08:15 PM : Robert A. Pruitt lecture @ PSU

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Robert A. Pruitt lecture at PSU this Monday, Oct 9th at 8:15pm

All the way from Houston, TEXAS!
ROBERT A. PRUITT will present his work
as part of the Portland State University MFA Monday Night Lecture Series
The public is invited (it's free, tell your friends)
Monday, Oct, 9th, 8:15pm
5th Avenue Cinema Room 92
510 SW Hall St. (on the corner of SW 5TH & Hall on the PSU Campus) Portland, Oregon

Robert A. Pruitt incorporates America's often unsettled race relations into the aesthetics of desire. His rereading of twentieth-century art, especially the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, in light of African American history and experience offers a commentary on the ongoing struggles of black Americans. Pruitt's participated in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. He has worked for a number of years with Project Row Houses, and is a member of the collaborative group Otabenga Jones & Associates, which was also included in the 2006 Biennial.

Pruitt writes: "I have been educated by the contemporary art system, but my neighborhood, and most of its residents, are unaware of this world, and that world is unaware of it. This is the dichotomy out of which I work. An inhabitant of two worlds, my work attempts to bridge the gap between African cultural traditions supposedly lost to African Americans, and contemporary art making tactics. I fuse Hip-hop sensibilities, rewritten histories, and penchant for the found, (or cheaply bought) object. I romanticize the revolutionary ideologies of the seventies, the dope fresh styles of the eighties, and the conceptual art making practices of the nineties. I collect objects, quotes, and events from my stereotypically disenfranchised neighborhood, bring them back to my studio, and mix them up to make art. My materials are artifacts stained with memory and meaning. I use these artifacts to make objects and images that expound on the black condition in America, and I use a chitlin circuit style of humor to sneak it into the subconscious of my audience."

For more information on Robert go to:
http://www.whitney.org/www/2006biennial/artists.php?artist=Pruitt_Rob
http://www.clementine-gallery.com/pruitt.html
http://www.projectrowhouses.org/

This is the first in the PMMNLS for this season. We will have free public lectures every Monday night of the school year.
The PSU MFA Monday Night Lecture Series is funded in part by PICA, Reed College, PNCA, Lewis and Clark College, and The Affair At The Jupiter

Next up for the PMMNLS:

Julia Bryan-Wilson: Oct 16
Jeffery Mitchel: Oct 23
TBA: Oct 30
Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Nov 6
Vanessa Renwick: Nov 13
Marc Horowitz: Nov 20
Jeanne Finley: Nov 27
James Lavadour: Dec 4