The first of two weekend-long workshops will be led by curator Melanie O’Brian at Oxygen Art Centre following a free public lecture. The Lecture will be at Oxygen Art Centre on Friday September 14, 2018 at 7.30pm. The master class will take place on September 15-16, 2-5 PM also at Oxygen Art Centre for a cost of $100. Please contact info@oxygenartcentre if you are interested in registering. The second master class in the series will take place in March 2019 and be led by professional art writer Tracy Valcourt.
The talk called The Space Between Art and Audiences: Institutions, Curating and Writing will consider the space of the publication, specifically through O’Brian’s two decades of work in public galleries as a curator and director. O’Brian states “Publishing is an act of making something known. In negotiating the space between art and audiences, it is the curator’s role to publish art and its ideas through exhibitions, books, screenings, and other institutional and non-institutional platforms”.
The master classes offer practising artists and curators an opportunity to participate in what promises to be eye-opening discussion while simultaneously honing critical writing skills in a workshop format. Participants will read each other’s writing and participate in discussions offering response and feedback to each other and receiving the perspective of the institution and curatorial approach from professional curator and writer Melanie O’Brian. The writing to be looked at could be critical writing about another artist’s work meant for publication or writing about one’s own work i.e. artist and project statements. Participants will be notified of the specific requirements upon registration for the workshop.
Melanie O’Brian is a seasoned curator and administrator, with a master’s degree in art history from the University of Chicago. Director of the Simon Fraser University Art Galleries since 2012 O’Brian
moved back to Vancouver from Toronto where she was curator of and head of programs at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. Previous to being in Toronto O’Brian was director/curator at Vancouver’s Artspeak one of Canada’s leading artist-run centers and before that she worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
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