The Masters of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts is pleased to announce its Spring 2014 slate of Visiting Artists and Scholars.
Visitors to Duke’s MFA|EDA spend several days on campus during which time the visiting artist or scholar attends classes, meets with students in one-on-one critique as well group critique, and engages with a wider audience through a public talk, workshop, presentation or screening. Previous and ongoing MFA|EDA Visiting Artists and Scholars include Jim Dow, Cheryl Dunn. LaToya Ruby Frazier, Laura Poitras and Tamiko Thiel.
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DANA MILLER – FEBRUARY 4-6, 2014
As Permanent Collection Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dana Miller has concentrated primarily on the museum’s collection, working with her colleagues on acquisitions, loans, and conservation projects, as well as curating exhibitions drawn from the collection. During this time, she organized the major loan exhibition Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, co-curated with Michael Hays, which was awarded first prize for Architecture and Design exhibitions by the International Association of Art Critics in 2008. Miller also co-curated Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films; Picasso and American Art; as well as the Whitney installations of Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper and Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor. Most recently, Miller curated Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective and serves on committees dedicated to loans, issues of replication, and visitor experience. Miller received her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. in art history from Columbia University.
DEBORAH STRATMAN – FEBRUARY 11-14, 2014
Deborah Stratman is a Chicago-based artist and filmmaker interested in landscapes and systems. Her films, rather than telling stories, pose a series of problems – and through their at times ambiguous nature, allow for a complicated reading of the questions being asked. Much of her work points to the relationships between physical environments and the very human struggles for power and control that are played out on the land. Most recently, they have questioned elemental historical narratives about faith, freedom, sonic subterfuge, expansionism and the paranormal. Stratman works in multiple mediums, including sculpture, photography, drawing and audio. She has exhibited internationally at venues including the Whitney Biennial, MoMA NY, the Pompidou, Hammer Museum, Witte de With, Walker Art Center, Yerba Buena Center, and has done site-specific projects with the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Temporary Services, Mercer Union (Toronto), Blaffer Gallery (Houston), Klondike Institute of Art & Culture (Yukon) and Ballroom Gallery (Marfa). Stratman’s films have been featured at numerous international festivals including Sundance, the Viennale, Full Frame, Ann Arbor, Oberhausen and Rotterdam. She is the recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, a Creative Capital award, and she currently teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. http://www.pythagorasfilm.com/
JACK LOEFFLER – FEBRUARY 24-28, 2014
Jack Loeffler is an aural historian, writer, radio producer and sound collage artist who was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia in 1936. He grew up in Ohio and Connecticut, and studied music at Julius Hartt Conservatory in Hartford, and Westminster College Conservatory in Pennsylvania. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Loeffler was a jazz trumpeter who performed throughout the United States generally with jazz quintets. From 1956 to 1958, he served in the U.S. Army as a musician in the 433rd Army Band performing for military functions in southern California, or at atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds. Loeffler has recorded hundreds of chamber music, orchestral, and choral concerts ranging in repertoires from medieval to modern times. He has conducted dozens of recording sessions that have resulted in LP record, cassette and CD albums. He has either produced or otherwise recorded, written and narrated over 50 soundtracks for documentary films, videos and museum exhibitions.
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The Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts at Duke University brings together two forms of artistic activity — the documentary approach and experimental production in analog, digital, and computational media — in a unique program that will foster collaborations across disciplines and media as it trains sophisticated, creative art practitioners. Successful completion of the program requires the development of a complex understanding of documentary practices and traditions as well as creative skills in experimental media and new technologies.
The application period is now open for fall 2014 admission. Application and portfolio information can be found here. The application deadline is January 31, 2014.
