Fine Art Lecture Services

Katharine T. Carter & Associates has spent over 22 years developing and refining Fine Art Lecture Services.

Through slide presentations, lectures, and workshops, highly respected art professionals discuss a wide variety of contemporary art topics including all aspects of career development for artists, art administrators, enthusiasts and collectors.

LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS PRESENTED BY THE ASSOCIATES

Katharine T. Carter is pleased to offer the services of her Associates, a unique group of individuals with extensive experience in all aspects of the art world. These art professionals are available for a wide range of individualized programs, dynamic lectures, workshops and symposia. The addition of leading art critics, independent curators, public relations and marketing strategists and career advisors provides artists, arts administrators and contemporary art enthusiasts alike valuable information about the business of exhibiting and selling art. Each Associate is a highly respected and dedicated art professional.

DOMINIQUE NAHAS

Dominique Nahas, a leading museum and gallery catalog essayists, is an independent curator and critic, former museum director and curator, who has written extensively for magazines and periodicals such as Flash Art, Trans, New Observations, New Art Examiner, Sculpture, Art-Asia Pacific, Artnet Worldwide and C. He is a regular contributor to Art in America, as well as New York Editor of dART International and has written over 150 reviews and articles on contemporary art.

“The Highlights of the New York Art Season”

It has been said of innovative artists who show in New York that they examine commonplace, yet profound aspects of life that no one has bothered paying attention to before. That’s the major reason the high-octane international art scene in New York is exhilarating and constantly surprising. It pushes the intellectual and emotional envelope. And with mass-media at its disposal the art scene realizes that (potentially, at least) it is involved in making as well as defining new visual history The current art world in Manhattan is a thriving, rambunctious and competitive community. And it is a colossal, fascinating, energizing, culture-making, hot-house laboratory – an experimental environment where the frontiers of visuality are constantly being explored. It’s by turns an exciting, frustrating, thought-provoking, puerile, invigorating, madcap environment with enough twists and turns to make anyone reach for their Dramamine. Who could want anything more?

As an art historian, independent curator and critic covering the Manhattan art scene one word describes the visual work I see on any given day at the numerous galleries or museums or alternative spaces in Manhattan and its environs: diversity (and plenty of it). There is work for all persuasions:  from portraits and landscapes and figure studies and still lives to abstract and semi-abstract and representational art made in many media. There is art made with traditional materials as well as artwork made with a wide variety of high tech materials and processes, often of stunning beauty. There are artworks presented from all cultures and countries in museums, galleries, private salons, foreign consulates, corporate sponsored spaces, as well as in parks and other outdoor arenas. There are “official” art exhibitions as well as “unofficial, guerrilla” exhibitions. There are exhibitions of well known blue chip artists showing work in top galleries as well as artworks by newly emerging or mid-career artists in recently established commercial art spots. And, of course there is always a jostling for reconsideration and re-validation in historical terms of forgotten or half-remembered artists.

“The Highlights of the New York Art Season” intends to serve as an introduction to the sights of the past six months in the city’s thriving metropolis as well as in Brooklyn and beyond. It introduces students, faculty, museum directors, curators and staff and general art audiences to an overview of the most current work being exhibited in New York. This unique informational resource is directed towards anyone without regular first-hand contact with major galleries and museums in New York City. This slide lecture captures the explosive energy of the New York art world in its broad coverage of the innovative trends in contemporary art.

“Cyberspace: New Frontiers in Sculpture”

