elements: A Group Exhibition, on view from April 10, 2020, through June 20, 2021. The artist is represented by September Gray Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. 

“My work is concerned with the Black American vernacular experience. The work entails collecting found materials, Georgia red clay, and Dutch Wax cloth, by creating a conversation between family, tradition, the spiritual and material relationship between Africa and the South. My process is influenced by the way Hip Hop gathers different cultures through sampling and is charged with an energy channeled and passed through the Pan African lineage. The “In Transit” Series and my textile work is inspired by the Great Migration of Black Americans, who left the familiar in the hope of something better.” — Jamele Wright, Sr.

September Gray

September Gray’s life’s work is a reflection of her enduring passion for the arts. Following a noteworthy career in the performing arts, Gray launched a successful fine art consultancy practice wherein she was celebrated for her ability to assist corporate and private collectors with articulating and executing single acquisition and long–term collecting strategies. Since opening September Gray Fine Art Gallery in 2011 she has been able to provide a comprehensive range of fine arts services.

September Gray Fine Art Gallery (SGAG) is the nation’s premier gallery specializing in contemporary works by established, mid-career and emerging African American and African diasporic artists. Located in Atlanta, in the Miami Circle arts district, SGAG presents historically and culturally significant works as a means for championing the preservation of the African diasporic cultural legacy and narrative.

Gray’s career in the arts and as an art consultant informs her role as gallerist. An avid collector, Gray has a talent for “speaking the language” of both artist and collector and a knack for connecting the gallery’s clients to works by artists whose vision and methodologies resonate with their individual tastes, complement their existing collections and honor their overall investment strategy and appetite for risk.

September has watched the art scene grow from small to burgeoning, and has been in the forefront of it all by providing dedication from the start to clients and artists.

September previously worked in the entertainment industry for over 12 years touring around the world with various artist including Peabo Bryson, Kenny G, Robert Flack, Pattie Austin, Michael McDonald and Oleta Adams just to name a few. In addition, she has worked in a supportive capacity spanning over 15 years for various theater and arts organizations such as the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and The Rialto Center for performing Arts in Atlanta as well as the Advisory Board for the Alliance Theater. September also served on the Art Advisory committee with honoring Elizabeth Catlett and the Benin Exhibition in Chicago, which only traveled to four venues in the world.

September also highlights events, lectures and collection strategies in her electronic quarterly journal, The Gray Book.

September is a big advocate of being involved and attending art events and understanding the art, artist and being an informed collector. As an art activist and lifelong student of fine arts, September holds several Museum Memberships across the country.

Gray holds a B.A. in Art History from DePaul University. A committed art education advocate, Gray serves on a number of non-profit boards and is co-founder of The Gray Foundation, an organization committed to building a world of enriched life options for youth through the promotion of art and education. September also sits on the Board of the Steffen Thomas Museum in Madison GA

September is an avid reader and loves to travel and who enjoys researching all things related to the arts and supports education through the arts.

Dr. Jessica Stephenson

Jessica Stephenson received masters and doctorate degrees in African art history from Emory University in 2000 and 2006, with a minor in ancient Egyptian art and ancient American art. She received BA and BA Honors degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa in 1992 and 1993 with a dual major in art history and anthropology. Dr. Stephenson has pursued a two-pronged career as curator and academic. She worked in a number of museums including the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa. In 2003 she was appointed Associate Curator of African and Ancient American Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, and in 2009 promoted to Curator of African Art. She has taught a wide range of non-western/global art history courses at the University of the Witwatersrand, Atlanta College of Art and Design, Bauder College, Emory University and at Kennesaw State University. She joined the School of Art and Design at KSU as full-time faculty in 2013 and served as Coordinator of the Art History program from 2016 to 2019. In AY 2018-2019 she served as Faculty Executive Assistant to the Dean and in 2019-2020 as Interim Associate Dean, College of the Arts. She is serving as Interim Graduate Program Coordinator for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Her research specialty is the emergence of novel art forms in contexts of rupture and change; intercultural arts; art, heritage and tourism; art and agency; and histories of museum collecting and display. These issues informed her research with rural art collectives in Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia and in archives and museum collections within the United States and Europe. Her current research focuses on the intersection of late 19th century African carved ivory tusks and colonial-era photography. She has curated many exhibitions including two reinstallations of the permanent collection of African art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum (2003 and 2008), Spirited Vessels: the Ritual and Practice of African Ceramics (2004), Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion (2011) and served as consulting curator for African Cosmos: Stellar Arts, a collaboration between the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian, and the Michael C. Carlos Museum (2015). In 2014 she co-curated South African History Under Apartheid: A Tribute to Nelson Mandela at the Turchin Center for the Arts, Boone, North Carolina and in 2016 presented Sleight of Hand at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, bringing together late 19th century Congo carved ivories from several museum collections and photography from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian. She has chaired numerous conference sessions and presented papers at national and international venues, including the College Art Association (CAA), South East College Art Association (SECAC), African Studies Association of America (ASA), and Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) and at more specialized conferences in Europe and Africa. Her publications include numerous reviews and encyclopedia entries on African modernism and Modernists, as well as research articles based on primary research conducted in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, for example, "Mirror Dance: Tourists, Artists, and First People Heritage in Botswana," which appears in the edited volume The Anthropology of Art/The Art of Anthropology (2013), "Landscape Claimed and Reclaimed in Botswana” in the edited volume Formations of Identity: Society, Politics, and Landscape (2016), and "The Museum Mannequin as "Body Without Organs," Bridget Cooks and Jennifer Wagelie (eds.) Mannequins in Museums: Power and Resistance on Display (2021). Her current publication project is the book Looking Both Ways: Carved Ivory Sculptures and Colonial Photography in the Congo (1880 - 1910) for which she is conducting archival and collections research in museums across the United States and Europe.

Dr. Senaca Vaught

Seneca Vaught is Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University who combines his expertise on the intersection of race, policy, and community engagement.

He is one of few scholars with graduate fields in both African and American history in addition to applied concentrations in organizational development and documentary filmmaking. .

Vaught has interned at TransAfrica Forum and is currently the coordinator of the African & African Diaspora Studies program at KSU.
Ilya Kaminsky & Katie Farris Poetry Reading
Wednesday, April 6 | 7:00 pm

Please join the Zuckerman Museum of Art for an evening poetry reading with Ilya Kaminsky, Bourne Chair of Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Katie Farris, Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Institute of Technology. This poetry reading will follow the closing reception of In Conversation: The Fluid and The Concrete in our Fine Arts Gallery.

