April 4, 2000

Media Contact: Kate Callen,(858)534-0361

ART HISTORIAN BRYSON TO DELIVER UCSD/MCA LECTURE APR. 18

Distinguished art historian Norman Bryson will deliver the Spring 2000 Russell Lecture, "Reclaiming the Archive from Atget to Nan Goldin," on Tuesday, April 18, at 7:00 p.m. in the Sherwood Auditorium of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 700 Prospect Street, La Jolla. Free and open to the public, the Russell Lecture is co-sponsored by the University of California, San Diego Department of Visual Arts and by the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

Bryson is Chair in the History and Theory of Art in the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. Before moving to the Slade, Bryson was Chair of Art History at Harvard University. His books include "Word and Image," "Vision and Painting," "Tradition and Desire," and "Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting." He is general editor of "Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism" and co-editor of the series "Envisioning Asia" at Reaktion Books, London.

Bryson's lecture will look at "the archive" as one of photography's solutions to the problems of profusion and multiplicity. He will explore the developing logic of archival aesthetics from the early 20th century (Atget, Sander), the mid-century (Arbus, the Bechers), through to the complex redefinition of archival series in the work of artists such as Joel-Peter Witkin, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Nan Goldin.

For further information about the Russell Lecture Series, visit the series website at http://jupiter.ucsd.edu/~visitors/russell.html. For further information about the April 18 lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art, please call (858) 454-3541.