Evergreen Art Lecture Series

Pam Minty and Alain LeTourneau present their 2011 film Empty Quarter on Wednesday May 30, 2012, 11:30-1:30, in Lecture Hall 1 at The Evergreen State College.

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Empty Quarter (2011, 16mm black & white/sound, 71 minutes) is a film about the region of Southeast Oregon, an area populated by ranching and farming communities, in Lake, Harney, and Malheur counties. The region is roughly one-third of Oregon’s landmass yet holds less than 2% of the state’s population.

Southeast Oregon, though familiar by name, is a foreign place, particularly to those who reside in urban environments. It is a landscape in the making, constantly undergoing change, being re-worked. It is a highly politicized landscape, evoking differing opinions concerning resource management and land use. It is also a landscape that is, despite some beliefs, rich with diversity, as seen by the presence of East Indian and Japanese families, ancestors of Basque sheepherders, home to the Paiute tribes people, and to Latinos who have come to help work the land.

Empty Quarter departs from a documentary form that utilizes “talking head” interviews and “B-roll” or “cut-away” images tied together with occasional narration. The film instead presents stark portraits, waiting to be explored and digested by the viewer. Meaning is extracted in the slow process of accumulation and measured response. Through a series of stationary shots, recording open landscapes and the activities of local residents, Empty Quarter reflects on the character of the region. Natural areas are viewed among images of industry, various labor processes, resource management and recreation. Voices of local residents describe the history of pioneer settlement, social life of rural communities and the struggles of small town economies.

Pam Minty and Alain LeTourneau are media artists based in Portland, Oregon. They are the co-founders of 40frames.org, a 16mm film preservation and advocacy organization that maintains the web resource 16mmdirectory.org, houses a collection of 16mm prints, and provides a menu of technical services to media artists and organizations.

Empty Quarter is their first co-production, and has been exhibited at venues and festivals throughout North America, including the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago, Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Centre. Minty and LeTourneau are currently at work on new projects scheduled for release winter 2013.

A native of New York City. Susan Noyes Platt is a freelance art historian and art critic, as well as a political activist, based in Seattle, Washington. She has published articles, essays and reviews on the intersections of art and politics.  Her primary concern is to alter the critical discourse to embrace the many different ways in which artists explore this intersection. Over the course of her career she has shifted from a focus on American Art to an exploration of art in the Middle East, particularly in Turkey. She has also published reviews of contemporary art from China, Latin America, and Europe.

Storm Tharp builds his strange and beautiful characters by first drawing contours on the page with water. Before the water has a chance to dry, he applies drops of mineral ink, resulting in unruly and expansive bleeds on the paper.  Tharp takes his inspiration from a wide-ranging set of influences including 1970s American cinema and Japanese portrait prints. His characters have names, histories, and narratives, but they suggest multiple interpretations. Is the woman clutching a knife in Pigeon (After Sunshen) defending herself or is she a vengeful murderess? In these enigmatic portraits Tharp investigates the performance of identity and the point where the myth of a person supercedes reality and becomes truth. -Whitney Museum. “My work can be distilled in two distinctive points of interest. One would be the tradition of the hand made object and its inherent ability to reflect nature. ” His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Saatchi Gallery, Portland Art Museum, Reed College, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art.

Molly Landreth is a Seattle based artist who explores concepts of identity and community through intimate large-format film photography and multi-media collaboration.  She is most well known for her series, “Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America” which she continues to exhibit and speak about frequently.  She has been featured in, and photographed for, publications including The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian, The Advocate, OUT, Marie Claire and The New Yorker.  She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

Lisa Radon writes about art and makes art about writing. She makes text-based art, poem, word-sound performance, and collaborative, durational writing projects.

She writes regularly for art ltd. and ArtsWatch, and has contributed to Oregon. Humanities, American Craft, Portland Monthly, Textile, and others. She edits ultra: arts portland (ultrapdx.com). Recent catalogue essays include those for exhibitions at YU, the Lumber Room, and Half/Dozen.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica has been shown at over 200 film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide.

Dana Schutz, whose vibrant, large-scale paintings are collected by many major museums, gives a lecture at the CFA School of Visual Arts Contemporary Perspectives Lecture series, which brings professional artists, including painters, sculptors, printmakers, graphic designers, and art educators and critics, to campus to share their experiences.

Hosted by College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts on November 3, 2008.

The last three weeks of the Artist Lecture Series will feature student talks on studio work and/or research projects. This week,  student Marshall Astor from the program Museum or Mausoleum? The Framing of Art, Culture and Neuroplasticity and Mosoleum,  and students Valerie Wernet and Willy Smart, who have individual learning contracts with Julia Zay, will be giving talks on their research.

The last three weeks of the Artist Lecture Series will feature student talks on their studio work and/or research projects. This week Student Originated Studies: Visual Art  students, Graham Jones, Jessica Sage, Eva Boynton and Kyle Rollins will be giving artist talks. They have been developing a rigorous studio practice by establishing an inquiry through materials and research and studying 20th c. art history for two quarters.