linked - Department of Art and Art History - Wayne State University

Spectator Rules: Shaping Making & Meaning in Contemporary Art
Friday, October 5, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Woodward A, Level Two, Westin Book Cadillac Hotel
Chair: Mysoon Rizk, University of Toledo
While considering works of art, how do we characterize roles played by spectatorship, whether in the
making of (including by artists and viewers), or even in the making meaning of (including by scholars
and viewers), such work Speakers engage the question from a variety of positions: considering how
curatorial practice not only steers but also gets steered by viewers; addressing the dynamism of
spectator experience with installations that demand performative engagement; analyzing examples
of work specifically invested in triggering an active spectatorship; and characterizing the roles of
artists and audiences as inherently generative in the production of meaning.
“Yeah, but what does it mean”
Allison Norris, Independent Scholar
“Passability and Impassability of Two Gates”
Nogin Chung, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
“Constructive Alienation and Terror”
Kristin Brockman, Ohio State University
“Representation as Lived Experience”
Scott Sherer, University of Texas at San Antonio
Materials Making Meaning
Friday, October 5, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Woodward B, Level Two, Westin Book Cadillac Hotel
Chair: Armin Mühsam, Northwest Missouri State University
Our own art expresses how we perceive and interpret the world and what choices we have made but
what if the very materials we create our art with are the constituting part of the message This studio
session’s main ambition is to look at these “acts of artifacts,” to make the connection between the
activities of the artist and the activities of materials/things. How can materials mediate a relation
people have with them while at the same time point to the content the artist wants to communicate
Where does the material take on a life of its own, possibly to the point where things become beings
Might concepts even take on the nature of material
“Precious Material”
Christiana Byrne, MFA Candidate, University of Iowa
“Sticks and Stones to Mend the Bones: The Works of Clyde Connell”
Laura-Caroline Johnson, MA Candidate, School of the Art Institute of Chicago