Ilya Kaminsky

Ilya Kaminsky, Professor,Bourne Chair in Poetry and Director of Poetry at Tech

Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odessa. He lost most of his hearing at the age of four after a doctor misdiagnosed mumps as a cold, and his family was granted political asylum by the United States in 1993, settling in Rochester, New York. After his father’s death in 1994, Kaminsky began to write poems in English. In the late 1990s, Kaminsky co-founded Poets For Peace, an organization that sponsors poetry readings in the United States and abroad. He has also worked as a Law Clerk at the National Immigration Law Center and at Bay Area Legal Aid, helping the poor and homeless to overcome their legal difficulties. Ilya Kaminsky is the author of the widely acclaimed Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019), a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, which Kevin Young, writing in The New Yorker, called a work of “profound imagination.” Poems from Deaf Republic were awarded Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), and Musica Humana (Chapiteau Press, 2002). Kaminsky has won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the Foreword Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award. In an interview with the Poetry Society of America on poetry and politics, Kaminsky notes, “Poetry is the art of language. It was Brodsky, I think, who said that poetry and politics have only two things in common, letter p and letter o. I agree with this. But, poetry is also the art of attentiveness. Attentiveness, Celan teaches us, is the natural prayer of the human soul. I don't think there is much poetry of attentiveness that isn't political. (The decision not to be political is also political.)

Katie Farris

Katie Farris, Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Institute of Technology

Farris studied midwifery, plant biology, and mycology, and taught philosophy, ocean science, and creative writing at UC Berkeley and Brown University. She is currently Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Institute of Technology. Katie Farris is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and translator. She is the author of the hybrid-form text boysgirls, (Marick Press, 2011; Tupelo Press 2019). boysgirls has been lauded as “truly innovative” by The Prague Post; as “a tour de force” by Robert Coover; and as “a book with gigantic scope” by the Louisville Courier-Journal.  Her translations in New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry, 1990-2012 (Tupelo Press, 2013) received Poetry East/West's International Translation Award, which is awarded in China, annually, for a “translator of exceptional skills.” A winner of the 2018 Anne Halley Poetry Prize from The Massachusetts Review, the 2017 Orison Anthology Award in Fiction, and Fairy Tale Review's 2018 Flash Fairy Tale Contest, she has published work in Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Western Humanities Review, Literary Review, Verse, The Massachusetts Review, and many other publications. Her translations and original work have appeared in anthologies published by Penguin and Graywolf. In an interview with Women’s Quarterly Conversation, Farris was asked what first drew her to writing: “In terms of writing, my first love is language, words themselves, strange syntaxes and sounds—it’s always difficult for me to tear myself away from tinkering with linguistic minutia long enough to create stories. On the other hand, my reading has always revolved around plot—by and large, I will take a plot-driven novel over a linguistic meditation, because they’re fun, and provocative, and absorb me completely. The book that combines entertainment with fine language is rare and welcome indeed.” 
Brian Queen Artist Lecture

Thursday, April 7 | 7:00pm, via Zoom

Please join the Zuckerman Museum of Art for a virtual lecture with Brian Queen as he presents a discussion on contemporary watermarks in handmade paper. Brian Queen lives in Calgary and has made paper by hand for 20 years. He specializes in creating light and shade watermarks and building papermaking equipment, but his interests span the book arts, including letterpress printing and the impact of new technologies. In his day job, Queen owns and operates Sensa-Light, a company that manufactures custom architectural lighting for offices, hotels, and restaurants.

ZMA After Hours

Thursday, April 14 | 5:00 - 9:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to offer an after-hours opportunity to connect with the art and ideas on view in the museum's spaces. Join us on Thursday, April 14, for extended hours until 9:00 pm and special programming.

This semester's After Hours features a special in-person presentation by Sue Gosin, President of Dieu Donné Press, at 7:00 pm in our Ruth Zuckerman Pavilion. Gosin will share insight into the artist collaborations published by Dieu Donné Press and Paper. She will also share and discuss each artist book featured in our Fine Arts Gallery exhibition In Conversation: The Fluid and The Concrete The show will be on view from March 15 through April 9, 2022. Don't miss this intimate experience to view these gorgeous artists' books firsthand!

Leonardo Drew: Cycles, from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation Closing Reception

Friday, May 6 | 7:30 - 9:00 pm

Please join us for the closing reception of Leonardo Drew: Cycles, from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. Refreshments will be served, and guests will have the opportunity to speak with the artist who will be present.

The Windgate Artists in Residence Inaugural Exhibition Closing Reception

Friday, July 29 | 5:00 - 7:00 pm

Please join us for the closing reception for our summer showcase, The Windgate Artists in Residence Inaugural Exhibition. The Mortin Gallery exhibition presents the work of artists Amy Pleasant, who served as the fall 2021 Windgate Artist-in-Residence, and Anthony Goicolea, who served as the spring 2022 Windgate Artist-in-Residence. The exhibition was co-curated by MA Art & Design Museum Studies students Brandy Barker and Liliana Said under the direction of Cynthia Nourse Thompson.

The School of Art and Design at Kennesaw State University is grateful to the Windgate Foundation for choosing to invest in the future of our students. The Foundation's vision and contribution enabled KSU to develop the Windgate Foundation Artist Residency Program. This program is instrumental in providing our students with an experience of working with visiting professional artists in their field of study and growing as industry leaders. For six semesters through 2024, grant proceeds will be used to host professional artists at KSU, supporting the shared goals of the Windgate Foundation and the School of Art and Design to advance the contemporary craft and strengthen visual arts education. KSU is fortunate to be able to offer students unique artist-in-resident experiences of this magnitude as part of their scheduled curriculum. The generous gift from the Windgate Foundation enables KSU to host internationally known artists to lead and inspire students through art-making and to share that art and inspiration with the community at large. Through the Foundation's continued support of the School of Art and Design, we can offer the highest level of artistic excellence and quality to our students, community, and visiting artists.

ZMA + Interdisciplinary Studies Book Club

Tuesday, August 30 | 3:00 - 5:00 pm

The ZMA and the KSU Interdisciplinary Studies Department co-sponsor an ongoing series of book discussions open to the campus community. A title is selected to serve as a springboard for discussion of important issues relevant to both groups. Join the conversation this semester as we discuss The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by David Abram. The event will be held in person at the Museum with special refreshments. Books will be provided to the first 25 who register.

