Symposium on Art Criticism

Contact: Hamlett Dobbins, Director
Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College

(901) 843-3442

For Immediate Release:

Clough-Hanson Gallery, the department of art, the Lillie and Morrie Moss Endowment for the Visual Arts at Rhodes College are teaming up with arts quarterly Number Inc to present a symposium on the importance on art criticism in a creative community.

The symposium will take place in room 051 in the new Paul Barrett Library at Rhodes College on Saturday, February 14th from 1-3 pm.

The symposium will feature a panel discussion with the Lillie and Morris Moss visiting artist/curator/critic Michelle Grabner, Rhodes’ contemporary art historian David McCarthy and Terry Thacker, the chair of Watkins School of Art, Design and Film in Nashville. The panelists will discuss their connections with art criticism and its importance in an active arts community. This symposium is designed to create an open discussion between members of our community.

Late last year there were a series of informal round table discussions with a number of leaders from the local arts community. The group included heads of local arts non-profits, chairs of several college art departments, leaders of alternative art spaces as well as a number of commercial gallery owners. The aims of the discussions were to find ways to improve the creative climate in the community. Among the issues discussed was the need for more critical dialog in the form of essays or reviews. The need for these critical reviews extends beyond the need to communicate with the local audience but in bringing word of the extraordinary artists and exhibitions to a regional or national audience. One of the major issues with the Flyer, the Commercial Appeal, Number Inc and other publications is that it is difficult to find writers who feel qualified and are willing to write critically about the visual arts. The goal of this symposium is to raise the awareness of this important issue of critical writing in the community.

Michelle Grabner received her MFA from Northwestern University, Department of Theory and Practice in 1990. At NU she worked with the painters Ed Paschke and William Conger. She received a MA in Art History (1987) and a BFA (1984) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has been teaching since 1996. Grabner and her husband Brad Killam run the artist project space called The Suburban in Oak Park. Since January 1999 they have worked with over one hundred and twenty artists. A book on her work published by University Galleries of Illinois State University titled “Remain in Light” was published in 2008.

David McCarthy has taught contemporary art history at Rhodes College since 1991. In 2004 he was a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. McCarthy is the author of The Nude in American Painting, 1950 to 1980 (1998), Pop Art (2000), and H.C. Westermann at War (2004), as well as numerous essays and reviews on American art since 1945. He currently holds the James F. Ruffin Chair of Art and Archaeology at Rhodes College, Memphis.

Terry Thacker has been an artist and educator for twenty years, receiving the title of Distinguished Professor in 1995. Active as a lecturer and reviewer, Terry has written for Art Papers and Number Inc, lectured at the Southeastern College Art Conference, and most recently spoken at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Thacker has shown in numerous national and regional exhibitions including solo exhibitions at Western Kentucky University, Murry State University, Alexandria Museum, and The Memphis Center for Contemporary Art. Current projects include a collaborative installation for the Parthenon. His work can be seen at Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, TN.

If you should have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Gallery Director Hamlett Dobbins at Clough-Hanson Gallery (901) 843-3442, via email at dobbinsh@rhodes.edu.