27 Jul Tracing Absence Events

Laura Shill: Photo Booth portrait

Tracing Absence closing events:

Saturday September 8th
4 pm: Conversation with Elissa Auther & Melinda Barlow $5/$3 members, students.
5.30-7 pm: Closing Reception for the artists & Photo Booth with Laura Shill

About the exhibition:
Tracing Absence features emerging artists Laura Shill and Adam Milner, two creators and collectors of faceless portraits.  Drawing upon 19th century “hidden mother” tintypes, Shill’s installation re-envisions the historic photographer’s studio as a feminine, bodily space.  In turn, Milner’s portraits of anonymous men—prompted by his catalog of strangers and intimate spaces from the internet—explore notions of closeness, gender conformity and identity.

Elissa Auther is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and Adjunct Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver.  In addition to her book, String, Felt, Thread and the Hierarchy of Art and Craft (2010), she has published on the criticism of Clement Greenberg, the history of the decorative, artist-produced wallpapers, and the film installations of Isaac Julien. She is the co-editor of the April 2007 special issue on feminist activist art for the National Women’s Studies Association Journal. She also co-directs “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics,” a public program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. Auther’s scholarly work has been supported by major research grants from the J. Paul Getty Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution, among others.

Melinda Barlow, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she received the Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award.  The editor of Mary Lucier: Art and Performance (2000), Professor Barlow is a film and contemporary art historian who also researches the art of mentoring women.  She is currently writing a book on film, female identity, and art collecting titled My Museum: A Memoir in Art, which includes the essay “Who Was That Masked Woman?  Rediscovering the Hidden Mother,” published last year (http://flowtv.org/2011/10/masked-woman/).