Technology is the language of our day. As with any other medium technology can be directed and applied to enhance our awareness of the complexity and pleasures of day to day existence and to project our fears and delights onto the future. Cyberspace: New Frontiers in Sculpture will center on several aspects of new technologies both in relation to the use of space and in terms of the ideology of digital somatics. As examples of these forays into new visual languages, Mr. Nahas’ talk will feature images taken from the interactive media of virtual reality (VR) as well as images of examples of stereolithography, that is, three dimensional printing, otherwise known as rapidprototyping (RP) in the visual work of revolutionary thinkers such as Berkeley mathematician Carlos Sequin, and artists such as Robert Lazzarini, Michael Rees, Greg Little, Frank Stella and inventor and toy maker Michael Grey. VR and RP have been applied and used in the entertainment industry, in the aerospace and automobile industry, in medical diagnostic imaging, in convincing VR walk-throughs by seven architects and designers. Some of the most important visual work, however, is being done on extending the theory of topological forms using programs to do first order mathematical surfaces (as in the VR and RP work of Berkeley’s Carlos Sequin and ASU’s Dan Collins). On other levels, artists and visionaries have explored technology to generate captivating new visual metaphors for consciousness. In Cyberspace: New Frontiers in Sculpture we will explore the visual ruminations of various artists on the idea of the man-machine hybrid (the cyborg) in the work of Michael Grey, cyber-Pygmalion myth in the RP work of Michael Rees, investigations on the creation of the millennial avatar in the RP work of Greg Little and chaos theory in the new fabricated sculpture of Frank Stella.

“Pop Surrealism”

Critic and historian Dominique Nahas incorporates three main themes in his art talk on Pop Surrealism: Those of the grotesque body, surrealist icons of popular culture, and surreal comics and the influence of  “low art” underground comics on “high art” including the fractured, dream-like surrealist narrative that has been used in comics, television, film and advertising. Mr. Nahas traces the exciting development of these two formerly antithetical art movements, one an introspective link to the unconscious, the other an outward manifestation of consumer desire in the work of over seventy contemporary artists as diverse as Peter Saul, John Wesley, Ashley Bickerton, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Artschwager, Cindy Sherman, Sue Williams, John Currin, Paul McCarthy, Art Spiegelman and Shazia Sikander.

“John Kingerlee: New Work”

John Kingerlee is a 70-year-old British-born artist who has lived in Ireland almost 20 years. Though more than half the year is spent in the stark landscape of Ireland's Beara Peninsula, for the remaining months, Kingerlee lives and works in the exotic locales of Granada, Spain and Morocco. William Zimmer wrote, “John Kingerlee: New Works”. “With some disingenuousness, Kingerlee has described himself as an outsider artist. No one this well-traveled could qualify as one and yet there is some truth in his statement. He is operating outside the art world that grabs all the attention; that which is high on technology and resembles popular entertainment more than traditional art practices. John Kingerlee’s art is sustained by enchantment, observed reality and superlative talent.”

RICHARD VINE

Richard Vine, the current Managing Editor of Art in America, has served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review and of Dialogue: An Art Journal. His articles on art, literature, and intellectual history have appeared in numerous journals, including Salmagundi, Modern Poetry Studies, and New Criterion.

“New China, New Art”

Nowhere is the “shock of the new” more pronounced than in contemporary China. In just 30 years, the world’s most populous nation has gone from the enforced conformity of the Cultural Revolution to a capitalistic frenzy that is today transforming cities, social structures and individual psyches at breathtaking pace. This cultural tumult – at once encouraged and feared by the sovereign Communist Party – is reflected in the work of myriad young Chinese artists, who are not only reacting esthetically to their country’s sweeping changes but – along with emerging curators, dealers and collectors – mounting a challenge to business as usual in the international artworld. This lecture discusses various movements in post-Tiananmen art (e.g., the Stars group, Scar Art, ’85 Art New Wave, Political Pop, Cynical Realism) while examining works by many key figures, including Huang Yong Ping, Xu Bing, Gu Wenda, Chen Zhen, Zhang Huan, Song Dong, Wang Qingsong, Ai Weiwei, Liu Zhen and Zhang Dali. A frequent visitor to the People’s Republic, the author, who has published numerous articles on the nation’s contemporary art scene, also offers firsthand accounts of the people, shows and institutions that are now impacting the world’s oldest continuous civilization – and its newest global player.

 “Sex, Lies, and Art Magazines”

Can a few powerful publications make or break an artist’s career? Do art magazines apportion their editorial coverage on the basis of advertising revenue from galleries? Is there a conspiracy among critical tastemakers to ignore the tender and beautiful in favor of the rude and perverse? Behind such all-too-common questions lie some persistent myths about the inner workings of the New York art world and the major international art publications. A more realistic analysis reveals a fantastic disproportion between the number of shows and artists seeking exposure and the number that can actually be covered. In this intensely competitive environment, decisions are largely conditioned by, metaphorically speaking, a network of seductions: that is, the desire originating between viewer and work of art is echoed and transformed in countless ancillary acts of commerce among artists, dealers, critics, curators, and collectors.

