Women in Contemporary Art--leading critic Eleanor Heartney in town

[Rob Neufeld]

Award-winning Arts Writer Eleanor Heartney to Speak about Contemporary Art and Women Artists

in Cullowhee, March 5; Asheville, March 6

     The first talk, "Tales of Plastic Surgery, Genetically Altered Rabbits, and Other Acts of Art," takes place 5 p.m., Mon., Mar. 5 in Western Carolina University's Bardo Art Center, room 130. The lecture title refers to two of the many artists examined in Heartney's book Art & Now. "One of those artists, Eduardo Kac, genetically altered a rabbit to glow green under certain light; the other, French artist Orlan, had parts of her face surgically altered to resemble women in famous art historical paintings," according to WCU Associate Professor of Art, Marya Roland. "Both Kac and Orlan push the limits of what we consider art, and in her book, Heartney poses the question, 'should we do things simply because we can?'" The lecture is free and open to the public.

     On Tues,, Mar. 6th at 7:30 p.m. Heartney presents "Out of the Shadows: the Changing Place of Women Artists in Our Times" at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 56 Broadway, Asheville, NC.  Heartney will discuss the broader topic of women artists' changing roles and relate it, in particular, to painter Pat Passlof who has concurrent exhibitions at Western Carolina University's Fine Art Museum and BMCM+AC. Heartney wrote the essay contained in the exhibition catalogue for the exhibitions. Admission is $5 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID and $10 for others.

     Eleanor Heartney is a contributing editor for Art in America and has written extensively for other publications including Artnews, The New Art Examiner, the Washington Post, and The New York Times. She is author of several noteworthy books about art, including Art and Now, Defending Complexity: Art, Politics and the New World Order, and Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads, and she is co-author of After the Revolution: Women who Transformed Contemporary Art, winner of the Susan Koppelman Award. The recipient of the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism, Heartney is also a past President of AICA-USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association. In 2008 she was honored by the French government as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Heartney's visit to WNC is supported by a Western Carolina University Visiting Scholar's Grant, the WCU School of Art and Design, and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center with support from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Beattie Foundation and The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation.