SFAI - San Francisco. Art. Institute.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, 3 April 2010, from 10:30am to 12:30pm, SFAI will host the symposium Recovered Energies—Perspectives on the Work of Nnenna Okore in the Lecture Hall on SFAI’s 800 Chestnut Street campus.

 

Including presentations by SFAI faculty members Nicole Archer, Claire Daigle, and Ian McDonald, as well as a panel discussion with the artist herself, the symposium will complement and provide perspective on the exhibition Recovered Energies (curated by Cynthia Plevin), which will open at Bekris Gallery in San Francisco on 1 April 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30pm and will be on view through 21 May 2010.

 

Using discarded and found objects from rural areas of her native Nigeria, Okore creates mixed-media pieces by repurposing—through repetitive and labor-intensive processes (weaving, waxing, sewing, and dyeing)—such materials as newspaper, rope, wax, plastic, and clay. Informed by traditional Nigerian village practices, these processes allow her to focus a creative eye on the consumption and recycling cultures in both Nigeria and the US. Okore’s practice will be contextualized in terms of its art-historical position in contemporary African art (Daigle), its place within textile traditions (Archer), and its status as sculptural practice (McDonald).

 

In addition to her participation in the symposium, Okore will be the guest speaker at a colloquium on SFAI’s 800 Chestnut Street campus for SFAI students.

Coffee and refreshments will be served at the symposium courtesy of the Bekris Gallery.

 

 

 

Nnenna Okore completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and earned both an MA and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She now heads the Art department at North Park University in Chicago where she is an assistant professor and where she teaches, among other subjects, sculpture, spatial art, and advanced studio. Lagos, Nigeria was the site of her first major exhibition, which was curated by the sculptor (and her professor) El Anatsui. She has exhibited widely, including at biennials in Dakar, Johannesburg, and Dubai. In the US, Okore has exhibited at such venues as Viterbo University Gallery in La Crosse, Wisconsin; the Carl A. Fields Center Gallery at Princeton University; and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

 

Nicole Archer is a PhD candidate in the History of Consciousness department at UC Santa Cruz. She researches contemporary art and material culture with an emphasis on textile and garment design and production, as well as on the ways in which these materials both appear within and enable poststructuralist theories of the text. At both UC Santa Cruz and SFAI, these interests have lead Archer to teach a series of courses that explore the relation between politics and aesthetics through close examinations of art history and popular material culture.

 

Claire Daigle is assistant professor in SFAI’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies. A writer, art historian, and critic who has been published in Tate, etc., X-Tra, Sculpture, and Art Papers, she holds a PhD in art history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her dissertation, Reading Barthes/Writing Twombly, considers relationships between writing and drawing and theory and practice. Daigle has also developed expertise on the arts of Africa on which she teaches two courses at SFAI—one on African Traditions, the other on the contemporary art of Africa.

 

Ian McDonald is an artist who has exhibited internationally. Venues in California include Rena Bransten Gallery, a.o.v. Gallery, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts—all in San Francisco—as well as the UCLA New Wight Gallery in Los Angeles. In 2007 he was awarded the Premio Faenza from the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy. McDonald is currently visiting faculty in SFAI’s Sculpture/Ceramics department.

Bekris Gallery

 

Bekris Gallery was founded to introduce artists from the southern hemisphere to American audiences in order to encourage a vital dialogue among American viewers and artists working internationally. The proceeds of each Bekris exhibition will be contributed to an organization which serves the goals of food security and human development in one of the many countries called home by artists whose work Bekris Gallery presents.