“Art about Art,” the Durango Arts Center’s sixth annual winter lecture series, will begin Feb. 14.
The free series of one-hour lectures, followed by discussion, will explore ways that works of art interact with each other and will define an ancient literary device called, in Greek, ekphrasis. In addition to highlighting poems about paintings, lectures will also reference political cartoons, music about painting and fiction and poems about photography.
The first two and last two lectures will be presented by Judith Reynolds and Carol Schmudde. Reynolds is an art historian and Durango Herald arts journalist and political cartoonist. She has taught art history at Fort Lewis College and the State University of New York. Schmudde, a local photographer whose work occasionally appears in Durango Arts Center exhibitions, is a retired Eastern Illinois University professor of writing and literature. The third lecture, on March 14, will be given by Reynolds and Daniel Morgenstern, a retired manufacturing CEO, who served as principal flute with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and has built a dozen harpsichords.
According to Schmudde, “The first lecture, ‘Icarus,’ is about a boy who fell from the sky. It will let our 2019 audience join a conversation in which a 16th century painting reaches back to a poem from the 8th century and forward to poems from the 20th century.”
The DAC’s winter lecture series has consistently drawn interested audiences for topics such as last year’s “Art and Ideas,” when Reynolds paired with humanities scholar Katherine Burgess. Goals of the series, Reynolds said, are “to enrich our experience of major artworks, introduce lesser-known works and engage in conversation about both.”
Reynolds, Schmudde and Morgenstern are donating their time as a gift to DAC. The series is made possible by donations from Bud and Jeani Poe and other DAC supporters.
If you go
WHAT:
“Art about Art,” a free, five-part winter lecture series, beginning Feb. 14 (Introduction, “Icarus,” featuring Pieter Bruegel, William Carlos Williams and W. H. Auden) and continuing March 7 (“Starry Night,” featuring Vincent van Gogh and Anne Sexton); March 14 (“Pictures at an Exhibition,” featuring Viktor Hartmann and Modest Mussorgsky); March 21 (Abstract Expressionism, featuring Elaine de Kooning, Hilda Morley and Frank O’Hara); and March 28 (“Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance,” featuring August Sander, Richard Powers and Adam Kirsch).
WHERE:
Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave.
WHO:
Presented by Judith Reynolds, Carol Schmudde and Daniel Morgenstern.
WHEN:
4-5 p.m. Thursdays with discussion afterwards.
Admission:
Free.
More information:
Call 259-2606 or visit
.
