Art History Symposium @ Sac State

           On Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit my first Art History Symposium at Sac State; so many first art experiences this semester!! It began with a introduction by Ed Inch, the dean of the College of Arts and Letters and he made the announcement that 12,050 people had attended U-Nite at the Crocker Art Museum; that's huge! Soon after Elaine O'Brien had the pleasure of introducing the 10th annual Art History Symposium's key note speaker, Kathan Brown. She began with some insightful information about the Symposium though, mentioning the theme of cross cultural connections in print making and some of the artists who were visiting from Alaska, New York, Oklahoma, and San Francisco. I had no idea so many art historians were visiting from all over. I stayed and listened to the first three lectures, but found Kathan Brown's and Pamela Ivinski's to be the most of interest to me.

Keynote speaker, Kathan Brown

 

           Kathan Brown, the key note speaker, visited from San Francisco and is the Director at Crown Point Press which she founded in 1962 in order to use traditional printmaking techniques for new art ideas. Crown Point works with artists by invitation who travel from Europe, Japan and various parts of the United States to work with etching in the San Francisco studios. Her lecture intended to give us an Insider's Perspective and had information given to the audience by both her and the video clips she showed. Brown informed us of the 2013 Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Yes, No, Maybe. The exhibit examined the artistic process as a sequence of decisions. Working proofs recorded occurrences which were both deliberate and serendipitous and were used to monitor and steer a print’s evolution, prompting evaluation and approval, revision, or rejection. Each proof compelled a decision: yes, no, maybe. The exhibit included many well-known artists with long ties to Crown Point Press, including John Cage (Yes), Chuck Close (No) and Richard Diebenkorn (Maybe).
           Richard Diebenkorn joined Crown Point Press in 1964 and was the first artist Brown published, working with dry point images on plates. In 1977 he was invited back to publish more work. He was considered the Maybe in Brown's exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.
           John Cage, an American Composer, writer and artist also worked at Crown Point Press and Brown considered him to be the Yes in the equation.
           Chuck Close was considered the No. He worked on prints that looked like realistic portraits and although they almost all turned out as Yes' they were considered No's because he chose to make multi-colored collages with his prints instead.
            At the end of the lecture, Kathan Brown posed the question, "Can print making really survive in this digital age?" It makes me wonder if it can, considering how many semesters I have thought about taking a print-making class at Sac State and one has not been available. I think in this day and age, it may not be nearly as accessible or as well-known, but I still think it will survive. It is very much so like film photography; many people rarely use it or know about it anymore, but it is still a very important part of art history and I think classes will still be offered to give people that insight and that education. It's still an enjoyable part of art making and I think if people, like Kathan Brown continue to educate people on it's existence and it's importance that it can survive in this digital age and I think her lecture proves that and I enjoyed it very much.
             Two more very interesting lectures followed before the intermission break, but I was quite interested in the third one by Pamela Ivinski, an independent scholar from New York, about "The Unexpected Creation of Arabesques" in Mary Cassatt's 1890-91 color prints. Her lecture was all about connecting the relationship between Cassatt's work and the decorative devices of Japanese and Islamic Art. She compared many of Cassatt's prints to those of Japanese Print making as well as to the arabesque in Islamic art which is the primordial form in which all other decorative forms evolved. At the end of the lecture she even displayed a painting of Cassatt's which combined all of the elements that she had discussed. I really enjoyed her lecture and during the intermission, I decided to go up and speak to her and let her know how much I had enjoyed it. I even informed her of how I was not aware that Mary Cassatt had experimented with print making. She went on to inform me of  how Mary Cassatt had gradually begun to abandon Impressionist work for paintings that emphasized shapes and forms like that of Japanese woodblock prints. As a fan of Mary Cassatt's paintings, if found this very interesting.

Pamela Ivinski and Elaine O'Brien after Ivinski's lecture



         Overall, I think the Art History Symposium and the week of the Festival of the Arts was a huge success and I very much so enjoyed participating in some of the events. I feel like I learned a lot from these lectures and I look forward to next years Festival of the Arts.