News

By Carolyn Jack

The Cleveland Institute of Art’s lunchtime lectures, which are scheduled for most Fridays during the academic year, offer CIA students, employees and the public alike the sustenance of ideas – not only the speaker’s, but also their own.

“This lecture series allows audience members and speakers to have a dialogue about the creative things that drive them,” said Lane Cooper, CIA visiting-artist coordinator and an associate professor of painting.

LOF, as the series is now known, began in 2003 as the Foundation Lecture Series, and features noted artists, innovators, faculty members and other experts who talk on topics ranging from the philosophical to the practical. Cooper, who has programmed the series since 2005, often takes suggestions for speakers from CIA staff.

For instance the Sept. 13 speaker, Robert Roche, was chosen to further discussions of Native-American issues raised by the CIA freshman class’s summer-reading assignment. Roche is director of the American Indian Education Center and the freshmen read Sherman Alexie’s book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” (The reading also ties into CIA’s Sketchbook Project: “absolutely true” diaries of thoughts and drawings made by freshmen about their first month at CIA. Their sketchbooks will tour area exhibition venues from October 2013 through May 2014.)

Other fall LOF highlights include Polish installation artist Przemyslaw Jasielski (Sept. 27), in residence at Cleveland State University and the Sculpture Center through the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program; Jose Teixeira (Oct. 4), a film/video/new-media artist recently in residence at the MacDowell Colony and the Headlands Center for the Arts; and Bruce Checefsky (Nov. 8), noted photography/film artist and director of CIA’s Reinberger Galleries, who will discuss his current exhibition and gallery programming as an artistic endeavor.

“He always gives a good talk,” Cooper noted. “People like having that kind of thinking unpacked and demystified for them.”

Something else to like: LOF lectures are always free and open to the public. Said Cooper, “We’re really proud of that.” This series, and all public programming presented by CIA, is supported by a grant from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. To learn more about LOF and see a list of upcoming speakers, click here.

Above, nationally known conceptual visual artist Mel Chin delivers a talk at CIA.