Museums as Health Humanities Catalyst: Processing Grief and Loss through Meaningful Collaborations

Thursday, September 22 | 7:00 pm, via Zoom

Visiting Scholar Panel Discussion with Dr. April Munson and Cynthia Nourse Thompson with presentations by Marcia Day Childress, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Medical Education, David A. Harrison Distinguished Educator, & Director, Programs in Humanities and Medical Center Hour - Center for Health Humanities and Ethics, University of Virginia School of Medicine and M. Jordan Love, Ph.D., Carol R. Angle Academic Curator, The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia.

Poignant in its concerns of shared trauma, grief, and loss, this panel offers a platform to discuss developments in the medical/therapy field and the opportunities of cross-disciplinary programming between the professional disciplines of health care, museums, and artists/educators.

Contemplative and impactful interactions with art, both via temporary exhibitions and museum collections, and the opportunities of interdisciplinary work between museum educators and medical school partners envisioning meaningful collaborations will be explored. In particular, Clinician’s Eye, a joint venture of the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities, and UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art illustrate such successful initiatives.
Interchange 2022
Tuesday, September 27 | 7:30 pm

Interchange is an annual collaboration across all disciplines in the College of the Arts. It celebrates the spark that all the creative arts enkindle in one another. This year's Interchange will be presented in person and features a diverse showcase of faculty members performing in response to works of art in the Museum spaces. Please click the calendar date to complete your reservation for the Interchange 2022 program.

Interchange 2022 Performers:

Marlon Burnley, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies

Hernando Claros, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies

Judith Cole, Dr. Bobbie Bailey School of Music

Autumn Eckman, Department of Dance

Billy Hawkains III, Department of Dance

Helen Kim, Dr. Bobbie Bailey School of Music

Charae Krueger, Dr. Bobbie Bailey School of Music

John Lawless, Dr. Bobbie Bailey School of Music

Lisa Lock, Department of Dance

April Munson, School of Art and Design

Nathan Munson, Dr. Bobbie Bailey School of Music

Margaret Pendergrass, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies
Mark Doty Virtual Poet Lecture and Reading

Thursday, October 13 | 7:00 pm, via Zoom

Mark Doty will provide a reading and speak about his work, including the collaboration with artist Darren Waterston which is featured in the exhibition on view at the ZMA, The Gravity of Beauty.

Doty is the author of 11 books of poetry, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award for poetry in 2008. He has also published five books of nonfiction prose, including The New York Times bestseller Dog Years and Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, an extended essay on 17th Century Dutch still life painting, objects, and intimacy. His work has been honored by the T.S. Eliot Prize, the National Book Critics Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A distinguished professor at Rutgers University, he lives in New York.

ZMA After Hours

Friday, October 21 | 5:00 - 9:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to offer an after-hours opportunity to connect with the art and ideas on view in the museum's spaces. Please visit the museum from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm, and enjoy special programming.

From 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm, join us for an onsite lecture with the Fall 2022 Windgate Foundation Artist-in-Resident, Donté Hayes.

From 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm, the Edgewood String Quartet will perform for one night only during the presentation of a large-scale video work by artist team Hironaka & Suib projected on the museum's upper plaza exterior. Join us under the stars for an evening celebrating the arts in collaboration!

Barbara Takenaga Virtual Artist Lecture

Thursday, November 17 | 7:00 pm, via Zoom

Barbara Takenaga exhibiting artist in The Gravity of Beauty will share a presentation of her work and artistic practice. Takenaga is an abstract painter interested in images that can be read as both abstract and representational, microscopic, and cosmic. Recent solo exhibitions include DC Moore Gallery in NYC, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, a 20-year Survey at the Williams College Museum of Art, and wall installations at Space/42 of the Neuberger Museum and MASS MoCA. Her recent 20-year survey was accompanied by an illustrated book, with an essay by curator Debra Bricker Balken and published by Delmonico Prestel in 2017. She is a 2020 recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and has work in many public and private collections. Represented by DC Moore, Robischon Gallery, Pamela Salisbury, and by print publishers Shark’s Ink and Wingate Studio, her work has been reviewed in a variety of publications including the New York Times, Art in America, the New Yorker, Hyperallergic, and Art Critical. Takenaga lives and works in New York City and was a professor at Williams College for many years.

This Vocal Vessel: Conversations with Collaboration Performance

Friday, December 9 | 7:00 pm
Saturday, December 10 | 4:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to present a live performance series of students in the Choreography One Class, led by Limited-Term Assistant Professor of Dance Billy Hawkains III. The performance entitled, This Vocal Vessel: Conversations with Collaboration, was created over the course of the fall semester and was created to accompany the Zuckerman Museum of Art’s fall exhibitions, Recollections Oscar Muñoz, and The Gravity of Beauty.

This experience is an exploration of the connection between the physical vessel and its interactions with the tangible and metaphysical elements of its reality. The bodies and spirits you are connecting with have embarked on a journey to ask, what does it mean to generate movement and exist within and without a space? Encapsulating this process, we arrange an interplay between ownership and collaboration. We offer a window into the ongoing process of how choreography manipulates the tools of inclusion and exclusion. The visceral fusion of static and dynamic art forms reveals pathways to new perceptions of our reality and their influence on this vessel.
2021
Last Wednesday Lunch

January 27, 2021 | 12:30 - 1:00 pm

The spring 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch program featured faculty artists represented in the Spring 2021 Faculty Exhibition. Each month several faculty members shared their perspectives on the creative work they practice. The event on January 27th presented prerecorded presentations by Jonathan Fisher, Matt Haffner, Joseph Karg, and Joe Remillard.

Watch the video

ZMA After-Hours

February 11, 2021 | 5:00 - 8:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum offered a special, after-hours opportunity to view the current exhibitions on Thursday, February 11th. Visitors were invited to explore The 9th Art: Frames and Thought Bubbles, several new project installations, and the annual juried student exhibition, New Visions 2021 between 5:00 amd 8:00 pm. From 6:30 to 7:30 pm, visitors could participate in a walkthrough of The 9th Art: Frames and Thought Bubbles with Guest Curator Geo Sipp in our Don Russell Clayton Gallery.
The Art of Comics: Storytelling Through Composition with Chris Malone
February 12, 2021 | 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
April 3, 2021 | 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

In these free storytelling through composition workshops, Professor Chris Malone taught participants to examine compositional techniques to create exciting narratives for readers. Participants also practiced using different framing methods and points of view to deepen their storytelling capacity.

