Visiting Artist Lecture Series (VALS) | Department of Art

The Department of Art presents the Visiting Artist Lecture Series (VALS). The annual series, organized by graduate students in Art, invites artists, scholars, curators, critics, gallerists and writers to give public lectures and conduct studio visits with students relevant to graduate students' research and practice. The series is presented in a colloquium setting (this year via Zoom), where students engage in in-depth discussions with the visiting artists and scholars.

VALS is presented with generous support from The Claire Trevor Society, the CTSA Dean's Fund for Excellence and UCI Illuminations.

2023-2024

2022-2023

2021-2022

2020-2021

View the Visiting Artists Archive for a complete list of visiting artists and scholars.

April 4, 2024: EJ Hill

EJ Hill is an artist born, raised, and based in South Central, Los Angeles. Hill’s practice focuses largely on challenging the social aspects and systems that construct a body.

March 14, 2024: Asher Hartman

Asher Hartman is a transgender visual artist, writer, director, and maker of live performances. His works, which combine strategies of theater and performance art, grapple with social and political issues in an era of chronic crisis.

Feb. 19, 2024: Katie Grinnan

Katie Grinnan (b. U.S. 1970) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles and received her M.F.A. from U.C.L.A. Grinnan’s work stems from the body, specifically the relationship between visual, kinesthetic and cognitive experience, and the way these different knowledge systems affect one’s perception of reality and sense of self.

Jan. 23, 2024: Filip Kostic

Filip Kostic is an Artist, College Professor, and video game developer born in Belgrade, Serbia and living and working out of Los Angeles. He primarily has a research based practice and works in mediums ranging from sculpture, to twitch stream performances, to video and animation, and games and simulation.

Nov. 13, 2023: Frances Stark

Frances Stark is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, whose work centers on the use and meaning of language, and the translation of this process into the creative act. She often works with carbon paper to hand-trace letters, words, and sentences from classic works to explore the voices and interior states of writers.

April 11, 2023: Katherine Behar

Katherine Behar is an interdisciplinary artist and critical theorist of new media whose works exploring gender, race, class, and labor in contemporary digital culture have appeared throughout North America and Europe.

Arthur Jafa, AGHDRA, 2021, video still. © Arthur Jafa

March 10, 2022: Arthur Jafa

Arthur Jafa is an artist, filmmaker and cinematographer. Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic practice comprising films, artefacts and happenings that reference and question the universal and specific articulations of Black being.

Cauleen Smith, I Appreciate You in Advance, 2018

Jan. 20, 2022: Cauleen Smith

Cauleen Smith is an interdisciplinary artist whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the imagination. Smith was raised in Sacramento, California and lives in Los Angeles. Smith is currently Art Program faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.

March 4, 2021: Paul Chan

Paul Chan is an artist, writer, and publisher. Chan is the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize in 2014, a biennial award honoring artists who have made a visionary contribution to contemporary art. His work has been exhibited widely in many international shows, from Los Angeles, CA to Athens, Greece.

Feb. 18, 2021: Eric Wesley

Eric Wesley is an American artist who has exhibited internationally, including at MOCA, Los Angeles, and Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples. In addition, he has exhibited at major museums and galleries worldwide. He is also a co-founder of the Los Angeles Mountain School of Arts.

Feb. 4, 2021: Daniel R. Small

Daniel R. Small is a Los Angeles-based artist. He received an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and a B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. Small has exhibited at various international institutions. He also received the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award (2015) and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Award (2016).

Jan. 28, 2021: Beatriz Cortez

Beatriz Cortez is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Her work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities and versions of modernity, memory, and loss in the aftermath of war, migration experience, and imagining possible futures. She has had numerous solo exhibitions and has participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally.

Jan. 21, 2021: Patricia Fernandez

Patricia Fernández is a Spanish artist based in Los Angeles. She received her M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts and B.F.A. from UCLA. Fernández has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of several grants and fellowships. In addition, she has been a resident artist in Paris, México, Sausalito, Santa Monica, and Como, Italy.

Visiting Artists Archive

Every year, the Visiting Artists and Scholars program invites artists, scholars, curators, critics, gallerists, and writers to give public lectures and conduct studio visits with students. The Department also invites artists and scholars related to specific exhibitions and projects. View the archive list of visiting artists.