Re-Viewing Black Mountain College
Event Schedule
All presentations except the Friday night reception and the Sunday afternoon BMC tour will take place at UNC Asheville
Admission: $10 per day or $15 for the weekend
UNCA faculty, staff + students free
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9
1:00- 3:00 – REGISTRATION AND RECEPTION
FRIDAY
SESSION ONE
2:00-3:15
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center – 16 years old and growing
A Discussion on the Activity of BMC Museum + Arts Center
Session Chair: Brian Butler
Connie Bostic (BMCM + AC)
Alice Sebrell (BMCM + AC)
Helen Wykle (UNC-Asheville)
FRIDAY
SESSION TWO
3:30-4:45
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Educational Legacy
Session Chair: Katie Lee
The Influence of Black Mountain College on Post-Studio Fine Art Programs
Jennifer Rissler (San Francisco Art Institute)
The Influence of Black Mountain College on the China Central Academy of Art Summer Studio Program: Studio, Process and the Context of Location
Stephen Lane (Columbia University and the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing)
A Comparison of BMC and the European Graduate School in Switzerland (Artists in Community)
Sally Atkins (Appalachian State University)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 223
Women of BMC
Session Chair: Connie Bostic
Hazel Larsen Archer: “Nothing was ever the same again”
Ann Dunn (UNC-Asheville)
The Women of Black Mountain College: Searching for Lost Recognition
Melanie Heindl
The Wives of Black Mountain College
Marianne Woods (University of Texas, Permian Basin)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Chance Operations I
Session Chair: Brenda Coates
How to Make an Artist: The Teaching of Josef Albers and Ray Johnson’s Work
Julie Thomson (Coordinator of Public Programs, Whitney Museum of American Art)
Hermeneutic Ontology and the Black Mountain Poets
Nick Boone (Harding University)
Black Mountain College – An Oxford Education?
Siu Challons Lipton (Queens University)
FRIDAY
SESSION THREE
6:30-9:00
LOCATION: Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
56 Broadway
Asheville, NC 28801
Reception at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
6:30 – 8:00 Performance
Motion Sculpture Movement Installation: Attack Of The Killer Stripey Tubes!!!
Claire Elizabeth Barratt (Cilla Vee Life Arts)
8:00 – 8:20 Reading
Readings from Black Mountain Days
Michael Rumaker, BMC alumnus
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10
SESSION ONE
9:00-10:15
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Chance Operations II
Session Chair: Sebastian Matthews
Decoding Black Mountain
Kate Dempsey
From BMC to NYC: A Novice Curator’s Notes on Ray Johnson’s Early Years (and the Influence of Place on His Creative Process)
Sebastian Matthews (BMC Museum + Arts Center)
Teaching Creative Writing and Literature After Olson
Jonas Williams (SUNY, Albany)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 223
Avant-Garde BMC
Session Chair: Andrea Liu
Lou Harrison: Stranger in a Strange Land
Seamus McNerney (UNC-Asheville)
Black Mountain College and the Paradox of the Avant-Garde
Willoughby Parker (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Black Mountain College: America’s Last Avant-Garde?
Kenneth Surin (Duke)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Chance Operations III
BMC and Designing Higher Education in the Arts
Frank Hursh (BMC Alumnus, La Universidad de las Artes Mexico, A.C., Querétaro, Qro. MEXICO)
SATURDAY
SESSION TWO
10:30-11:45
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Queer BMC
Session Chair: Jennifer Sorkin
(Lake) Eden and its Serpents: Martin Duberman’s Black Mountain and Queer Historiography and Pedagogy
Jason Ezell (Lincoln Memorial University)
Beyond the New York Intellectual: Jewish Refugees and Homosexuals at Black Mountain College, N.C.
Wendy Fergusson (Director, Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery)
“Like a Girl:” Gendered Sexual Difference at Black Mountain College and the Development of Postmodernism
Jonathan Katz (SUNY Buffalo)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Query and Pursuit in Artistic Practice and Erudition
Session Chair: Valerie George
Artist’s Panel
Jeremiah Barber (Artist, Chicago)
Terry Berlier (Artist, Stanford)
Erica Gangsei (Artist, San Francisco)
Christy Gast (Artist, Miami)
Valerie George (Artist, University of West Florida)
LOCATION: Highsmith Grotto
Performance
Poet’s Panel/Lucipo Poetics Group
Session Chair: Sebastian Matthews
Jeff Davis (Poet, Scholar)
Joseph Donahue (Duke)
Thomas Meyer (The Jargon Society)
David Need (Duke)
Ted Pope (Poet)
LUNCH BREAK 11:45-1:15
SATURDAY
SESSION THREE
1:15-2:30
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Josef Albers
Session Chair: Kate Dempsey
Connecting the Dots: Color Theory and the Black Mountain College Legacy
Marcia R. Cohen (SCAD)
What Josef Albers Taught at Black Mountain College, and What Black Mountain College Taught Albers
Frederick A. Horowitz (Washtenaw College)
Aesthetic Pragmatism: Josef Albers’ Pedagogical Innovations at Black Mountain College
Mindy Tan (Purdue)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Black Mountain Poets