Chris Malone

Chris Malone is an Atlanta-based cartoonist who has worked on a variety of shows including the Emmy-winning Archer, Cyanide and Happiness, Adam Ruins Everything, Game Grumps, Baby Shark, and more. He focuses primarily on preproduction, such as storyboards/animatics, background design, and character design. He just recently started a new studio with a few other animators called Raging Viking Productions, where he is the lead background artist.

He is also an Assistant Professor of Animation over at Kennesaw State University, where he teaches animation and comic classes. He enjoys sharing his work experience in the classroom to help his students learn modern and relevant practices in the field.

Additionally, he has been working closely with the KSU's School of Visual Arts' new 3D printing farm. Using this technology, he is teaming up with the Wareswald archeological site in Saarthal, Germany to 3D scan broken statues, repairing missing pieces, then printing completed versions for study.

When he isn't working on cartoons or teaching, he can probably be found reading comic strips and at home, with both of his dogs asleep in his lap.
Closing Celebration of New Visions 2021

February 17, 2021 | 7:00 pm

In compliance with health and safety recommendations, the closing reception for New Visions 2021 took place online. Guests were invited to join the museum's staff, School of Art and Design Director, Geo Sipp, and many of the School of Art and Design professors to celebrate and recognize the participants and award winners of this year's annual juried student exhibition, New Visions 2021. The final award selections made by juror Anthony Goicolea and the director's choice award made by Director Geo Sipp were presented during the virtual celebration.

1st Place, Juror's Choice Award Winner: Deonna Lizette for the work, Framed, 2020, oil on canvas.
2nd Place, Jurors Choice Award Winner: Jane Erwin for the work, Blue Moves, 2020, soda-fired ceramics.
3rd Place, Juror Choice Award Winner: Kristina Walker for the work, Sunday Girl, 2020, ink on paper.
Director's Choice Award Winner: Sierra Kazin for the work, City Escape, 2020, mixed media.

Virtual Tour of the Exhibition
Artists in Dialogue: June Brigman & Geo Sipp
February 19, 2021 | 12:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art hosted a virtual conversation between Guest Curator, Geo Sipp and renowned comic artist and SOAAD faculty member, June Brigman. Watch the Video.

June Brigman

June Brigman has enjoyed a long and varied career as a cartoonist, drawing such comic book titles as Alpha Flight, Supergirl, and Star Wars. She is the co-creator (with Louise Simonson) of the Power Pack series from Marvel Comics. She is also the co-creator (with Stuart Moore) of the Captain Ginger series from Ahoy Comics. Assisted by her husband, inker/colorist Roy Richardson, she illustrated the Brenda Starr comic strip for fifteen years, and has drawn many educational comics, as well as doing illustrations for Horse & Rider magazine. June and Roy have recently taken over the artistic reins of the long-running Mary Worth comic strip. June has a BFA in Sequential Art from Empire State University, and an MFA in Illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is currently an adjunct professor of Sequential Art at Kennesaw State University. When not at the drawing board, June is in the saddle riding Isabelle, her beautiful gray mare.

Geo Sipp

Geo Sipp is the Director of the School of Art and Design at Kennesaw State University.

Geo Sipp is an artist and illustrator who has worked for top international advertising agencies and clients, and his work has been published by many of the leading newspapers, magazines and book publishers in the United States and abroad. Among his clients include: ABC Television, Atlanta Ballet, BBDO Advertising, BellSouth, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Fortune, General Electric, Harris Corporation - Trans-Siberian Railroad, Los Angeles Times, Metropolitan Opera, National Football League, Newsweek, New York Times, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, St. Martin's Press, Time-Warner, United States Postal Service, U.S. News & World Report and the Walt Disney Company. Geo’s research and scholarship on sequential art has appeared in numerous national and international peer-reviewed publications and has resulted in international speaking engagements and exhibitions. His current work is primarily intended for inclusion in a graphic novel entitled Wolves in the City, which has the French-Algerian War as its subject.

His work has been exhibited at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Weinberger Fine Arts in Kansas City, the Algerian Cultural Ministry in Algiers, Algeria, Clemson University, International Print Center, New York, McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee, Sharjah Museum of Art in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, Florida and the Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University. His work has also been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States as well as in Algeria, Belgium, China, England, France, Spain, and Tunisia. He has lectured and given workshops at many universities including: the University of Kansas, Dartmouth College, École de Recherche Graphique Brussels, Institut St. Luc Brussels (ESA St. Luc), University of London, London College of Communications, and the University of London-Paris.

Sipp is a recipient of the Missouri Governor's Award for Excellence in Education. His artistic awards include numerous gold and silver ADDY’s for his work in the field of Illustration.
Last Wednesday Lunch

February 24, 2021 | 12:30 pm

The spring 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch program featured faculty artists represented in the Spring 2021 Faculty Exhibition. Each month several faculty members shared their perspectives on the creative work they practice. The event on February 24th presented prerecorded presentations by Craig Brasco, Donna Colebeck, Valerie Dibble, and Keith Smith.

Watch the video.
The Art of Comics: Inking with Joseph Karg
February 26, 2021 | 1:00 - 3:00 pm
April 24, 2021 | 1:00 - 3:00 pm

In this free art of comics inking workshop series, Professor Joseph Karg demonstrated pro tips for utilizing tools and techniques to create diverse mark-making. In addition, Karg provided insight and instruction to help participants sharpen their focus and use inking tools of the comic book trade.

Joseph Karg

Joseph Karg is an accomplished illustrator who specializes in the comic art, album covers, tour posters and design for animation. He has most notably worked on the Emmy award-winning show, Archer, for FX, and in 2016, he was voted Creative Loafing's Best Illustrator of Atlanta. His clients include MARVEL, FX, NETFLIX, AMC, Judd Apatow Productions and Viacom.

When Joseph is not working on a commercial project, he spends his time teaching others and training himself in new disciplines. Since the summer of 2020, he’s joined KSU’s School of Art and Design as a tenure track assistant professor of animation and illustration.

