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The Athenaeum presents various series of art and music lectures, including topics in classical music and jazz, visual art, art history, and architecture, with speakers from San Diego and beyond.

art lectures san diego

Book Arts Lecture, in conjunction with San Diego Book Arts
Presented by Susan Joy Share
Friday, September 17, 7:30 p.m.
Free admission
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve.

Artist and bookbinder Susan Joy Share will talk about the development of her book work and public installations. Share has worked as a book conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Historical Society and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. She has taught at noted institutions including the Center for Book Arts, NYC; Anderson Ranch Arts Center , CO; Penland School of Crafts, NC; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, ME; and the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Share’s artwork is in collections at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has exhibited and performed throughout the United States, England, Ireland, and Hungary. She has received grants from the Rasmuson Artists Fellowship Program, the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Share is best known for her performances, sculptural books and ceramic tile murals.

 

Minority Tribal People of Southwest China, including Tibet
Presented by Phila McDaniel
Thursdays, September 23, 30, October 7, and 14
Series: $40/60; Individual Lectures: $12/17
All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m.
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve

The four-part series will be focused on the minority tribal people of southwest China including Tibet and the far western provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu.
 
September 23:
We will present the nationalities, customs, costumes, and ornaments of Southwest China in the provinces of Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan and Sichuan. Phila McDaniel will discuss how she identified the various clans during her research of the past thirty years and why many villages are now disappearing and groups are melting into modern society. The lecture will be in two parts: Land of the Silk Dragon and South of the Clouds. The main ethnic groups are the Miao, Dong, Shui, Gejia, Yao, Yi, and Maonan.
 
September 30:
On the Ancient Tea Horse Trail, or Cha Ma Gu Dao, the colorful ethnic groups who produce the Pu-Erh tea carry the tea from the jungles of Yunnan all the way to Tibet and beyond by horse, yak, and finally by sheep and goats on narrow trails. These trade routes have been in use for hundreds of years and continue even today, but in a more limited fashion. The main nationalities are Yi, Dai, Bai, Jinno, Hani, Naxi, and rarely seen Tibetans of this area.
 
October 7:
Many clans of Tibetans and other nationalities (Mongolian, Qiang, Hui & Tu) live in Amdo and Kham (Eastern Tibet), and some live in TAR (Central Tibet) and Western Tibet. Ms. McDaniel will elucidate us on the changes in the last thirty years that have affected their lifestyle and the traditions that are still kept. Costumes and ornaments are the main focus, as well as the beauty of the grasslands, nomadic lifestyle and very old monasteries that remain.
 
October 14:
We will focus on the nationalities of the Silk Road with elaborate costumes and jewelry, textile techniques and architectural treasures. Both Moslem and Buddhist art will be shown along the way. Nationalities are Uygur, Tajiek, Kazak, Kirghiz, Hui, Mongolian, and Uzbek.

 

Art & Wine Lectures
Presented by Barbara Baxter
Wednesdays, September 29, October 27, and November 10
Individual Lecture: $25/30
Advance reservations are required. Limited to 30 people!
All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m.
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve


September 29: The Art of Wine with the Impressionists on the French Riviera (Oh là là!)
Radicals in their time, Impressionists not only broke the rules of academic painting, they also made up a Bohemian lifestyle on the French Riviera. Walk in the footsteps of Renoir, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Braque and Chagall. Breathe the aroma of lavender and olives. Taste five fine wines from the South of France.

October 27: The Art of Wine in Spain at the Age of Discovery
Spanish art influenced by Moorish heritage and created for a newly united Spain has inspired Spanish artists. The rich and powerful Spanish court became tastemaker of the colonial world. Taste exciting new wines from modern-day Spain.

November 10: The Art of Wine and Italy's La Dolce Vita (Mamma mia!)
Ah, the "sweet life." La bella pasta, cool Vespas, hot nights on Via Veneto with a brisk dip in Fontana di Trevi. We'll click through great photos of Italian cinema, feature a tasting of vino splendido–fine wine as the stars shine–with black and white stills of La dolce vita and the Roman film studio Cinecitta.

