NEW YORK.-The BFA Fine Arts and Art History Departments at School of Visual Arts (SVA) present Universal Studios: Tracking the Art School in a Globalized World, a panel discussion examining the practice of visual art today. The event will take place on Tuesday, October 30, 7pm at School of Visual Arts , 209 East 23rd Street , New York City . Admission is free.

From starving artist to artist-as-entrepreneur, from artist-researcher to artist-as-activist, the persona of the artist operates in multiple guises. As artists gain currency within frenzied global art markets and international art fairs, how are art schools being affected by recent patterns of cultural consensus? From million-dollar kitsch to sensorial spectacle, from tell-all biographies to video feats of endurance, have the visual arts become just another contributor to the entertainment industry? How can a critical appreciation of art be addressed now? Distinguished educators, critics and artists will explore different perspectives within the field.

Panelists:

Suzanne Anker is an artist and theorist whose work intersects the visual arts and biological sciences. Forthcoming books include: Visual Culture and the Biosciences (National Academy of Sciences and University of Maryland ) and Neuroculture: Picturing the Biology of Mind (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press). She is chair of the BFA Fine Arts Department at SVA.

Michael Archer is an educator, critic, writer and artist. His focus on contemporary art has led him to write Installation Art (Thames & Hudson, 2002) and a survey, Art Since 1960 (Thames & Hudson, 2002). In the 1980s and 1990s he made a number of performances and exhibitions with William Furlong, which featured sound as an intrinsic component of their work. He is Head of School at the University of Oxford ’s Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.

Miriam van Rijsingen is an art historian. Her areas of expertise include feminist and gender studies and the boundaries of art history, including aesthetics, semiotics, cultural studies and new media. Having published on the representation of the body in Western art, she is now working on the topic of art and anatomy in contemporary art. She teaches at the University of Amsterdam and is co-director of The Art and Genomics Center at Leiden University .

Shelley Rice is a photo historian, critic and curator. She is the co-curator of the Avon Collection of Contemporary Women’s Photography and the editor of Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman (MIT Press, 1999). She has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, two NEA grants, and the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for Nonfiction Essay. She is an associate arts professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Raphael Rubinstein is a senior editor at Art in America and faculty member in the MFA Art Criticism and Writing department at SVA. His writing includes a book of poems, The Basement of the Café Rilke (1996), Polychrome Profusion: Selected Art Criticism 1990-2002 (2003), and Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of Their Practice, (2006) all from Hard Press Editions.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.