PROGRAM

On October 12, 2011, the Aspen Institute Arts Program cordially invited Hunter students to a special program on “Leadership in the Arts with Eric Fischl.”  Eric Fischl is the 2011 Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence. Mr. Fischl discussed his work and newest project: “America: Now and Here.”

Hosted by Damian Woetzel, Director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program

About the Speaker:

Eric Fischl has been painting suburban American life since the 1970s, demonstrating a unique ability to couple the perceived and the imagined within the context of our own contemporary world. His depictions of domestic life communicate immediacy to audiences and speak with a strong American accent. Fischl’s paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions as well as publications. His work is represented in many museums including the The Whitney Museum of American Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, St. Louis Art Museum, Oklahoma City Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Basel Kunsthalle, Switzerland, Kunstmuseem der Stadt, Germany, Musée National D’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, France as well as private and corporate collections. Fischl has collaborated with other artists and authors, including E.L. Doctorow, Allen Ginsberg, and Jamaica Kincaid, among others. He was born in New York City in 1948 and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He received his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts. Fischl lives in New York City and in Sag Harbor, Long Island with his wife, April Gornik, a celebrated painter.

About “America: Now and Here”:

“America: Now and Here” began when Eric Fischl invited a group of peers all leading visual artists, poets, playwrights, filmmakers and musicians – to each contribute a work of art reflecting their points of view and hopes for America post 9/11. His idea – to use the language art creates as a way to talk to each other outside the polarizing rhetoric gripping the country. In response, over 150 celebrated American artists including visual artists Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Kiki Smith, playwrights Marsha Norman, Edward Albee, and Jon Robin Baitz, poets Robert Pinsky and Rita Dove, filmmakers Kyle Bell and Lauren Greenfield, and musicians Rosanne Cash, Laurie Anderson, and Paul Simon have collaborated on a cross-disciplinary experience delivered by what promises to be the next great American journey. Along the way, their voices will be joined by established and emerging regional talent who will contribute new work to a growing movement that is “America: Now and Here.” Together, artists are demonstrating an unprecedented level of patriotism, leadership, and experimentation in the hope of uniting a vast and diverse country through the shared experience of art.