Joseph is currently working on his largest project to date: a four volume graphic novel series with the publisher Dark Planet.
Comics in the University Setting Panel Discussion

February 25, 2021 | 7:00 pm

Guest Curator and Director of the School of Art and Design, Geo Sipp, moderated an engaging and organic conversation regarding the importance and relevancy of comics in the ecology of a contemporary university education. The panel featured Sergio Figueiredo and Erin Bahl of the KSU English Department and professors Chris Malone, Joseph Karg, and Craig Brasco of the KSU School of Art Design. The panel discussion was live-streamed from the Don Russell Clayton Gallery on February 25th, in the exhibition, The 9th Art: Frames and Thought Bubbles, curated by Geo Sipp.
EQUINOX Program: Bearing Witness Lecture with Diane Burko and JD Talasek
March 16, 2021 | 12:00 - 1:30 pm

As part of the international forum EQUINOX, scheduled to take place virtually March 15 – 19, 2021, the ZMA presented programming supporting the 2021 United Nations sustainable development goal of Climate Action. The Division of Global Affairs at Kennesaw State University, works to make the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals more widely known and implemented. The virtual lecture was 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 discussed 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 discussed 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.

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.”

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 Lecture: Judith K. Brodsky
March 24, 2021 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm 

In March of 2021, the Zuckerman Museum of Art debuted a new, annual program series, HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. The program offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large. These prominent educational opportunities serve to highlight the crucial role of women in the arts and their notable, and many times ground-breaking, impact on creative fields, humanity, society, and young women's lives— inspiring them to become future leaders and cultural ambassadors of the arts. Moreover, this dynamic programming highlights those who have historically been underrepresented within these arenas. The program's compelling themes, such as the role of women's leadership in promoting cultural values of inclusivity and gender equality and cultural institutions' impact on the arts, will further champion our students to reach their goals re-redefine women's creative roles in the arts. Ensuring and empowering the next generation of creative women makers, leaders, problem solvers, and researchers realize their full potential is the hallmark of this Zuckerman Museum of Art program.

On Wednesday, March 24th, Judith K. Brodsky shared insight into her career as an artist, author, and founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, newly renamed the Brodsky Center at PAFA.

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

Judith Brodsky

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
HERstory Lecture: Jennifer Inacio
March 26, 2021 | 12:00 – 1:00 pm

In March of 2021, the Zuckerman Museum of Art debuted a new, annual program series, HERstory: Women's Leadership in the Arts. The program offers lectures and interaction with prominent women artists, authors, curators, and artistic directors of various creative disciplines to our students and community-at-large. These prominent educational opportunities serve to highlight the crucial role of women in the arts and their notable, and many times ground-breaking, impact on creative fields, humanity, society, and young women's lives— inspiring them to become future leaders and cultural ambassadors of the arts. Moreover, this dynamic programming highlights those who have historically been underrepresented within these arenas. The program's compelling themes, such as the role of women's leadership in promoting cultural values of inclusivity and gender equality and cultural institutions' impact on the arts, will further champion our students to reach their goals re-redefine women's creative roles in the arts. Ensuring and empowering the next generation of creative women makers, leaders, problem solvers, and researchers realize their full potential is the hallmark of this Zuckerman Museum of Art program.

On Friday, March 26th associate curator, Jennifer Inacio presented a lecture on her recent group exhibition, at the Pérez Art Museum Miami [PAMM] titled MY BODY, MY RULES.

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

MY BODY, MY RULES

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.

Jennifer Inacio

Jennifer Inacio is associate curator at Pérez Art Museum Miami [PAMM]. 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.
Last Wednesday Lunch

March 31, 2021 | 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm

The spring 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch program featured faculty artists represented in the Spring 2021 School of Art and Design Faculty Exhibition. Each month several faculty members shared their perspectives on the creative work they practice. The event on March 31st presented prerecorded presentations by Jeff Campana, Sandee Chamberlain, Deborah Hutchinson, and Robert Sherer.

Watch the video.
Virtual Lecture and Reading: Tom Sleigh
April 6, 2021 | 7:00 pm

In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, The Zuckerman Museum of Art debuted a new program series highlighting the literary art form's cultural significance.

On Tuesday, April 6, writer and journalist Tom Sleigh discussed his work and how it has been integrated into the artwork of Lesley Dill. During the virtual program, Sleigh read a selection of literary works, including poems; "Blueprint" and "Portrait of Myself as Jonathan Edwards' Spider." Artist Lesley Dill joined the writer to share further insight into their collaboration and the incorporation of Sleigh's language into Dill's artwork.

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.

Tom Sleigh

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).
Artist Lecture: Lesley Dill
April 9, 2021 | 12:00 pm

In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, The Zuckerman Museum of Art debuted a new program series highlighting the literary art form's cultural significance.

On Friday, April 9, artist Lesley Dill presented an hour-long virtual artist lecture in conjunction with some Early Visionaries exhibition. The show featured drawings and collages by the artist and was on view in the ZMA's satellite Fine Arts Gallery from March 16 through April 10, 2021.

Lesley Dill

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.
Zuckerman Museum of Art + Interdisciplinary Studies Book Club

April 15th, 2021 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art and the KSU Interdisciplinary Studies Department co-sponsor an ongoing series of book discussions open to the campus community. A title is selected to serve as a springboard for discussion of important issues relevant to both groups.

The Spring 2021 book club met virtually on April 15, 2021, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. The selected book was the graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris. This highly acclaimed work explores monstrousness in the human psyche. The graphic novel presents a convergence of the personal, the political, the past, and the present with full-color illustrations in ballpoint pen. Critic John Powers in his book review on NPR's Fresh Air, calls it "a dazzling, graphic novel tour-de-force." An original drawing from the graphic novel was featured in the Spring 2021 special exhibition, The 9th Art: Frames and Thought Bubbles, on view in the Don Russell Clayton Gallery from January 23 – May 8, 2021.

Last Wednesday Lunch

April 28, 2021 | 12:30 - 1:00 pm

The spring 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch program featured faculty artists represented in the Spring 2021 School of Art and Design Faculty Exhibition. Each month several faculty members shared their perspectives on the creative work they practice. The event on April 28th presented prerecorded presentations by Page Burch, Kristine Kim, Chris Malone, and Don Robson.

Last Wednesday Lunch: Page Burch

May 26, 2021 | 12:30 - 1:00 pm

The May 2021 Last Wednesday Lunch event was presented virtually and featured Page Burch, Lecturer of Sculpture and Coordinator of the Master Craftsman Program. Burch shared insight into the program's public art projects and the current Fine Arts Gallery retrospective exhibition, Master Craftsman: Classroom to Community.

Watch the video.

