Fischl Lecture Series

The Guest Artist
Born in London, England, Matthew Ritchie received a BFA from Camberwell School of Art, London, in 1986. He emigrated to the United States in 1987 and attended Boston University. Since the early 1990s, Ritchie has developed an installation and painting practice drawing from the vocabularies of science, sociology, anthropology, mythology and the history of art. He creates prints, floor-to-wall installations, light boxes, sculptures, projections, artists books, short stories, and performances, which tie his work together into a unique and recognizable gestural form that emphasizes the human trace. He lives and works in works in Brooklyn, New York with his partner and son.

With Gratitude

• Varitec 
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• p.s.studios
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Art Solutions & Installations
• SPEKS Creative
• Matt Young Photography 
   

The Guest Artist

Scott Avett is an internationally recognized as co-founder of the Grammy nominated band, The Avett Brothers. His creativity is fueled by music and the visual arts; and until now, his art-making has largely been a solitary creative pursuit, as compared with his life as a musician, singer and songwriter. 

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2022-2023 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec 
• Art Solutions & Installations
• Blick Art Materials
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• D.L. Withers Foundation 

The Speaker

Kate Capshaw is a portrait artist.  A native of St. Louis, Missouri, she has always been keenly aware of the fissures between communities at risk and those that thrive. Capshaw has fused figure drawing and portraiture with her commitment to finding ways to identify individuals, communities, and social issues that are often overlooked, erased, or devalued. Using oil on canvas, Capshaw’s portraits are intended to be an invitation to move in closer, to follow one’s curiosity to the deeper conversation.

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2021-2022 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec
• Art Solutions & Installations
• Blick Art Materials
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• D.L. Withers Foundation 

Series Hiatus

The series was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Speaker

Carroll Dunham lives and works in New York and Connecticut. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at international institutions including Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Millesgården, Stockholm; Drammens Museum, Drammen, Norway; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York.

An article in Art in America magazine reports that Dunham has “built a graphic world of “nameable things” – in a purposeful evasion of subtlety, an attempt to purge a subject of its nuance and reduce it to an essential visual archetype” [Ross Simonini].

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2018-2019 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec
• Art Solutions & Installations
• Arizona Art Supply
• Phoenix Art Museum 
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• D.L. Withers Foundation 

About the Speaker

Drawing inspiration from his personal history, as well as historical figures and events, José Lerma incorporates research and an inventive approach to the traditions of painting and portraiture. Using varying methods and alternative materials, Lerma’s gestures and depictions continue to unfold upon investigation––what appear to be bold, expressionist gestures slowly reveal themselves to be meticulous collages of silicone; or almost vibrating acrylic surfaces come into near focus as infinitely layered drawings. 

Born in Seville, Spain. Lerma currently works and lives in Brooklyn, NY and Chicago, IL. He is a professor of painting at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and is represented by Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York. 

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2017-2018 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec
• Arizona Art Supply
• Art Solutions & Installations
• Contemporary Forum
• Phoenix Art Museum 
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• Adam & Iris Singer
• D.L. Withers Foundation 

The Speaker

Njideka Akunyili Crosby studied at Swathmore and the highly-regarded Philadelphia University of the Arts, and was awarded Financial Times “Woman of the Year”. Her work is described as “Exploding the myth of the authentic African experience” by The Guardian newspaper.
 

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2016-2017 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec Solutions
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Lisa Sette Gallery
• Nancy Meyers & Kim Williamson
• Adam Singer
• Phoenix Art Museum
• The Contemporary Forum
• Phoenix College
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

Shelia Pepe is best known for crocheting her large-scale, ephemeral installations and sculpture made from domestic and industrial materials. For more than 30 years she has accumulated a family resemblance (see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations) of works in sculpture—installation—drawing and other singular and hybrid forms. Some are drawings that are sculpture—or sculpture that is furniture, fiber works that appear as paintings, and table top objects that look like models for monuments, and stand as votives for a secular religion.

Presented in partnership with Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum. 

With Gratitude

The following sponsors and program partners made the 2015-2016 Eric Fischl Series possible:

• Varitec Solutions
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

About the Speaker

Mark Bradford is a Los Angeles-based contemporary artist best known for his large-scale abstract paintings created out of paper. Characterized by its layered formal, material, and conceptual complexity, Bradford’s work explores social and political structures that objectify marginalized communities and the bodies of vulnerable populations. Just as essential to Bradford’s work is a social engagement practice through which he reframes objectifying societal structures by bringing contemporary art and ideas into communities with limited access to museums and cultural institutions.

