4 x Forum: Artists as Critics

4 x Forum: Artists as Critics
January 14, 7 pm
Walker Art Center, Free

More and more, artists are taking an active role in the critical discourse around art and practice. Join us for a conversation moderated by Mn Artists’ Editor-in-Chief, Susannah Schouweiler, featuring artist-critics working and writing in the fields of dance, music, visual art, and literature. Our panelists, including art critic/painter Craig Olson, Mn Artists contributor/artist Andrea Carlson, novelist/musician/book critic Dylan Hicks, and dancer/performance critic Linda Shapiro will discuss navigating the sometimes difficult waters of both making and responding — publicly, sometimes critically — to the work made by fellow artists in their scenes.

In Mn Artist’s 4 x Forum events, thoughtfully assembled panels of experts and new thinkers—mixing different perspectives, modes of practice, and areas of expertise—come together for issue-specific, moderated dialogues.

Part of Mn Artists’ series of programs geared toward taking some of our cultural scene’s most intriguing, hot-button conversations offline and in-person.

Panelists:

Andrea Carlson (born 1979) received an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005, and maintains an active artistic practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Carlson has exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2007), October Gallery, London (2007), NMAI at the George Gustav Heye Center, New York (2009), The Venice Biennale, Venice (2009), The Power Plant, Toronto, the Plains Art Museum, Fargo (2011), Plug-In Institute for Contemporary Art in Winnipeg (2014). Her work is in the collections of the British Museum, the Tweed Art Museum, National Gallery of Canada and the Weisman Art Museum.

Dylan Hicks is a writer and musician whose second novel, Amateurs, will be published in May of this year. His recordings include the albums Alive with Pleasure and Dylan Hicks Sings Bolling Greene, a collection of songs written to accompany his first novel. His journalism has appeared in the Village Voice, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Star Tribune, Rain Taxi, and City Pages, where he wrote and edited arts and other reporting during the aughts. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Nina Hale, and their son, Jackson.

Craig Olson is an artist and writer engaged in images, language, and the silence of snowy fields. He lives and works in Minnesota.

Linda Shapiro was a founder and Artistic Co-Director of New Dance Ensemble and Artistic Director of the New Dance Laboratory from 1981-94. As a choreographer and performer, her work has been presented by Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop in New York, Northrop Auditorium, Red Eye and Southern Theaters among other venues. She was an affiliate faculty member and coordinator for the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota from 1996-2005. She has worked as a freelance writer since the 1970’s and has published articles, reviews and essays on dance and other subjects in The Twin Cities Reader, The Minnesota Monthly, Midwest Home & Design, Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, Architecture Minnesota,  Music Live, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, CLA Today, City Pages, Twin Cities Metro, The Rake and Dance Magazine, The Gay City News, Mnartists.org, and the Movement Research Performance Journal in New York.

Photo credits:

Linda Shapiro (Photo: Betsy Husting)

All other photos courtesy of the artist (no credits supplied)