“Why is Contemporary Art So Weird?”

Mystification, perversion, esthetic fraud––these charges and others come quickly to the popular mind these days. For it is now a fact of cultural life that progressive visual art is the preoccupation of a minuscule minority. “Advanced” art exhibitions are typically viewed by the mainstream audience (if they are viewed at all) with a combination of skepticism, intimidation and alarm. Why is this so? Could it be otherwise? This talk addresses the determinative factors – historical, socioeconomic, psychological, and philosophical – which make today’s most creative works so problematic for the general public. 

KATHLEEN CULLEN

Kathleen Cullen has held the position of Director at leading New York Galleries, including the Ramnarine Gallery, THE Gallery, Althea Viafora Gallery, Stuart Levy Gallery and the Sandra Gering Gallery. She has independently curated some of the most controversial exhibitions in New York during the 1990s in spaces such as PS1, the Postmasters Gallery and Barbara Toll Fine Arts. She is currently the Director of Kathleen Cullen Fine Art in New York City.

“Getting to the ‘Independent’ in Independent Curating”

This lecture will examine the differences between independent curating and museum or in-house gallery curating by defining the essence of independence in that term. Ms. Cullen, an independent curator, will describe what she finds most exciting about the field, and how it works as a profession. She will discuss how
the independent curator fits into the art market, stressing both the advantages and disadvantages of the independent posture. Finally, Ms. Cullen will present some anecdotal tall tales and horror stories of her personal experiences curating exhibitions in New York.

“Re-collecting art...in the New Millennium”

One of the unspoken results of the art crash of 1990-94 is this: Collectors from the boom times have reentered the art market, but not in the old way. The idea of collecting contemporary art has been scaled back. Collecting for investment? for pushing American culture abroad? for status? for the hot thing? for the buzz? no way! (well maybe for the buzz). In all collecting, the best collector’s “collect themselves” in a cultural contest where fine or high art cannot tolerate being but a very tiny footnote to “Titanic”, but must be a special, irreproducible way to make a statement about contemporary life at century’s end. In the 90s the main challenge of collecting is determining what the changed posture of contemporary art in our culture entails. By collecting art one collects one’s life and memories. One way to get a sense of how to proceed in creating a personal collection is to review some of the great collectors of the recent past. By recollecting how they collected, the retrospective sheen of the fortunate fame of the artists they collected is peeled back and personal commitment to artists and their voices is revealed afresh as the motivating factor.

“Real or Virtual: Art in the Gallery or Online”

The author, who has worked in art galleries and for online auction services, compares the pluses and minuses of buying art in galleries or online. Including basic how-to information on both types of selling, and buying, the lecture will also explore the aesthetic ramifications of the development of art online over the coming generation.

PETER FRANK

Peter Frank is Senior Curator at the Riverside (CA) Art Museum and art critic for Angeleno magazine and the L.A. Weekly. In New York he served as art critic for The Village Voice and The SoHo Weekly News and he is the former editor of Visions Art Quarterly. Frank has organized and assisted with numerous theme and survey exhibitions for such prestigious institutions and organizations as the Guggenheim Museum, Independent Curators Inc., The Alternative Museum, and Artists’ Space in New York; the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid; Documenta in Kassel, Germany; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary ARt, and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. He has published numerous books and catalogues, the latest a monograph on the painter Robert De Niro, Sr.

“The Arts In Fusion: Intermedia Yesterday and Today”

This lecture concerns the historical background and contemporary forms assumed by what has generally become known as “Intermedia”, that is, artwork which combines normally separate artistic disciplines. Among the forms of Intermedia prevalent in our time are performance art, body art, conceptual art, visual poetry, sound poetry, artists’ books, graphically-notated music, and many other manifestations. The Arts In Fusion describes and analyzes Intermedial work produced not only in our own time, but throughout the 20th century, by the Futurists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, artists of the Bauhaus, and other historical groups, as well as by individuals such as Kurt Schwitters and Marcel Duchamp. Postwar figures such as John Cage and Allan Kaprow and groups like the Nouveaux Realistes and Fluxus are portrayed as both significant in their own right and as transitional to the present-day explosion in Intermedial forms and practices. The Arts In Fusion considers various leading contributors to this explosion, including Lawrence Weiner, Laurie Anderson, Vito Acconci, Douglas Davis, Eleanor Antin, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gina Pane, John Baldessari, the Noigandres poets of Brazil, and many others.

