November Mack Lectures Feature Walker Director Olga Viso on Artist Ana Mendieta and Author Samuel R. Delany

Critical issues in contemporary art practice and literature will be discussed during the Walker Art Center’s Mack Lectures presented in November. Walker director Olga Viso will give an illustrated lecture on Cuban-born American artist Ana Mendieta at 7 pm Tuesday, November 11, and at 2 pm Saturday, November 15, author Samuel R. Delany visits the Walker in conjunction with the exhibition Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis. Free tickets are available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk one hour before each event. Programs take place in the Walker Cinema. Lectures will be webcast live and archived on the Walker Channel (channel.walkerart.org).

Olga Viso on Ana Mendieta

Tuesday, November 11, 7 pm, Free
Join Walker Art Center director Olga Viso for an illustrated lecture on her extensive research into the little-seen work of celebrated artist Ana Mendieta. Viso’s newly released book, Unseen Mendieta: The Unpublished Works of Ana Mendieta (Prestel), presents a selection of photographs and drawings from the archives of the pioneering Cuban-born American artist, many of which have never been seen before, including early studies and public art projects in development at the time of her tragic death in 1985. Viso, who served as director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., before coming to the Walker, is the author of several books on contemporary Latin American art. She curated the exhibition Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985, which opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 2004, and was seen at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Des Moines Art Center, and the Miami Art Museum.

Samuel R. Delany

Saturday, November 15, 2 pm, Free
Spend an afternoon in another world with author Samuel R. Delany. Just as Tetsumi Kudo proposed a “new ecology” of humanity and technology, so has Delany’s groundbreaking science fiction—including award-winning titles such as Babel-17, Dhalgren, and The Einstein Intersection—offered captivating glimpses of hypothetical and shifting realities. In addition to science fiction and fantasy, Delany’s highly acclaimed works include autobiography, literary criticism, and eroticism. His latest novel, Dark Reflections (Running Press), presents a devastating “portrait of the artist” for the 21st century. Copresented by Rain Taxi Review of Books.

These lectures are made possible by generous support from Aaron and Carol Mack.