Nurturing Friction as a Foundation for Creativity

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Speaker: 
Margery Amdur
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Monument Building
Room: 
201
Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 6:00pm
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Date: 
Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 6:00pm to 7:30pm

Jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Study at CEU, the Cultural Heritage Studies Program, the Visual Studies Platform and the Center for Arts and Culture.

Margery Amdur, artist-in-residence co-hosted by IAS and VSP will use the Monument Building’s smart classroom as a laboratory to interactively present ideas about artists’ relationship to paradox, divergent thinking, and managing friction as a foundation for their creativity. Amdur will draw on her personal experience as a mixed media artist as well as the self-description of other contemporary artists. A common theme that emerges is that artists' creativity seems to derive from holding friction, tension, divergence and paradox in place and rigorously exploring it rather than resolving it. Creativity appears to have its roots in the discomfort of ambiguity and ambivalence.

Margery Amdur received her B.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University and her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Currently, she is professor of fine arts at Rutgers University. Over her career so far, she has had 60 solo and two-person exhibitions. She has been reviewed in national and international publications including Sculpture Magazine, New American Paintings, Fiber Arts, New Art Examiner, Art Papers, and in two of the Manifest International Publications. Her work was on the cover and featured in the fall 2014 issue of Art Voices. Her most recent and near future projects include an installation at the Philadelphia International Airport (My Nature), and an installation at the CEU to be unveiled on December 9, 2015.  Prof. Amdur will be exhibiting her work at the University of Hawaii in February 2016.

MARGERY AMDUR’S TALK WILL BE FOLLOWED BY THE UNVEILING OF HER INSTALLATION CREATED FOR CEU IN COOPERATION WITH STUDENTS IN FRONT OF THE FT ELEVATORS AT 7.30 PM

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Visual Studies Platform (VSP) is a cross-disciplinary initiative designed to explore and propose innovative approaches to research and teaching visual imagery in the digital century.

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