Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture Series presents art historian Dr. Maria Buszek

Feb. 12, 2008 -- Maria Buszek, a nationally recognized contemporary art historian and curator, will present a public lecture at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the Arkansas State University Fine Arts Center Recital Hall, 114 S. Caraway Road, Jonesboro. Dr. Buszek is also serving as juror for this year’s Student Art Exhibition. While on campus, she will select artwork submitted by students to be presented in the Fine Arts Center Gallery later this spring.

Dr. Buszek is assistant professor in the School of Liberal Arts at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she has taught modern and contemporary art since 2002. Her recent publications include the book “Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture” (Duke University Press, 2006); contributions to the anthologies “Blaze: Discourses on Art, Women, and Feminism” (Cambridge Scholars’ Press, 2007) and “Contemporary Artists,” 5^th edition, (St. James Press, 2001); catalogue essays for Gagosian Gallery, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, and Grand Arts; and articles in Art in America, Photography Quarterly, Woman’s Art Journal, and TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. She is also a regular contributor to the popular journal BUST and Kansas City’s Review.

Dr. Buszek’s scholarship has won and been nominated for awards from the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (Emily Toth Book Award), the College Art Association (Charles Rufus Morey Book Award), the American Society for Theater Research (Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize), and from New York University and MIT Press (TDR Student Writing Award).

She curated the 2006 Charlotte Street Awards, and the exhibitions “Raised in Craftivity” at the Greenlease Gallery, “Handymen and Girly Boys: Masculinity, Craft, and Culture” at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, and “Extra/ordinary: Fiber Artists Rethinking Art and Everyday Life” at the Cube, all in Kansas City, and is currently at work on an anthology relating to the explosion of and meanings behind craft media in the contemporary art world. With Dr. Steve Goddard, she co-curated the Spencer Museum of Art’s exhibition “Alberto Vargas: The Esquire Years,” as well as co-editing and contributing to the show’s catalogue. She has also served as a curatorial assistant at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Dr. Buszek earned a bachelor's degree from Creighton University and master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kansas.

Buszek’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Art's Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture Series and the Arkansas State University Art Student Union. The event is free and open to the public. Additional information may be obtained by contacting the Department of Art at  (870) 972-3050.

Photo:

Maria Buszek, Art Historian

Kansas City Art Institute

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