Skopelos Foundation for the Arts: A Site for Artistic and Cultural Exchange

Thursday, July 8, 2021 | 7:00 pm

In association with the Zuckerman Museum of Art’s exhibition Hand Print Workshop International: Process & Innovation, the Museum presents a virtual lecture by Georgia Deal and Nancy Zimler. Their presentation will focus on the lengthy history between the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Greece and the late Dennis O’Neil, founder and director of Hand Print Workshop International and professor at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. O’Neil helped build and develop the printmaking studios at Skopelos, and then later with Corcoran colleagues, Steven Cushner, Georgia Deal and others, developed a robust study abroad program in screenprinting, painting, monoprinting, book arts, and photography. The additional goal of this academic program was to immerse students not only in the Island’s cultural and artistic offerings but that of the larger Greek culture by visiting Athens, Thessaloniki and surrounding islands. Dennis O’Neil created a rewarding experience for all who participated in this unique and special studio experience that ran until 2018 at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, under the auspices of the Corcoran as well as the Hand Print Workshop. This program is presented in conjunction with KSU’s Annual Country Study Program, Year of Greece.

Watch the video

ZMA Summer After Hours

Thursday, July 15, 2021 | 5:00 - 9:00 PM

The Zuckerman Museum of Art was pleased to offer an after hours opportunity to connect with the art and ideas on view in the museum's spaces. Curator Cynthia Nourse Thompson provided a curatorial tour of the exhibition The Hand Print Workshop: Process & Innovation at 7:00 pm.

In addition, visitors to ZMA After Hours had the opportunity to get a free Year of Greece t-shirt courtesy of KSU's Annual Country Study Program, Year of Greece and create a one-of-a-kind silkscreen print utilizing imagery from the Year of Greece design featured below.
Tony Orrico Artist Talk
Thursday, September 9, 2021 | 7:00 pm

Exhibiting Project Wall artist Tony Orrico presented a virtual lecture about his work. Watch the video.

Tony Orrico

Tony Orrico is a visual and performance artist, choreographer, and dancer. Merging the act of drawing with choreographic gesture and bio-geometrics, his work has reached mass circulation for its ingenuity within the intersections of performance and drawing. His work explores how consciousness and physical impulses manifest into visible forms. He often uses his own somatic research, Suspension Practice, as point of entry into his visual work. Orrico has performed/exhibited his work across the US and internationally in Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Mexico, The Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. His visual work is in collection at of The National Academy of Sciences (Washington DC) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC, Mexico City) as well as prominent private collections such as Grazyna Kulczyk, Kablanc/Fundación Otazu and Bergmeier/Kunstsaele, among others. He has presented at the CCCB, Centre Pompidou-Metz, The New Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum and Poptech 2011: The World Rebalancing. Orrico was one of a select group of artists to re-perform the work of Marina Abramovic during her retrospective at MoMA (2010). As a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has graced such stages as the Sydney Opera House, Teatro La Fenice, New York State Theater, and Theatre du Palais-Royal. 
Celebration of Stone Carving

Thursday, September 23, 2021 | 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

Location: Campus Green in front of the Student Center, Kennesaw Campus

The Zuckerman Museum of Art was pleased to present a mini festival celebrating the art of stone carving on Ruth Zuckerman’s birthday. The festival was located on KSU's Campus Green and offered participants an opportunity to learn about the origins of stone carving in Ancient Greece and how those tools and techniques are still used by sculptors today. Visitors also got to try their hand at chiseling a real piece of marble and carve their own small sculpture in plaster. This program was presented in conjunction with KSU’s Annual Country Study Program, Year of Greece.
Interchange 2021
Thursday, September 30, 2021 | 7:30 pm

Interchange is an annual collaboration across all disciplines in the College of the Arts. It celebrates the spark that all the creative arts enkindle in one another. The Interchange 2021 program was presented virtually and in person to a small audience. It featured seven ArtsKSU faculty members performing in response to the museum's fall exhibition series, This Mortal Coil and The Labor Remembrance Print and Textile Works by Louise Bourgeois.

Interchange 2021 Performers:

Judith Cole, Artist-in-Residence in Collaborative Piano

Billy J. Hawkains III, Limited-Term Assistant Professor, Dance

Charae Krueger, Artist-in-Residence in Cello

Harrison Long, Interim Dean of College of the Arts and Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies

Nathan Munson, Assistant Professor, Voice

Sean Nguyen, Hilton, Lecturer of Dance

Charles Parrott, Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies
Visiting Scholar Lecture: Jenni Sorkin
The ZMA presented a 1-hour virtual lecture with scholar and catalog essayist Jenni Sorkin in association with the exhibitions, This Mortal Coil and The Labor of Remembrance.

Jenni Sorkin

Jenni Sorkin is Associate Professor of History of Art & Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is best known for her writing in art criticism highlighting work by feminist artists and artists working in fiber and associated crafts, as well as on the intersections between gender, material culture, and contemporary art. Her publications include Live Form: Women, Ceramics and Community (2016), Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women Artists, 1947–2016 (2016), Art in California (2021), and numerous essays in journals and exhibition catalogs. She was educated at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Bard College, and received her PhD from Yale University. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Modern Craft.
Clinical Virtual Reality: From Combat to COVID

Thursday, October 21, 2021 | 7:00 pm

In association with the Fall 2021 exhibitions, This Mortal Coil and The Labor of Remembrance, the Zuckerman Museum of Art presented a free virtual lecture, Clinical Virtual Reality: From Combat to COVID, with Skip Rizzo, Ph.D., Director, Medical Virtual Reality - Institute for Creative Technologies, Research Professor - Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology, University of Southern California.

Psychologist Skip Rizzo conducts research on the design, development, and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation, and resilience. The physical, emotional, cognitive, and psychological demands of war place enormous stress on even the best-prepared military personnel. This talk will present an overview of research, development, and implementation of Clinical Virtual Reality applications that have been applied in the prevention, assessment, treatment, and scientific understanding of the psychological wounds of war. The talk will then present the expansion of the work from combat-related PTSD, to military sexual trauma, and conclude with a discussion of the approach for wider civilian trauma needs, including COVID-related mental health concerns and issues around loss, death, and dying.

