Curator Mary Jane Jacob to speak on ‘Making Space for Art’ Oct. 30

Curator Mary Jane Jacob to speak on ‘Making Space for Art’ Oct. 30October 23, 2007Erica Blustesblust@syr.edu

Syracuse University will present the lecture “Making Space for Art” by curator Mary Jane Jacob Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. in Grant Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public. Discounted paid parking is available in the Irving Garage. Visitors should mention that they are attending the lecture to obtain the discounted rate.

Jacob is professor and chair of sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as an independent curator and curator for the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C. Her lecture will discuss her projects that encompass artistic, curatorial, public and community practices. Each has required creating space for artists to conceive and present art, for audiences to respond and reflect, and for communities to imagine change. She strives to advance the parameters of artists’ public practices and examine assumptions about the audience for contemporary art.

Considered a nonconformist among U.S. curators, Jacob has organized such innovative exhibitions as “Places with a Past” in Charleston (1991), “Culture in Action” in Chicago (1993), “Conversations at The Castle” in Atlanta (1996) and “Evoking History” in Charleston (2001-present). She recently co-edited “Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art” (University of California Press, 2004) and will have a new anthology, “Slow Art: Becoming an Artist Today,” published in 2009. She is a former chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Jacob’s lecture is sponsored by the SU College of Visual and Performing Arts'(VPA) Office of the Dean; Imagining America, a national consortium of colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities and design that is currently based at SU; the SU Office of Engagement Initiatives; and VPA’s sculpture program, Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, and Department of Foundation.

For more information, contact Anne Beffel, associate professor of foundation, at (315) 443-3541 or aebeffel@syr.edu.