Artist-in-Residence Program
Each year, the art department invites a nationally recognized artist to spend two weeks at UNC to exhibit, lecture and instruct as a member of the faculty. Examples of past participants include:
Radcliffe Bailey
The artist in residence for the fall semester of 2010 is Radcliffe Bailey, whose shimmering, shape-shifting works the New York Times describes as being fueled by an exploration of "Black Atlantic culture, the vital, nurturing, agitated link between Africa and the Americas." Bailey, the 2010 winner of Elizabeth and Mallory Factor Prize for Southern Art, has been called a collage artist, but his constructions feel more like alchemical amalgamations, vitalized entities with disparate anatomies. Loose piano keys, reproductions of vintage photographs from his own family history and sheet music serve as grammatical components of the artist’s lexicon. He harmonizes an intuitive balance of world history and familial memory in works that can be compared to such diverse artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys, Mark Bradford and Jean-Michel Basquiat – and yet there is a taut integrity throughout his multiplicity of work that marks it as his own. See his work here.
Oliver Herring
The artist in residence for the spring semester of 2009 is German-born experimental artist Oliver Herring. On March 20, 2009, Herring led a free public "TASK" party, an event which a simple structure and few rules in which people are invited to express and test their own ideas. His project builds on a project he created with graduate students in the Department of Art for the Performa 09 performance art festival in New York. Herring is also known for his art objects--Mylar sculptures, Styrofoam photo sculptures, performative videos--which often involve unusual materials and collaborations between the artist and his subjects. See his "TASK" project unfold here.
Bill Fick
The artist in residence for the fall semester of 2005 is Bill Fick, a Master Relief Printing Artist who combines humor and queasiness in his extraordinary linoleum cut works. Hoodlums and pock-marked characters, both animal and human populate his satirical critique of contemporary American culture. Get a taste of his work at his website: cockeyedpress.com.
Endi Poskovic
The artist in residence for the spring semester of 2004 is Endi Poskovic, a Bosnian born artist who is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Whittier College in Los Angeles, California. Poskovic has directed the Printmedia Program at Whittier since 1997. His prints have been showcased extensively in over 200 individual and group exhibitions in worldwide venues. Poskovic has described his powerful, large-size, multi-block woodcut prints as enigmatically political, referencing themes that are both magnificent and apocalyptic. He also works with drawings and digital photography in the process of producing his prints. For more extensive exploration of Poskovic's work, see his web site at http://web.whittier.edu/art/poskovic.html