Virtual Panel Discussion and Presentation: Art, Empathy, and Wellness 

Thursday, October 28, 2021 | 7:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art presented a panel of presentations on interdisciplinary work between health care, museum practice, and education in visual art. Marcia Day Childress, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Medical Education and Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita, Center for Health Humanities and Ethics at University of Virginia School of Medicine and M. Jordan Love, Ph.D., Carol R. Angle Academic Curator at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, presented joint ventures of the UVA School of Medicine’s Center for Health Humanities and Ethics and UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art. Viewers learned about their partnership, Clinician’s Eye, an interactive workshop using visual art analysis to improve core clinical skills of observation, communication, collaboration, compassion, and reflection. The program and its specific teaching methodologies, content, and additional tangential programs such as “HeArt of Medicine” relate significantly to the themes presented in the museum's fall exhibition series, especially in consideration of the museum/art as a facilitator. The discussion was supported by additional comments from April Munson, Ph.D., Professor of Art Education, KSU School of Art and Design, regarding connections to wellness in the field of Art Education.
Do Deathbed Experiences Provide Evidence for an Afterlife?
Monday, November 1, 2021 | 1:30 pm

A Presentation by J. Steve Miller, Ph.D.

The thesis of this lecture/Q&A was quite simple and intuitive: If you want to look for evidence for the afterlife, observe the dying, to see if there’s any indication that they’re going somewhere. Researchers are finding that several experiences related to death are global and quite common, including:

Near-Death Experiences, where many resuscitated from clinical death report vivid out-of-body experiences
Deathbed Experiences, where over 80% of the dying in a hospice unit report vivid experiences with deceased relatives and angels
Terminal Lucidity, where people lose brain function over time, only to regain full consciousness to say their goodbyes before dying
Shared Death Experiences, where healthy people experience a part of their loved one’s death experience
Crisis Apparitions, where people otherwise unaware of a person’s death somehow know of the person’s death
After Death Communications, where people claim to receive visits from deceased loved ones

To discover if these can be explained away as lies, exaggerations, or hallucinations, highly respected intellects, connected to many of our top universities, have studied phenomena at death for significant portions of their lives and assessed them for afterlife evidence. In this onsite lecture, Dr. Miller argued that the current state of the evidence points toward the afterlife.

About J. Steve Miller

Dr. Miller has won numerous awards for his teaching and books. He teaches courses on Death & Dying and Religious Studies, with an emphasis on critical thinking, in the Interdisciplinary Studies department at Kennesaw State University. For the past 25 years, he’s spent extensive time caring for elderly and infirm relatives, including his grandmother, who celebrated her 110th birthday before passing away peacefully at home.

Testimonies About His Book

“The range and depth of this work is breathtaking….”

- Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., Formerly, Associate Professor of Environmental Physics, Harvard University

“…the best book on deathbed experiences anywhere.”

- Jeffrey Long, M.D., Cofounder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation

“…extremely powerful in making the case for life after death….”

- J. P. Moreland, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Biola University

“Anyone interested in solid evidence for the reality of the spiritual realm should read this book.”

- Michael Sabom, M.D., Former Assistant Professor of Cardiology, Emory School of Medicine

“…one of the most startling, challenging treatises it has been my privilege to read in recent years.”

- David Cashin, Ph.D., Professor of Intercultural Studies, Columbia International University
Virtual Lecture and Discussion on The Print Work of Louise Bourgeois: Content and Process

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 | 7:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art presented a virtual Lecture and discussion on the print work of Louise Bourgeois with Felix Harlan and Sewon Kang on Wednesday, November 3, 2021. Felix Harlan, master printer, proprietor of the printshop Harlan & Weaver, and friend and collaborator of renowned artist Louise Bourgeois will join Sewon Kang, archivist at The Easton Foundation and Louise Bourgeois Archive, for a discussion on the prints included in the exhibition The Labor of Remembrance Print and Textile Works by Louise Bourgeois as well as on the process of working with Bourgeois.

Sewon Kang is the Archivist at The Easton Foundation, Louise Bourgeois’ home/studio, where she is responsible for the care of the artist’s diaries, papers, and small collection of prints and illustrated books. She previously worked in the Drawings and Prints department at MoMA, first on the online catalogue raisonné of Bourgeois’ printed oeuvre, and then on the 2017 print retrospective and book,  An Unfolding Portrait. Sewon also researched other areas of MoMA’s collection for new acquisition initiatives, publications, and the reinstallation of the expanded museum. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and a part-time Masters student at Hunter College.
Amy Pleasant Artist Lecture
Wednesday, November 10, 2021 | 7:00 pm

Windgate Artist in Resident Amy Pleasant presented a lecture in the Ruth Zuckerman Pavilion at the Zuckerman Museum of Art on Thursday, November 10, at 7:00 pm. The lecture offered in-person and virtual visitors the opportunity to learn more about Pleasant's artistic process and residency at KSU's School of Art and Design. Amy Pleasant's work includes painting, drawing, and ceramic sculpture, exploring the body and language through repetition.

Windgate Foundation was established in 1993 and is a private, family foundation based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Windgate's goal is to advance contemporary craft and strengthen visual arts education in the United States. The foundation also supports children and youth in the State of Arkansas.

About Amy Pleasant

Amy Pleasant received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University (1999).

She has held solo exhibitions at Geary Contemporary (NYC/Millerton, NY), Laney Contemporary (Savannah, GA), Institute 193 (Lexington, KY), Jeff Bailey Gallery (Hudson/NYC), whitespace gallery (Atlanta, GA), Augusta University (Columbus, GA), Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IN), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), Atlanta Contemporary (GA), Auburn University’s School of Liberal Arts (AL), Rhodes College (Memphis, TN), Candyland (Stockholm, Sweden), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (AL) among others.

Group shows include Brackett Creek Exhibitions (Bozeman, MT), Hesse Flatow (NYC), SEPTEMBER (Hudson, NY), Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami, FL), Tif Sigfrids (Athens, GA), Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.), Adams and Ollman (Portland, OR), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (AL), Cuevas Tilleard Projects (NYC), The Dodd Galleries (Athens, GA), Zuckerman Museum of Art (GA), Knoxville Museum of Art (TN), Weatherspoon Museum of Art (NC), Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), Columbus Museum of Art (GA), National Museum of Women in the Arts (D.C.), The Mobile Museum of Art (AL), and the U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic.

Her work has been reviewed in publications such as World Sculpture News, Sculpture, The Brooklyn Rail, Art in America, Artforum, Art Papers, Bad at Sports, and Burnaway.

Awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2018), South Arts Prize for the State of Alabama (2018), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2015), Mary Hambidge Distinguished Artist Award (2015), Cultural Alliance of Birmingham Individual Artist Fellowship (2008), and Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship (2019/2003).

Her first monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, was released in 2019, co-published by Institute 193 and Frank.

Pleasant also co-founded the curatorial initiative The Fuel And Lumber Company with artist Pete Schulte in 2013.

