Mary Schmidt Campbell
and David White
Date: Saturday December 04
Time: 10:00 - Noon
Place: Regis Center for Art - Influx Auditorium
See bio on: Mary Schmidt Campbell or David White
Introduction: Branislav Jakovljevic, Assistant Professor of Theater Arts University of Minnesota
"Creating a Public Space for the Arts."
Synopsis:
The conventional means of presenting the arts in this country--museums,
theaters, concert halls, record labels etc.-- provide a limited number of
opportunities for practicing artists to connect their work with their public.
Refusing to wait to be chosen by these conventional venues, many successful
artists have found that not only must they assume responsibility for the
production of their work, they also must take responsibility for creating
the space within which that work will be made, distributed and marketed.
Sometimes those means are deliberately oppositional to the mainstream as
is the case with performance artist Reverend Billy. In other instances,
artists make use of unconventional means of creating work but later partner
with more mainstream distribution opportunities as has been the case with
Moises Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Company and in still other instances,
artists transform what would not normally be considered artistic space into
public venues for the purpose of display, exhibition or performance as has
been the practice with Creative Time. This conversation seeks to explore
how these creative artists have sustained a life in the arts, how effectively
they have reached their respective publics and the extent to which they
have changed or shaped the public they wish to reach and in the process,
how they have altered public discourse.
Biography on Mary Schmidt Campbell
Born:
Lives: New York.
Dean,
Of the Tisch School of the Arts, Chair and Professor, Art and Public Policy
Mary Schmidt Campbell has distinguished herself as an educator and prominent advocate of the arts.
After earning a B.A. at Swarthmore College in 1969, Campbell taught English literature at Nkumbi International College in Zambia. Campbell returned to the United States and studied art history at Syracuse University, graduating with an M.A. in 1973. In 1974, she became both a curator of the Everson Museum of Fine Arts in Syracuse, New York, and the art editor of the Syracuse New Times.
From 1977 to 1987, Campbell served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, a fine arts museum that exhibits, collects and interprets the work of black artists. During this time, she earned a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. She then served as commissioner of cultural affairs for the city of New York until 1991, managing an agency that funds New York cultural institutions and organizations.
After establishing herself as a leader in the field of arts and public policy, Campbell became dean of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, a preeminent center of theater and film. Many of the country's leading film directors, Broadway producers, actors, writers, and theater historians and critics have matriculated from the school, and recent graduates have won major awards at festivals around the world. Campbell has dramatically improved enrollment, funding and programs. She established and chairs the Department of Art and Public Policy.
Campbell lectures nationally on arts policy issues and American cultural
history, is professionally associated with various institutes and academies,
and has won several awards for her work. Campbell is married to physicist
George Campbell, Jr. They have three sons and three grandchildren.
(excerpt from http://www.thehistorymakers.com)
Selected Recent Career Highlights:
- Dean, Tisch School of the Arts, 1991 to present
- Commissioner of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York, 1987-1991
- Executive Director, Studio Museum in Harlem, 1977-1987
- Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America (co-author).
- Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987.
- Pace University
- City University of New York
- City College
- Colgate University
- Tony Awards Nominating Committee
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Education:
B.A. - Swarthmore College, English Literature, 1969
M.A. - Syracuse University, Art History, 1973
Ph.D. - Humanities Ph.D. Program, Syracuse University, May 1982, Romare
Bearden: A Creative Mythology
http://www.skny.com/lasso-bin/artists.lasso
Biography on David White
Born: Philadelphia, PA
Lives: Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
Cultural Producer,
and former Executive Director and Producer Dance Theater Workshop (DTW),
N.Y., N.Y.
A former dancer and filmmaker, White assumed the leadership of DTW from founders Jeff Duncan and Art Bauman. White has come to be known as one of the country's most influential and innovative producers, arts administrators, and cultural community-builders – and DTW as a model, revolutionary artist-centered institution – identifying, nurturing and commissioning some of the most significant contemporary artists of our time, including, among countless others: Bill Irwin, Donald Byrd, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Marshall, Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris, Eiko and Koma, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Bebe Miller, Merián Soto and Pepón Osorio, Marta Renzi, Doug Elkins, Donna Uchizono, Tere O’Connor, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, John Jasperse, Pat Graney, puppeteers Janie Geiser, Bruce G. Schwartz and Paul Zaloom, Belgium’s Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Germany’s Felix Ruchert, Cuba’s Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited, and the French hip-hop ensemble Kafïg. He also introduced to New York such Minnesota born-and-bred artists as Ralph Lemon, Maria Cheng, Linda Shapiro, Patrick Scully, Chris Aiken, Wendy Morris, Joe Chvala, Shaun McConnelaug, Wil Swanson and Morgan Thorsen. In doing so, he has co-produced and co-presented artists with numerous partners throughout the United States and abroad, including the Walker Art Center (MN), the Maison de la Danse (Lyon, France), Miami Dade Community College (FL), the Spoleto Festival USA (SC), On the Boards (WA), the Flynn Theater (VT) and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (MA), just to name a few.
Beginning in 1984, White conceived, designed and served as Executive Director for the ground-breaking National Performance Network, which provided (and continues to provide) real financial support to progressive alternative cultural centers and artists in some 40 U.S. cities. And the Suitcase Fund, a wide-ranging international counterpart, both of which have been acclaimed as visionary, paradigm-shifting support structures which have seeded sustained practical collaborations among organizations, artists and communities across geographic, cultural, racial and economic barriers.
Selected Recent productions Highlights:
- Chris Aiken (Minneapolis, MN), improvisation
- American Ballroom Theater (Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau), debut concert
- Karole Armitage, Drastic Classicism
- Eric Barsness, Revelations and Blood on the Keys
- Neal Bartlett and Nick Bloomfield, with Bette Bourne (London, England), Sarrasine
- Art Bauman, Headquarters and Dialogue
- Bob Berky, Fred Garbo and Michael Moschen, The Alchemedians
- Beppe Blankert (Netherlands), Charles and Double Track
- Power Booth (visual installation and performance)
- Lee Breuer/Mabou Mines, Hajj
- Ronald K. Brown, Dirt Road, Combat Zone and Walking Out the Dark
- Donald Byrd, The Minstrel Show
Education:
2002 - Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University’s Graduate School
of Business.
Sage Cowles Fellow at the University of Minnesota
1970 - BA Wesleyan University, Middletown Connecticut
1966-1970 - Studied at the Institut Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne/Université
de Paris.