Kurt Varnedoe, MoMA chief
curator, to speak on 'Looking Again at Jackson Pollock'
Kirk Varnedoe, chief
curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA) in New York City, will deliver the seventh
annual Christensen Fund Distinguished Lecture in Art
History at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 22.
The lecture, titled
"Looking Again at Jackson Pollock," will be
presented in Annenberg Auditorium in the Cummings Art
Building. Sponsored by a grant from the Christensen Fund
of Palo Alto, the event is free and open to the public.
Varnedoe, Ph.D. '72, began
his tenure as chief curator at MoMA in 1988. He had
served as adjunct curator since 1985, and has been
affiliated with the museum since 1984, when he
collaborated with William Rubin, then director of the
department of painting and sculpture, in organizing
"Primitivism in 20th-Century Art: Affinity of the
Tribal and the Modern."
In 1993, Varnedoe oversaw
the expansion and renovation of the museum's galleries
for contemporary art, which now comprise nearly 11,000
square feet. In recent years, he also has renovated and
reinstalled the painting and sculpture galleries.
Varnedoe presented an
exhibition on Jackson Pollock at MoMA that ran from
October 1998 until February. His lecture will focus on
recontextualizing the work of this important 20th-century
American painter.
Varnedoe also mounted
major exhibitions of the work of Jasper Johns (1996-97)
and Cy Twombly (1994-95), and in 1990 he co-directed,
with Adam Gopnik, the controversial exhibition "High
and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture."
Born in Savannah, Georgia,
Varnedoe graduated from Williams College and completed
his graduate work at Stanford University. He has received
honorary doctor of fine arts degrees from Williams
College and from the Pratt Institute.
In addition to his work as
museum director and curator, Varnedoe continues to teach
at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where
he was professor of fine arts from 1984 to 1988. He also
has taught at Columbia University, Stanford University
and Williams College.
For more information, call
the department of art and art history at (650) 723-3788.
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