Session Chair: Nicholas Boone
Robert Creeley’s Buffalo
David Landrey (Buffalo State College)
Brian Lampkin (East Carolina University)
Charles Olson and the Ethics of Parataxis
Douglas Duhaime (University of Wisconsin)
LOCATION: Highsmith Grotto
Performance/Demonstration
Awakening the Creative Imagination: How Art, Science, and Action Converge on Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map
Mark Hanf & Marnie Muller
SATURDAY
SESSION FOUR
2:45-4:00
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
M.C. Richards
Session Chair: Mary Emma Harris
The Ruse of Medusa: Black Mountain College and the French Obsession
Louly Konz (Warren Wilson College)
A Woman Alone: Examining M.C. Richards’ Legacy
Jenni Sorkin (Yale)
Reflections on the Influence of M.C. Richards’ Pottery, Poetry and Philosophy on Contemporary Art and Craft Education
Courtney Lee Weida (Adelphi University)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
BMC’s Legacy
Session Chair: Grace Campbell
Aftereffects: Buckminster Fuller and the Legacy of Black Mountain College
Eva Diaz (Pratt Institute)
I’m…Nix That….WE’RE Starting a College
Richard Liston (Sphere College)
“Alone Together”: On Merce Cunningham and the Question of Black Mountain College’s Artistic Legacy
Kate Markoski (Johns Hopkins)
LOCATION: Highsmith Grotto
John Cage
Session Chair: Natalie Farr
Embodying the Collective: Theatre Piece No. 1 and the Estheticization of Experience
Anastasia Rygle
Theatre Piece Number 2: The Unimpededness of Cage’s Theater Piece Number 1 and the Interpenetration of Black Mountain College
Philip Schuessler (Stony Brook)
Composing by Chance: The Asian Factor in John Cage’s Aesthetics
Holly E. Martin (Appalachian State University)
SATURDAY
SESSION FIVE
4:15-5:30
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
BMC and Interdisciplinarity
Session Chair: Stephen Lane
Rauschenberg, Kline and Wolpe: Letters to Jack Tworkov, Black Mountain College and Beyond
Jason Andrew (Archivist and Curator, Estate of Jack Tworkov)
Restraining Subjectivity at Black Mountain College: Charles Olson and Cy Twombly’s Ecology of writing and Painting
Joshua S. Hoeynck (Washington University, St. Louis)
Interdisciplinarity: Black Mountain College’s Anomaly
Andrea Liu (Critic, NY)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Form and Content
Session Chair: Cynthia Canejo
Max Dehn: An Artist among Mathematicians and a Mathematician among Artists
David Peifer (UNC-Asheville)
Black Mountain, Modernism and Progressive Form
Patrick McHenry (University of Florida)
Black Mountain College: Form as the Creator of Content
Mary Emma Harris (Scholar, NY)
LOCATION: Highsmith Grotto
Performance
The Polygons: a Performance
Vincent Wrenn (Artist, Asheville)
LOCATION: Highsmith Pinnacle
5:30-6:45
Reception
Pieces of Random Light, an Interactive Collage
Caprice Hamlin-Krout (Artist, Asheville)
SATURDAY
7:00
LOCATION: Highsmith Alumni Hall
Welcome
Connie Bostic (Board Chair, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center)
Jane Fernandes (Provost, UNC-Asheville)
Keynote Address
Dorothea Rockburne:”All of Nature is Written in Numbers” -Max Dehn
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11
SESSION ONE
9:00-10:15
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
John Dewey
Session Chair: Brian Butler
‘Education by Association’: Dewey on Black Mountain College
Michael Kelly (UNC-Charlotte)
The Prospect of an Ideal Liberal Arts College Curriculum: Reconstructing the Dewey-Hutchins Debate
Shane Ralston (Penn State University, Hazleton)
How was ‘creativity’ defined at Black Mountain College?
Seymour Simmons (Winthrop University)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Political BMC
Session Chair: Jason Andrew
Between Realism and Abstraction: Rethinking the Shahn/Motherwell Debate
Ken Betsalel (UNC-Asheville)
“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement,” John Chamberlain’s “American Tableau, 1984”and the Reagan War Machine”
Thomas M. Murphy (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)
Charles Olson’s Administrative Poetics: From the Office of War Information to Black Mountain College
Lisa Siraganian (Southern Methodist)
LOCATION: Owen TBA
Workshop (From 9:00 to 12:00)
Centering the Erotic Play of Paradox: Embodying the Legacy of M.C. Richards Through “Clay Color and Word”
Katherine McIver (Artist, Asheville)
SUNDAY
SESSION TWO
10:30-11:45
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 221/222
Community
Session Chair: Louly Konz
The Role of the Black Mountain Review in Creating a Poetic Community
Rachel Stella (Critic, Paris)
Trains and Thinking: Evidence of a Collective Moment
Natalie M. Farr (College of Santa Fe)
Creating a Creative Community
Elizabeth Ross (Central Piedmont Community College)
LOCATION: Highsmith Room 224
Architecture and BMC
Session Chair: Douglas Duhaime
The Weaver and the Architect: Reconstructing the Modern Shelter
Kirsten Dahlquist (University of South Florida)
From Bauhaus to Black Mountain: constructus interruptus
John McClain (UNC-Asheville)
SUNDAY
2:00
Tour of Black Mountain College’s Lake Eden Campus
Connie Bostic (BMCM + AC)
Alice Sebrell (BMCM + AC)
With help from BMC Alumnus
Michael Rumaker