Visiting Artist Lecture Series (VALS)
 

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

Frances Stark 11.13.23 | Filip Kostic 1.23.24 | Katie Grinnan 2.13.24 | Asher Hartman 3.14.24 | EJ Hill - Thursday 4.4.24 | Kelly Akashi 4.22.24 | Other artists TBA

2022-2023

P. Staff 1.12.23 | Hamza Walker 1.28.23 | Yussuf Hassan 1.28.23 | Kwame Sorrell-Adams 1.28.23 | Paul McCarthy 1.28.23 | Paul Galvez 1.30.23 | Jane & Louise Wilson 2.6.23 | Leigh Ledare 2.9.23 | Alica Piller 2.16.23 | Na Mira 2.21.23 | Patty Chang 2.21.23 | Tiffany Sia 2.23.23 | Rochelle Gomez 3.3.23 | Nikita Gale 3.9.23 | Katherine Behar 4.11.23 | Pau Pescador 5.19.23

2021-2022

Simon Liu 12.3.21 | Romi Crawford 1.20.22 | Matthew Monahan 1.19.22 | Cauleen Smith 1.20.22 | Analia Saban 2.3.22 | Daniela Lieja Quintanar 2.3.22 | Rema Ghuloum 2.10.22 | Sula Bermudez Silverman 2.16.22 | Brandon Ndife 2.28.22 | Gala Porras-Kim 3.3.22 | Hamza Walker 3.4.22 | Stanley Woluku-Wanamba 3.10.22 | Arthur Jafa 3.10.22

2020-2021

Slavs and Tatars 1.13.21 | Patricia Fernandez 1.21.21 | Beatriz Cortez 1.28.21 | Daniel R. Small 2.4.21 | Young Soon Kwak 2.11.21 | Eric Wesley 2.18.21 | Tourmaline 2.25.21 | Paul Chan 3.4.21 | Kavior Moon 3.11.21

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

 

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. His works are dense, visual, poetic embodied texts, infused with clown and cringe humor, evidence of trance and psychic journeying, set in engulfing installations designed to disorient, unnerve, and elicit strong feeling.
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. 
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.
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.
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
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
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. 
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.