Her work has been reviewed in many publications including Art in America, Art Papers, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and Sculpture.
Process & Procession Performances & Closing Reception

Friday, December 10, 2021 | 8:00 pm
Saturday, December 11, 2021 | 6:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art was thrilled to present a live performance series of students in the special topics course, Site-specific Choreography: Process and Procession, led by Professor Sean Nguyen-Hilton, Lecturer of Dance. The performance was created to accompany and in union with the Zuckerman Museum of Art's fall exhibitions, This Mortal Coil and The Labor of Remembrance Print and Textile Works by Louise Bourgeois, curated by Cynthia Nourse Thompson.

Thw two special activations of the museum took place on Friday, December 10, at 8:00 pm, and Saturday, December 11, at 4:00 pm. The Saturday, December 11 performance also included the closing reception of the ZMA's fall exhibitions.
2020

Art on My Mind: Visual Politics by Bell Hooks

August 10, 2020 | 4:00 - 6:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art and the Gender and Women's Studies Program co-sponsor an ongoing series of book discussions open to the campus community. A title is selected to serve as a springboard for discussion of important issues currently relevant to both groups.

The Spring 2020 Book Club discussed Art on My Mind: Visual Politics by bell hooks. In this 1995 publication, hooks, a leading cultural critic, responds to the ongoing dialogues about producing, exhibiting, and criticizing art and aesthetics in an art world increasingly concerned with identity politics. The discussion centered around identity politics and how they played a role in the artistic choices displayed in the work of our exhibitions, UNBOUND and Looming Chaos, and how they continue to play a role in the world today.

Last Lunch Wednesday: Erin Jane Nelson

October 28, 2020 | 12:30 - 1:00 pm

Last Wednesday lunch is a monthly, half-hour lecture series offering visitors a digestible 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.

On October 28th, the Zuckerman Museum of Art hosted it's your world for the moment artist, Erin Jane Nelson for a virtual lecture. Erin Jane Nelson is a native Atlantan who received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include: כינהש (Shekinah), Chapter NY; Her Deepness at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and Psychopompopolis at DOCUMENT, Chicago. Her work has recently been featured in group exhibitions at La Galerie, centre d’art contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, France; Deli Gallery, Brooklyn; Van Doren Waxter, New York; and Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Recent museum acquisitions of her work are currently included in Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950-2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Other.Worldly at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. She was named one of Forbes Magazine's "30 Under 30" in Arts and Culture in 2019 and is a 2020 recipient of the Rabkin Award for Arts Journalism. In addition to her art practice, she is the Director of Burnaway.org.

Interchange at the ZMA

September 17, 2020 | 7:30 pm

Interchange is an annual collaboration across all disciplines of the arts that celebrates the spark that all the creative arts enkindle in one another. The 2020 Interchange program was presented virtually and featured eight ArtsKSU faculty performances in response to the exhibited works in the Zuckerman Museum of Art’s galleries.

Watch the video.

Last Wednesday Lunch: Keith Smith

September 30, 2020 | 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm

Last Wednesday lunch is a monthly, half-hour lecture series offering visitors a digestible opportunity to connect with art and ideas on display at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. On September 30th, 2020, A Peculiar Proximity to Spiritual Mysteries artist, Keith Smith shared insight into his work and artistic practice.

List of artworks discussed

Watch the video

Mendieta: Land, Body, Identity - Hispanic Heritage Student Tour

October 8, 2020 | 2:00 - 3:00 pm
October 12, 2020 | 10:00 – 11:00 am

Students were invited to participate in a special conversation with Michelle Lopez, Collections Manager at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, as she shared information about the distinguished life and art of the late Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, whose art was on display in the Mortin Gallery. Lopez also shared stories from her own upbringing in an expatriate Cuban family. Students were invited to share their stories of being Latinx in America as well.

Last Lunch Wednesday: Art as Activisim

November 18, 2020 | 12:30 - 1:00 pm

Last Wednesday lunch is a monthly, half-hour lecture series offering visitors a digestible 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.

On November 18th, we heard from members of CIFAL Atlanta and their Distinguished Student Ambassador team speak about the creation of the exhibition Art as Activism: Social Justice and Sustainability which was on view in the Fine Arts Gallery from November 11th to November 20th, 2020.

Anthony Goicolea: New Visions 2021 Lecture

November 6, 2020 | 12:00 - 1:00 pm

A special virtual lecture with Anthony Goicolea, the selected juror for the inaugural New Visions 2021, the annual juried student exhibition. Hosted by the Zuckerman Museum of Art and Director of Curatorial Affairs, Cynthia Nourse Thompson, the hour-long virtual talk featured an insightful presentation by the artist examining his artistic practice.

Anthony Goicolea is a first-generation Cuban American artist who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Anthony utilizes a variety of media- including painting, photography, sculpture and video installation- in the creation of his compelling and many times foreboding visual narratives. Goicolea will discuss his work in these varied mediums and the principal ideas and explorations addressed in his work which include personal history, heritage, identity and cultural tradition. These are reflective of his own personal familial experiences— his extended family fled Cuba, not long after Castro came to power, and immigrated to the US. His works are also powerful and engaging contemplations on displacement and alienation.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

November 19, 2020 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm

The Zuckerman Museum of Art and the KSU Interdisciplinary Studies Department co-sponsor an ongoing series of book discussions open to the campus community. A title is selected to serve as a springboard for discussion of important issues currently relevant to both groups.

The Fall 2020 book Club virtual event discussed Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Dr. Kimmerer is Associate Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She is the author of numerous scientific articles, and the book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She is Potawatomi and combines her heritage with her scientific and environmental passions.

Origins Map Project - Place Your Pin

The artworks held in public trust at Zuckerman Museum of Art were made by artists who come from many different places across the country and the world. The places of birth of the artists represented in A Peculiar Proximity to Spiritual Mysteries span three continents! A map of the world installed of the wall of the Pavilion plots those origins. We want to plot your place of origin, too!

We invite the KSU campus community and guests to register your place of birth to be added as a pin on our Origins Map.

No personally identifiable information is necessary to participate.

We live in an age when approximately 1 person out of every 30 is an immigrant. The vast majority of American citizens have roots in other parts of the world. Our ‘melting pot’ continues to connect people from distant cultures and walks of life. The Zuckerman Museum of Art celebrates the strength of our diverse Kennesaw State University!

Margot Norton, Allen and Lola Goldring Curator, the New Museum, New York

Jasmine Wahi, Holly Block Social Justice Curator, Bronx Museum, New York

Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, The Brooklyn Museum, New York