The (Re)Emergence of Art Around America”

This lecture discusses the growing self-sufficiency and even influence of American art centers other than New York. The talk considers sociological, economic, and political as well as aesthetic matters to investigate the reasons why cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston, and even smaller centers, no longer depend on New York as much as they once did. “(Re)Emergence” also discusses how New York remains the center of the art world in certain ways, but how this, too, could change. The contributions of artists, collectors, schools, dealers, critics, and curators to this dynamic are analyzed, as is its effect on the particular interests of these various art-world participants. Of course, the decentralization of the American art scene can be extended to art activity worldwide; the situation vis-a-vis New York in America is thus a microcosm of the global situation.

“...Lest Ye Be Judged: Juried Shows From the Juror’s POV”

At any given time of year, there is a juried show going on in some part of the United States, and perhaps other parts of the known universe. Many artists dismiss the notion of participating in such shows, while many others virtually define their careers by them. What good are such exhibitions to the exhibitors? Is it worth the money and the effort? Conversely, might participating in the “juried circuit” be a better career move than striving for gallery representation? If you do submit to juried exhibitions, how do you find out which ones are the best to submit to? What should you submit? What should you then expect? In fact, what kinds of juried shows are there? What does a typical juror look for? Who or what intervenes between the juror and your work? How much of a crapshoot is it? For that matter, what’s in it for a juror to be a juror?

ROBERT MAHONEY

Robert Mahoney has been an art writer in New York for over fifteen years, writing for such publications as Arts (1985-92), FLASH ART (1988-94), Contemporanea, Tema Celeste and Cover magazines. He currently writes for TIME OUT New York (since 1995), Artnet online (since 1996), and contributes to edificerex.com and d'Art International. Mr. Mahoney is also the author of numerous catalog essays on contemporary artists, his writing having been presented in conjunction with exhibitions around the world. From 1994-99 Mr. Mahoney served as Public Information Officer at the Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York, where he brought high-profile coverage to exhibitions of contemporary art.

“Art After Life: Contrasts between Art for Art's Sake and Art for Life’s Sake”

Most contemporary art is a hothouse creation based on other art, theoretical constructs and little experience in the real world. Once an artist obtains some success with a certain style, then the market enforces that style on his or her work for good. This lecture explores, through the example of several concrete case studies, how an art for art's sake art, when confronted by real life, is greatly altered, then moves on to something different, for better or worse. The lecturer sketches out a model for art that would allow of the inclusion of real life in the work.

“Sense and Sensation: The Concept of the Real in Recent Art”

Using the model of comparing the “sense” of recent art of the United States and the “sensation” created by recent art of the United Kingdom, this lecture will explore how art responds to real life and either incorporates it or chooses to distance itself from life. The tendency of recent British artists to incorporate real life objects into their works of art is compared to the American artistic hygiene, which has, of late, moved away from such incorporations. The impact and legacy of political thinking on American art and other factors contributing to a “shock gap” in contemporary art are also explored.

“Talking Pictures: Uncommon Comparisons in Art”

Most often works of art are discussed within discourses, and at the dictate of the artist's intentions or the gallery's sales goals. But in curating and in the experience of seeing art in the galleries works often compare to each other in startling ways that brings out new meaning in works of art. The Talking Pictures series is based on an ongoing approach to art undertaken by the lecturer which focuses on two particular works of art and finds similarities or differences which highlight developments in recent art.

