The Department of Art regularly invites artists, critics, historians and designers to participate in the Department of Art Speaker Series, classroom lectures and critiques.
September 10: Matt Kenyon
Matt Kenyon is interested in the convergence of art, emerging technologies and popular culture. Many of his recent works feature interactive computing technologies and artificial intelligence/artificial life as a means for making cultural critique.
September 17: Kambui Olujimi
Kambui Olujimi works within the realm of ideas rather than within an exclusive medium. He crafts potent social commentary from delicate wisps of myth and whimsy mixed with real-world narrative. Lyrical and elliptical rather than ideological, Olujimi’s art transcends the political sphere, affirming its own autonomy.
September 24: Martin Kruck
Martin Kruck earned his MFA degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1995 and his BFA degree from Queen’s University, Canada in 1991. In his series, “Body Language,” photographer Martin Kruck captured messages imprinted on skin. These cryptic messages such as “too late” are made even more curious with their indentation on the human body. The marks appear to be temporary which contributes to the ephemeral nature of the work.
October 1: Eve Andree Laramee
Eve Andree Laramee’s work and research explores the subtle historical and social dimensions between artistic practice and scientific inquiry; questioning commonly held assumptions about art and science and how these views are transmitted over time. Three primary themes include: history of science, legacy of the Cold War/Atomic Age nuclear legacy sites, and environmental/ecological systems.
October 8: J. Morgan Puett
Morgan Puett is a trans-disciplinary creative producer with accomplished work in the areas of installation art practices, clothing and furniture design, architecture, fine art, film, and more – rearranging these intersections by applying conceptual tools including research-based methods in history, biology, new economies, design, craft and collaboration.
October 15: Ken Goldberg
Ken Goldberg is a pioneer in internet-based robotic telepresence and Cloud-Based Robotics /Automation and has published over 200 peer-reviewed technical papers on algorithms for robotics, automation, and social information filtering.
October 22: Kikko Paradela
Kikko Paradela is an independent Detroit-based designer focusing on interactive, identity, and installation work for the arts and cultural sector. Currently Kikko runs his own design and research practice, You VS Jesus, and teaches Interaction Design in the Graphic Design department at the College for Creative Studies. He is an active member of OmniCorpDetroit, a local community hackerspace.
October 29: -Saki Mafundikwa
Saki Mafundikwa is a maverick visionary who left a successful design career in New York to return to his native Zimbabwe and open that country’s first school of graphic design and new media. Mafundikwa is the author of Afrikan Alphabets, a comprehensive review of African writing systems. He has participated in exhibitions and workshops around the world, contributed to a variety of publications and lectured about the globalization of design and the African aesthetic. In 2010, he made the film Shungu: The Resilience of a People, a compelling narrative of the strategies ordinary people use to survive in Zimbabwe today.
November 5: Whitney Hubbs
With a 20-year history of picture making, Hubbs explores both straightforward and uncertain modes of image production. Educated as a traditional documentary photographer and as a conceptual artist examining the role of photographs, Hubbs brings a rigorous approach to her work. Her subject matter has included staged poems to the landscape, the figure in the landscape, self-portraits, and literal and abstract examinations of the female body.
November 12: Morehshin Allahyari
Morehshin Allahyari is a media artist, activist, educator, and curator who uses computer modeling, 3D scanning and digital fabrication techniques to explore the intersection of art and activism. Inspired by concepts of collective archiving, memory, and cultural contradiction, Allahyari’s 3D printed sculptures and videos challenge social and gender norms.
November 19: Reed Anderson
Reed Anderson been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally for over 25 years. He began school at the Cleveland Institute of Art where he studied with Julian Stanczak. After 3 years in Cleveland he transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute where he completed his BFA in Printmaking. He continued his education by attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Later he went on to Stanford University and Graduated with an MFA in studio art in 2009. Anderson's work is in public collections that include MOMA, NYC; Albright-Knox, Buffalo; The West Collection, Philadelphia; The Olbricht collection, Esssen Germany and The Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Austria among other private collections...
November 26: Charmaine Wheatley
Switching between mediums: performance, sculpture, printed matter and painting; the backbone of Wheatley’s practice involves a daily “sketchbook” habit. Never without watercolors, pens, and paper, her studio is portable. Wheatley has published four books: Beau Fleuve: The Heart of North America (2006), 30% of Buffalo…Is Functionally Illiterate (2009), Brett’s Ball (2014) and Souvenirs (2015).
December 3: Will Wilson
Will Wilson is a Diné photographer who spent his formative years living in the Navajo Nation. Wilson studied photography at the University of New Mexico and Oberlin College. He is part of the Science and Arts Research Collaborative (SARC) which brings together artists interested in using science and technology in their practice with collaborators from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia Labs as part of the International Symposium on Electronic Arts, 2012 (ISEA).
