Please join us at ArtZone 461 Gallery, 461 Valencia St. SF, CA on Sunday, January 31 2010 at 3:00 pm for a second Panel Discussion focused on our current exhibition, “The Seduction of Duchamp”.  Bay Area Artists Richard Berger, Bernie Lubell, Naomie Kremer and Jan Wurm will discuss how Marcel Duchamp’s interests, preoccupations, styles and media have influenced their art practices.  The discussion will be moderated by art critic and former consulting curator to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Jeff Kelley.  Joining the conversation and providing closing comments will be James McManus, co-curator of the recent National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition “Inventing Marcel Duchamp”.

Art scholars agree, Duchamp was one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.  Yet attempting to understand him is a complex task.  Each work in “The Seduction of Duchamp” offers an opportunity to unravel this enigma.  The four artists participating in the panel contributed works that explore unique aspects of Duchamp’s enigmatic persona.  Richard Berger’s work references Duchamp’s iconic piece “The Large Glass” and his explorations in kinetic art.  Bernie Lubell investigate Duchamp’s interest in the mechanical and the mind with his “Accident Report” and his stand and questionnaire.  Naomie Kremer brilliantly gives life to the controversial “Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2” in her hybrid painting with video projection.  Finally, Jan Wurm focuses on Duchamp’s fascination with the Art of Chess, a prominent feature in the artist’s life and in attempting to understand his undeniable influence on modern culture.

In Marcel Duchamp’s own words:

“The creative act is not performed by the artists alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the eternal world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act”. 

We offer this panel discussion as a perfect forum for audience participation.  We look forward to a very interesting Q&A session with the artists who will answer questions from the live audience as well as a selection of questions submitted by Gallery visitors or online.  Please visit http://www.artzone461.com for more information.  Answers to the online questions responded by the artists will be posted on the website during the final week of the exhibition.

Space for the afternoon program is limited, particularly seating.

Naomie Kremer has worked extensively with digital media, including text animations, painting animations, and hybrid paintings, which are oil on canvas with video projected on their surface.  Kremer was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and raised in Brooklyn NY.  She received a BA from the University of Rochester in 1975, an MA in Art History from Sussex University, England, in 1977, and an MFA with High Distinction from California College of the Arts in 1993.  She has taught and lectured extensively in the US and abroad, including at CCA, San Francisco Art Institute, Oxford University, and Syracuse University’s program in Florence, Italy, and has exhibited internationally.  Her bio is available at http://www.naomiekremer.com/biography.html

Jan Wurm is a most accomplished and prolific artist working in multiple techniques: drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. She holds a B.A. from U.C.L.A. and an M.A.R.C.A. from London’s Royal College of Art. She studied with painter Richard Diebenkorn and pop artist Peter Blake. Wurm exhibits her work internationally and they are held in important collections such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Achenbach Graphic Arts Collection at the Legion of Honor, and the New York Public Library Print Collection and the Archiv Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (the Archive of the Organization of Berlin Women Artists). Wurm teaches art for the U.C. Berkeley Extension and the Art Studio of the Associated Students of the University of California.  Her resume is available at http://janwurm.com/

James W. McManus is a Professor of Art History at California State University, Chico.  He co-curated the exhibition “Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.  He also co-edited the catalog for the exhibition published by MIT Press.

PARTICIPANTS

Jeff Kelley, a practicing art critic since 1977, has written reviews and essays for such publications as Artforum, Art in America, and the Los Angeles Times.  From 1993 – 2005 he taught Art Theory and Criticism at the University of California, Berkeley.  From 1998 – 2008 Kelley was the Consulting Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. In 2008 Kelley curated the popular and critically acclaimed "Half-Life of a Dream: Chinese Contemporary Art from the Logan Collection" for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and currently functions as an advisor on Chinese art to the Logan Collection. He is presently editing a book for the University of California Press, on the writings of internationally known Chinese artist and architect Ai Weiwei.

Richard Berger is an associate professor of Sculpture, Art History and Contemporary Practices at the San Francisco Art Institute since 1970.  His work is featured in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of California, the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the Crocker Museum in Sacramento and the Monterey Peninsula Museum.  Berger has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and is the 45th recipient of the SFAI Adaline Kent Award, which included an exhibition, “The Third Time I Saw Phyllis She Exploded”, at SFAI's Walter & Mc Bean Gallery in 2004. In 2009, Berger was in a group show, “ Lust, Loss and other Lay Figures” at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco.  His resume is available at http://www.rbsculpture.com/resume.php

Bernie Lubell's interactive installations have evolved from his studies in both psychology and engineering. As participants play with his whimsical wood machines, they become actors in a theater of their own imagining. Since the early 1980's his installations have been shown nationally. Mr. Lubell has received an Award of Distinction from Ars Electronica, two grants from the Pollack Krasner Foundation in 2002 and 1991, had a residency at the Tryon center for the Visual Arts in 2002, an Individual Artist Grant from The SF Art Council for the year 2001, and in 1996, an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council.  His resume is available at http://blubell.home.att.net/resume.htm