ROBERT CURCIO

Robert Curcio is an independent curator, writer, promoter, dealer and co-founder of Scope, Inc. His writing has appeared in ARTnews, d’Art International, Sculpture, Tema Celeste and Zing magazines. In addition, he is the Vice President of NURTUREart, a non-profit organization dedicated to exhibiting emerging artists and one of the Executive Directors of City Exhibit, an international art fair. He was co-owner of Curcio/Spector Gallery, a contemporary gallery. As the Associate Director of The New York Presence Program for Katharine T. Carter & Associates, he brings artists to the attention of galleries and other art professionals.

“Contemporary Art in New York City Fieldtrips”

Spend an incomparable, art intensive day or weekend in New York City. Visit established and emerging galleries in Chelsea, 57th Street, Madison Avenue and Williamsburg, Brooklyn while discussing current exhibitions, artists represented by galleries and discussion with gallery staff when appropriate. In addition, visit selected artists in their studios. This experience provides arts organizations, educators and students, professional artists, museum trustees and collectors, gallery owners and staff, with the exclusive opportunity to learn about contemporary fine art, the market, general business practices, and what is happening currently in the New York art world. The field trip can be tailored to your specific interests. An evening reception at an artist's studio or gallery with drinks and prominent "art world" professions can be arranged upon request.

“Approaching New York Galleries”

This professional development lecture offers excellent preparation experience for both students and artists by providing a combination of practical information and specific art business workings. Special insights by Robert Curcio from his experiences, both successes and horror stories, with additional insights from fellow art professionals provides the do's and don'ts to approaching galleries and staff, how and what materials to send and to whom, a successful studio visit, interviewing the gallery as they interview you, artist/gallery relationships, etc. –in short the inside scoop to successfully navigating your career.

“The New York Gallery Review”

 This is a specially developed lecture workshop which reviews, through slides and discussion, the top established, emerging galleries and alternative spaces throughout New York City. The work of 4 - 5 recently exhibiting artists from each gallery will be shown in order to identify the gallery's focus, direction, and aesthetic range. Current art news, exhibition reviews, insider information and other data will be provided. The workshop was assembled for two purposes: to offer a current review of what is happening in New York for students, artist or professionals planning a trip to New York and specifically for artists planning marketing and promotional assaults on galleries by providing basic information about the kind of work that is being exhibited.

MARY HRBACEK

Mary Hrbacek has been writing about art in New York City since the late nineties. She has had more than one hundred reviews published in The New York Art World, and has written for NY Arts Magazine. Her commentary spans a broad spectrum of art, from the contemporary cutting-edge to the Old Masters. She has covered exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art as well the Armory Show, the Affordable Art Fair, and two consecutive Venice Biennials.

State of the Art:  Painting in the New Millennium

Painting as an art form is keeping pace with the rapid changes that are transforming every category of art to be seen in New York today.  This forum is designed to thoroughly explore every new manifestation of this original, elemental form of artistic expression. Painting today can be presented in myriad creative combinations.  The art world has never before been so willing to examine new ideas or to take them seriously.  Lively reinvention is occurring in the field, whether the work is machine-mediated, or combined with photography, enhanced by concomitant installation, used with collage, or executed with traditional painting techniques.  Presented on the scale of a mural, a postage stamp, or a tattoo, the creative possibilities of paint are not being ignored by alert, innovative artists.  In the course of this discussion, the works of six contemporary and emerging painters whose fresh ideas are beginning to be noticed, will be explored.

 Professional Development Workshop
 Make Your Statement: The Crucial Role Today of the Artist’s Statement

 While the artist’s statement has long been a staple of every portfolio, the literary or narrative component of an artist’s presentation has increased in importance. It is no longer sufficient for artists to develop their work to a high level, if they remain inarticulate about the nature of their artwork. To be taken seriously in today’s competitive world, one must present oneself and one’s art fluently both verbally and in writing. Writing the statement acts as an aid in focusing one’s ideas regarding just what comprises the work, and where it fits in the larger scheme of contemporary art.  It is the first stage in branding, as the artist must not only realize where the work fits, but also what makes it different (more/less compelling, more visual, etc.) than similar or related work. We will delve behind categories to discover the specific meaning of the work beyond surface appearances. During the workshop, examples of some clear statements will be presented; then we will explore the important components of an effective statement by analyzing what has been read. Each participant will write a statement to be presented for questions and discussion.