UC DAVIS’ NELSON GALLERY ANNOUNCES LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING EVENT WITH JONATHAN FINEBERG FEATURING HIS NEW BOOK, A TROUBLESOME SUBJECT: THE ART OF ROBERT ARNESON
The event will take place at the Nelson Gallery on May 9, 2013, at 4pm.
The Nelson Gallery is delighted to welcome art historian and professor Jonathan Fineberg to UC Davis in celebration of his new book on the late Robert Arneson, renowned artist, sculptor, and ceramicist who taught art at UC Davis for four decades.
Fineberg’s new book, A Troublesome Subject, is the first major book to consider the life and work of Robert Arneson. Through his careful research and thoughtful analysis, Fineberg explores how Arneson’s work articulated the crisis of narcissism that has defined American culture since 1970. As Fineberg explains, “I have always felt that Arneson’s work had a deep insight into the circumstances in which we all found ourselves in those decades after 1970. But it took me nearly twenty-five years to figure out how to explain that to myself, let alone others.” A Troublesome Subject tells the fascinating story of how a high school art teacher transformed himself into an artist of international stature and ambition. Representing the full scope of Arneson’s career in a rich survey of color reproductions, this book is at once a study of the trajectory of contemporary culture, the work of Robert Arneson, and the relationship between the two. Celebrated most prominently for his jocular self-portraits and his role in the California Funk Art movement, Arneson also created works that are deeply politically charged and psychologically gripping.
Following his lecture, Dr. Fineberg will sign copies of his book, which will be available for sale.
Jonathan Fineberg is Gutgsell Professor of Art History Emeritus at the University of Illinois. He earned his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. His books include: Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, 3rd edition (Prentice-Hall and Renmin University Press - Beijing); Christo and Jeanne-Claude: On the Way to the Gates (Yale University Press/Metropolitan Museum of Art); and Imagining America: Icons of 20th Century American Art (with John Carlin, a Yale book and a two hour PBS television documentary). He is currently writing a monograph on the contemporary Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang and editing his Nebraska lectures on visual thinking into a book entitled The Language of the Enigmatic Object: Modern Art at the Border of Mind and Brain (University of Nebraska Press).
For further information and images, please contact Katrina Wong at kliwong@ucdavis.edu and 530-752-8500.
Date:
Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 4:00pm