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| Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, 1907 |
Gage Georgetown Calling: Art Lecture Series with Emily Pothast
Lecturer: Emily PothastThird Thursdays
Lecture: 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.
Studio Workshop: 8:15 P.M. – 9:15 P.M.
September 21 | Hilma Af Klint and the Birth of Abstraction
Historians once believed that Kandinsky was the first European artist to paint truly abstract works. We now know that he was preceded by at least two female artists: the Swedish mystic Hilma af Klint and the even earlier Victorian spiritualist Georgiana Houghton. This lecture introduces the work of these and other often overlooked artists in the context of early 20th century cultural movements.
October 19 | The Secret History of Feminist Self-Portraiture
In the 1980s, the Guerilla Girls asked, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met?” noting that fewer than 5% of the artists in the museum’s collection were women, but 85% of the nudes were female. Art historians have, however, speculated that the proportions of the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf suggest that she might be a self-portrait. Using this possibility as a point of departure, this class will delve into the history of the body in feminist and women’s art, examining how our experience of the gaze shifts when women are in command of their own images.
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| Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, 1434, National Gallery, London |
November 16 | Sacred Geometry for Artists
In addition to their anatomical study of the human form, artists like Jan Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht Dürer have also studied geometry in an attempt to determine how the mind interprets certain arrangements of shape and form as beautiful. This class starts with the natural world as the basis for proportion, exploring how the underlying ratios of nature have given rise to the field of sacred geometry, with exercises you can use to explore visual mathematics on your own.December 21 | Marcel Duchamp: Étant Donnés and The Large Glass
A household name for his readymades and meta-art antics, Marcel Duchamp’s most complex works—The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) and the mysterious, posthumously-installed Étant Donnés are far more enigmatic than the one-liners he is best known for. Using Duchamp’s historical context and the detailed diagrams the artist created for both works, this lecture will shed some light on the fascinating relationship between these two extraordinary works of art.
January 18 | The Graphic Works of Albrecht Dürer
Once considered the greatest painter in Northern Europe, Albrecht Dürer also wrote the first textbooks in mathematics in the German language. Dürer’s woodcuts and etchings on religious and secular themes reflect the transformative politics of the Protestant Reformation, as well as an interest in science and mathematics that would soon come to eclipse religious thought in Europe. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the graphic art of Albrecht Dürer in its historical context.
February 15 | Eternity in an Hour: An Introduction to the Art of William Blake
Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, the English Romantic painter, printmaker, and poet William Blake created a highly distinctive visual language that delights and confounds viewers to this day. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the visual works of William Blake in the context of his spiritual and poetic writings.
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| Michelangelo, David, 1501-04, Galleria dell'Accademia (Florence) |
May 17 | Powerful Void: The Life and Work of Lee Bontecou
In the 1960s, Lee Bontecou rose to prominence with her distinctive welded steel and canvas sculptures. Then, in the 1980s, she all but disappeared from the New York art scene, retreating to the Pennsylvania countryside. This class will explore Bontecou’s category-defying life, career, and body of work.