Bennington College Announces its 2006 Fall Visual Arts Lecture Series

Bennington College invites the public to its term-long Visual Arts Lecture Series. All lectures and performances are free and open to the public.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006, 7:30 pm Martha Hill Dance Theater

Dov Weinstein, founder and director of Tiny Ninja Theater in New York, will speak about his work, which is dedicated to the principle that "there are no small parts, only small actors." Weinstein produces Shakespeare plays that cast only miniature ninja and assorted dime-store figurines. His first production, Macbeth, won an Excellence Award for Ingenuity and Originality at the 2000 New York International Fringe Festival. His most recent work is entitled; "A Brief History of DUMBO" and uniquely dramatizes Weinstein’s eviction from a neighborhood apartment.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006, 7:30 pm Tishman Lecture Hall

The University of Hanover's Ines Katenhusen examines the intersection of art and politics as informed by her research of German museum director and supporter of avant-garde art Alexander Dorner. Katenhusen's award-winning doctoral thesis concerned Modernism and cultural politics, her chief research interest.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 7:30 pm Tishman Lecture Hall

Chris Kraus, filmmaker and author of I Love Dick, speaks about her work, which has been praised by some for "its damning intelligence, vulnerability, and dazzling speed." She writes regularly for Art/Text Magazine and is currently working on a biography of novelist and performance artist Kathy Acker. Giovanni Intra, of artnet magazine wrote, “Chris Kraus' first novel, I Love Dick, reads like Madame Bovary as if Emma had written it. Kraus spins out the Emma-syndrome of dissatisfied feminine boredom through a chronicle of the '80s art world.”

Tuesday, October 31, 2006, 7:30 pm Tishman Lecture Hall

Large-scale photographer Lynne Cohen, who in 2005 received the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts and Media Arts, will discuss her current work. Cohen is concerned with uninhabited, but familiar interior spaces such as salons, factories and living rooms. Her photographs contain a strangeness not ordinarily associated with the commonplace. She says, "The strangeness might be due to the fact that the ordinary is often more menacing than the blatantly bizarre which can be easily dismissed as impossible," and finds herself "looking for…something political, conceptual, incompatible, pathetic."

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 7:30 pm Tishman Lecture Hall

Brooklyn-based artist David McKenzie will discuss his most recent work in video, sculpture, and installation art. McKenzie, motivated by a desire to recreate mundane objects and gestures into thoughtful pieces, works with common, everyday materials to meet this end. His work has included reconstructing the design of a basketball by turning it inside out, inscribing and designing mugs that aren't practical but impart a hopeful message, and drafting personal letters in Braille.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006, 7:30 pm Tishman Lecture Hall

Stephen Sollins, well known for his "deconstructed" embroideries that reflect emotional responses and systematic formulations that are manifested in everyday objects. Sollins transforms secondhand, embroidered linens into Modernist geometric abstractions by re-formatting the original pattern. His work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions in New York, Louisiana, New Mexico, and California. In 2004, Sollins exhibited Home Sweet Home, featuring embroidered and removed embroidery works at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York. He was most recently featured as a participant in Raw Data: Conceptual Art in Louisiana, at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans.

For further information or details, please visit www.bennington.edu or call 802-440-4425.