Tuesday, October 1
6 PM Program
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery
Skidmore College
815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
This program is free and open to the public with registration.
Join the AFA at the Tang at Skidmore College for a Dunkerley Dialogue. This conversation will feature artists Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman, who currently have works on view at the Tang in Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld, an exhibition organized by the AFA. Dion and Rockman will be joined in conversation by Heather Hurst, Associate Chair and Professor of Anthropology, and AJ Schneller, Associate Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences.
The AFA is proud to partner with the Frances Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery to present this Dunkerley Dialogue. Dunkerley Dialogues pair Skidmore professors with artists in a conversation format, which is often a catalyst for new connections and understandings across disciplines, and can spark new ideas for all participants. Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele Dunkerley ’80.
This program will include ASL interpretation. Recordings of the event will be made available on the AFA website.
For questions and additional information, please contact events@amfedarts.org.
About the speakers:
Mark Dion is a conceptual artist whose works have been shown at numerous institutions, including the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018), the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2017), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004), among others. His awards include the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucida Art Award (2008). He has created large-scale public projects internationally, including at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, and at the Bienal de Montevideo in Uruguay. He is a graduate of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, the School of Visual Arts, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. He is currently the co-director of Mildred’s Lane, an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.
Alexis Rockman is a cinematic oil painter who has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2022), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2010), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1990). His work is held in numerous collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1987) and Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence (2008) awards. Rockman is a graduate of the Art Students League, Rhode Island School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Heather Hurst specializes in Mesoamerican archaeology with a focus on the study of art production, iconography, materials analysis, identity, and the role of art in society. She has ongoing fieldwork on Maya mural painting in Guatemala, as well as research on Olmec rock art in Mexico. Her publications and illustrated volumes include The Murals of San Bartolo, and The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak. She collaborates with chemists, conservators, and epigraphers, resulting in recent articles including, “An Early Maya Calendar Record from San Bartolo, Guatemala,” “Strategies for 14C Dating the Oxtotitlán Cave Paintings, Guerrero, Mexico,” and “Maya Codex Book Production and the Politics of Expertise.” Dr. Hurst earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University and is currently holds the Courtney & Stephen Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College.
AJ Schneller, PhD, has been an Associate Professor in the Environmental Studies and Sciences Department since 2012, where his is also the Associate Director. His research sites include Baja California Sur, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, and Upstate, NY, where he explores the community outcomes and perceptions of environmental muralism, experiential environmental education, service learning and voluntourism; civil society access to decision-making in developing nations and environmental justice communities; and innovative approaches to environmental communication to promote marine protection and public lands ecosystem restoration efforts. Selected publications include: “For-profit environmental voluntourism in Costa Rica: Teen volunteer, host community, and environmental outcomes” in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism; “Environmental Art in the Hudson River Watershed: Outcomes of Place-Based Experiential Environmental Education” in the journal Applied Environmental Education and Communication; and “Imaging conservation: Sea turtle murals and their effect on community pro-environmental attitudes in Baja California Sur, Mexico” in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management.
This program is presented in partnership with the Frances Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery.
AFA Public programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. These programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. We are also grateful for the support of the American Chai Trust and the Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.