Presented in partnership with Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2014-2015 Eric Fischl Series sponsor, Climatec; as well as program partners, including:

• Eric Fischl
• Merrill & Jeanne Mahaffey
• The Fischl Scholars Program Partners
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

Steve Martin is an award-winning actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician, whose legendary career has spanned over a half century.  An avid collector of fine art, he has displayed his personal collection of American and European masters around the country.

Presented in partnership with Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2013-2014 Eric Fischl Series sponsor, Climatec; as well as program partners, including:

• Eric Fischl
• Merrill & Jeanne Mahaffey
  
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

Sculptor Bryan Hunt developed an early interest in architecture and space exploration having worked as a technical assistant at the Kennedy Space Center in his teens. In 1968, Hunt moved to Los Angeles and studied at the Otis Art Institute where he received his B.F.A. in 1971.

Early exhibitions include The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, The Clocktower, New York (1974), “Young American Artists” at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1978), “made by sculptors” at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1978), “Decade in Review” at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1979), and “Visionary Images” Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1979). His work is included in museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Presented in partnership with  Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2012-2013 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• Climatec
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Bentley Gallery and Bentley Projects
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

April Gornik is a painter who specializes in landscapes. She was born in Cleveland, OH, and received a BFA in 1976 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada. Gornik considers herself a Conceptual artist, and most often works with oil-based paint on canvas. Her earlier works were painted on plywood. In her paintings, Gornik likes to adopt the style of American Luminists and mix them with strange weather conditions, such as waterspouts. One of Gornik’s best-known works is Storm and Fires (1990); this work is a drawing in charcoal and pastel on paper. Among her other popular works are Light and Trees, Dune Sky, and Storm Field.



Her pieces combine an evocative use of color and contrast to deliver landscapes with an emotional impact. The Smithsonian Art Collectors Program commissioned the artist to work on a painting used as an educational and cultural tool by the Smithsonian Associates in 2007. The resulting lithograph, which Gornik called Blue Moonlight, was a huge success. Recently, the lithograph was included in the Graphic Eloquence, an ongoing exhibition of the S. Dillon Ripley Center, National Mall, Washington, D.C.

Presented in partnership with  Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2011-2012 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Climatec
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Monorchid
• Bentley Gallery and Bentley Projects
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

Artist Adres Serrano was born in New York City, where he studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School.  When discussing his career, he's said:

Presented in partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2010-2011 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey
• Climatec
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Concert Architectural Interiors
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Hilton Garden Inn, Phoenix - Midtown
• Bentley Gallery and Bentley Projects

The Speaker

Hall of fame athlete John McEnroe remains only male player in tennis history to hold the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles simultaneously.  Even prior to retiring, McEnroe was a serious collector of fine art—at one point operating a gallery in New York's SoHo neighborhood.  Today, he maintains a respected private collection, which includes works by Basquiat, Warhol and Ed Ruscha.

 

Titled, We Can Be Serious, this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2009-2010 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Camelback Village Racquet and Health Club
• Climatec
• D.L. Withers Foundation
• Dr. Abbas Fazel, DDS
• Lennar
• Londen Companies
• Phoenix Motor Company
• Phoenix Art Museum
• The Contemporary Forum
• Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation

The Speaker

David Salle is an American painter, graphic artist and set designer. He studied with the conceptual artist John Baldessari at the California Institute of Arts in the early 1970s and initially worked with the medium of photography. Later he turned to the medium of video.

In the mid-1970s Salle created a series of large-format paintings, usually composed as diptychs or triptychs. The motifs of these conceptually conceived paintings originate from everyday life, art history, pornography and dance theatre. In doing so, Salle combines templates of different themes in different styles to form an overall picture. As the artist repeatedly emphasized, the motifs of his pictures stand on their own and do not result in an overarching context in terms of content.

In the 1980s he discovered for himself the "transparent" pictures that Francis Picabia created in the 1930s. However, Salle also borrowed from Pop Art and oriented himself towards artists like Robert Rauschenberg or James Rosenquist. In the 90s, his color palette brightened, and the motifs recall the 50s in America.

His works have been shown at various institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Castello di Rivoli (Turin) and The Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao).