 

Public Lecture & Moderated Discussion
UCSD by Design Series: Art, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Campus Context
Thursday, September 30, 7-8 p.m.,
Public Lecture at Sherwood Auditorium, MCASD La Jolla
Friday, October 1, 10-12 p.m.,
Moderated discussion at UCSD Student Services Multipurpose Room
Free Admission

Featured Moderator: Kurt W. Forster, Architectural Historian & Critic, Professor & Director of Graduate Studies at Yale School of Architecture, and Founding Director of the Getty Research Institute


In conjunction with the Athenaeum's Dialogues in Art & Architecture, 2010-11, Nineteenth Season, the library is proud to sponsor a new series of public lectures and moderated discussions. Beginning in the fall of 2010, and continuing throughout the University of California, San Diego's 50th anniversary year, the history and future development of UCSD's built environment will be explored and celebrated in UCSD by Design: Art, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Campus Context. Highlights of the multi-part, collaborative project include a campus guidebook, a scholarly website, and a year-long series of public lectures and moderated discussions at UCSD and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

The 50-year history of the built environment at UC San Diego is a story of its own time. Unlike the historically reproduced architectural styles at other prominent regional institutions, such as San Diego State University, University of San Diego or Balboa Park, the built environment at UCSD stands as a unique testament to its era. With stylistically modern and postmodern architecture, UCSD's campus, juxtaposed with the Stuart Collection's preeminent works of art animating public spaces, reflects the contemporary tastes and times in which the campus built environment was developed. This and the campus planning process that brought it about form an engaging historical narrative. Current projective planning, meanwhile, envisions an innovative integration of architecture, landscape and infrastructure to urbanize an environmentally sustainable campus. The past and future of UCSD's built environment will be given full consideration in “UCSD by Design” throughout the 2010-11 academic year.

 

Art History Lecture Series
The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World
Presented by James Grebl, Ph.D.
Thursdays, October 21, 28, November 4, and 11
Series: $40/60; Individual Lectures: $12/17
All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m.
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve


Admont Abbey

October 21: Monastic and Ecclesiastic Libraries
Monastic and ecclesiastic libraries will be the subject of the first lecture, starting with the remarkable Vatican library in Rome. Also featured will be the Laurentian library in Florence, designed by Michelangelo under the patronage of the Medici; the library of the monastery of El Escorial, created by King Philip II of Spain; and the monastic libraries of Admont and Melk (Austria), St. Gall (Switzerland) and Wiblingen (Germany).

October 28: Historic University Libraries
Historic university libraries will be featured in the second lecture. The Bodleian at Oxford University, Trinity College Library in Dublin, the library of the Sapienza in Rome, and the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris are among the libraries discussed.

November 4: National Libraries
Great national libraries are the topic of the third session, including our own Library of Congress, the National LIbrary of Austria in Vienna (once the Imperial library of the Hapsburgs), the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the British Library in London.

November 11: Private Libraries
a variety of private libraries will conclude the series, ranging from idiosyncratic personal collections, like the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington, D.C., New York's Pierpont Morgan library, Sir John Soane's library in London, and the library of John Rylands in Manchester, to private membership libraries such as the Boston Athenaeum.

 

Dialogues in Art & Architecture 2010-11, Nineteenth Season
The Myths and Reality of Green
Thursday, November 18, 7:30 p.m.
Free admission
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve

Featured Panelists:
Susan Leibovitz Steinman
, Ecological artist and activist, San Francisco
Byron Washom
, Director of Strategic Energy Initiatives, UC San Diego


Steinman, Urban Defense

Our series offers perspectives on art, architectural design, urban planning and our changing ecology. In our daily lives, with awareness or not, we experience the consequences of a changing natural environment and of public policies and economic and bureaucratic decisions about art, architecture, and land use in the public realm. Our lives are shaped by discoveries in science and technological innovations across disciplines. Panelists will address our potential to be effective participants in shaping our social and natural environment. The series is coordinated by the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library and artist and environmental sculptor Joyce Cutler-Shaw. The programs will be co-sponsored by the San Diego New School of Architecture (affiliated with the Academy of Neroscience for Architecture, promoting links between neuroscience research and human responses to the built environment) as well as the San Diego Council of Design Professionals and the San Diego Architectural Foundation.

 

 

 

 

Music Lecture Series
Opera & Instrumentalism
Presented by Erica Miner and David Amos
Mondays, September 27, October 4 & 11
Series: $30/$45; Individual Lectures $12/$17
All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m.
Call 858.454.5872 to reserve

Violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Erica Miner and conductor and music director David Amos present a three-part music lecture series on both the operatic and instrumental sides of three famous composers - Georges Bizet, Richard Strauss, and Igor Stravinsky.

Explore the music from the point of view of musicians who have played and conducted both the operas and the composer’s gorgeous instrumental works.

September 27: Georges Bizet
Featuring composer Georges Bizet from the beloved opera “Carmen.”


George Bizet

October 4: Richard Strauss
Featuring the fantastic mind and music of composer Richard Strauss.


Richard Strauss

October 11: Igor Stravinsky
Featuring the intense composer Igor Stravinsky.


Igor Stravinsky

 

 

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