KENT, Ohio – The Kent State University School of Art will present several virtual lectures with internationally-known visiting artists and scholars this April. These virtual talks will include appearances from Rachel Eulena Williams, Glenn Adamson, Dawit L. Petros, and Naeem Mohaiemen. These lectures are free and open to the public and will take place virtually over Zoom.
Rachel Eulena Williams: Friday, April 2, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Glenn Adamson: Friday, April 9 from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Dawit L. Petros: Friday, April 23, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen: Friday, April 30, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Artist Rachel Eulena Williams will give a virtual talk on Friday, April, 2, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Williams (b. 1991, Miami, Florida, USA) works at the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Her reconfigured canvases unbind painting from the stretcher, avoiding conventional support systems and imagining a myriad of spatial contortions. Williams’ drawings also manipulate the way images are presented, playing with assumptions about virtuosity through abstraction. Williams received a B.F.A. from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York in 2013. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Rachel Eulena Williams currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
The Global Understanding Research Initiative with support from the School of Art will present a virtual lecture with artist and juror Dawit L. Petros. This virtual lecture accompanies “Import/Export,” an international, outdoor art exhibition which will be on view April 5 to May 15 on Kent State’s main campus. The webinar will be held on Friday, April 23, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Petros is a visual artist, researcher and educator. His work is informed by studies of global modernisms, theories of diaspora, and postcolonial studies. Petros completed the Whitney Independent Study Program, an MFA in Visual Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University; a BFA in Photography from Concordia University and a BA in History from the University of Saskatchewan. His work has been exhibited internationally. Dawit L. Petros is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Photography at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland has partnered with the School of Art to present a virtual talk with artist and filmmaker, Naeem Mohaimen, whose work is currently on view at the museum. The webinar will be held on Friday, April 30, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Naeem Mohaiemen (Oberlin ‘93) combines films, drawings, sculpture, and essays to research the many forms of utopia-dystopia (families, borders, architecture, and uprisings)– beginning from South Asia’s postcolonial markers (1947, 1971) and then radiating outward to transnational alliances and collisions. He is a Mellon Teaching Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, where he also received his Ph.D. In this lecture, Mohaiemen will speak about how the memory of the Kent State shootings in 1970 loomed over Oberlin during the trial of “The Oberlin Six” students.
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Website: https://www.kent.edu/art
About the School of Art: The School of Art at Kent State University was established in 1941 and maintains a tradition of excellence in visual arts education, creation, scholarship and leadership. Its undergraduate and graduate programs in the visual arts offer a range of directions and opportunities in the fields of art education, art history, and studio art, which includes a comprehensive array of studio disciplines: ceramics, drawing, glass, jewelry/metals/enameling, painting, print media and photography, sculpture and expanded media, and textiles. The School of Art Collection and Galleries consist of six exhibition spaces located on the Kent campus and downtown Kent and a collection of over 4,000 artworks and objects. The School of Art is located at the Center of the Visual Arts at 325 Terrace Dr. in Kent. The 27,900-square-foot facility — twice the length of a football field — had its grand opening in 2016 and houses all School of Art studios and classrooms under one roof.
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Media Contact: Roza Maille, Marketing Assistant, School of Art, rmaille1@kent.edu