Titled, An Aptitude for Metamorphosis, this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2008-2009 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey
• City of Phoenix - Phoenix Office of Arts & Culture
• Climatec
• D.L. Withers Construction Management
• Phoenix Art Museum
• The Contemporary Forum
• Bentley Gallery and Bentley Projects

The Speaker

Eric Fischl is an internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Fischl's suburban upbringing provided him with a backdrop of alcoholism and a country club culture obsessed with image over content. His early work thus became focused on the rift between what was experienced and what could not be said. His first New York City solo show was at Edward Thorp Gallery in 1979, during a time when suburbia was not considered a legitimate genre for art. He first received critical attention for depicting the dark, disturbing undercurrents of mainstream American life.

Titled, What Happened to Art When the Body Dematerialized from Painting?, this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2007-2008 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey
• Phoenix Art Museum
• The Contemporary Forum

The Speaker

Ralph Gibson is an American photographer best known for his fine-art images that explore the surreal visual nature of the subconscious. Utilizing visual fragments that resemble the way we see in dreams, Gibson’s images are mysterious, symbolic and often erotic.

His father was an assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock and as a young boy he would visit the set during filming. He was impressed by the power of the camera lens and the intensity of the lights; this set him on the path to his later work in photography.

Gibson is equally renowned for his contributions to the evolution of photographic book publication, in fact, one might say that he revolutionized it.  His deep concern with how a sequence of photographs can become a new and more meaningful unit in book form was evident in his first book The Somnambulist, with its carefully developed page transitions and meaningful sequencing.   He founded Lustrum Press in 1969 in order to ensure control over his published work, following The Somnambulist with additional landmark monographs such as Deja-Vu and Days at Sea.  Over the years, Lustrum Press also allowed for the publication of other ground-breaking books such as Tulsa, by Larry Clark and The Lines of My Hand by Robert Frank.

Titled, The Next Step, this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2007-2008 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey
• D.L. Withers Construction Management
• Climatec
• Hilton Garden Inn
• Nick's Frame Shop and Art Gallery

The Speakers

Susan Krane         Representing Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, where she currently serves as director, Krane has led curatorial and administrative teams at institutions across the country. Among the social justice issues she's addressed through thematic projects are: civil rights, immigration, adaptive re-use, food, community, and mindfulness.

Marilyn Zeitlan      As director and chief curator of the Arizona State University Art Museum, Zeitan has built a reputation for presenting groundbreaking exhibitions, and identifying emerging artists.  Throughout her 15 years at ASU, her curatorial leadership has focused on explorations of the relationship between art and society.

Jon Haddock        Haddock is an fine artist, and local art instructor, who teaches at Arizona State University and Phoenix College. His work, influenced by contemporary and pop culture, has been featured in museums around the country, including New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Bruce Ferguson   Ferguson is dean of Columbia University School of the Arts, and director of exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Known for organizing exhibits across the United States, and world, his approach has been called trailblazing.  Among his most discussed exhibitions is Postmark: An Abstract Effect, which appeared at SITE Santa Fe. The assemblage examines the history of women’s exclusion from modernist abstraction.

Titled, Context is Everything or Everything is Context? this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2006-2007 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey
• Climatec
• FEZ
• Concert Architectural Interiors

The Speakers

Fatimah Halim    Halim is a multimedia artist who has dedicated her work to the development of Phoenix area youth.  She began her professional life in New York, where she was a backup singer, later going on to record with singer-songwriter Laura Nyro.  

Roman Reyes     An instructor at Phoenix College, Reyes teaches classes in: digital graphics and media, advanced photo imaging, illustration, animation, airbrush techniques, and theatrical prosthetic creation.  In addition to serving as chair of the college art department, he participates in public art projects around the city.

Brady Roberts    As curator of modern and contemporary art at the Phoenix Art Museum, Roberts has brought significant acquisitions to the collection, including works by Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Donald Judd and Josiah McElheny.  Next year, the museum will unveil his newly organized exhibit, Constructing New Berlin, which is poised to become the first comprehensive survey of the city's post-wall artistic renaissance.

Steven Yazzie    Yazzie is a multidisciplinary artist who works in painting, installation, video/film, and community collaborations. His work explores the complexities of the post-settler colonial indigenous experience as it relates to personal identity, community relationships, and the essential connection to the land as the source of life, stories, conflict, and healing.

Titled, Destination 2015: From New York to Phoenix, Visions of the Future Art Scene, this lecture was made possible through a partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum.  

With Gratitude

A special thanks is extended to the 2005-2006 Eric Fischl Series program partners: 

• Eric Fischl
• John & Lisa Fischl
• Merrill Mahaffey