Photo by Madeleine Boyson
In the first week of September, the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art will welcome Dionne Lee for two programs accompanying the exhibition Dionne Lee: A Muscle Memory, presented in partnership with the Center for Fine Art Photography.
Lee will give an artist talk on Thursday, Sept. 2, then will join Colorado State University poet and University Distinguished Professor Camille Dungy and photographer Odette England in conversation on Friday, Sept. 3. Both events begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Organ Recital Hall at the University Center for the Arts, with digital streaming made available through C4FAP. A public reception with Lee, Dungy, and England will be hosted in the museum following the Friday program. A Muscle Memory — on view until Sept. 19 — and all events are free and open to the community.
About Dionne Lee
Lee is a celebrated visual artist with an MFA from the California College of the Arts who uses photography, collage, and video to grapple with issues of power and survival in America’s wildernesses. In A Muscle Memory, she juxtaposes found images from survival manuals with her own silver gelatin prints in an analog process that mirrors the tactility of endurance skills.
By turning to historical narratives that identify American soil as a site of trauma, Lee questions how history determines the autonomy and perseverance of people across time. Though most of the art in the exhibition pre-dates the pandemic, Lee uses this work to ask: Who is best positioned to survive in our chaotic, ever-changing landscapes?
Poetry reading
Dungy will give a poetry reading before the conversation begins. Dungy is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at CSU and an award-winning author who has published four poetry collections and a debut collection of personal essays. She has been a finalist, awardee, and honoree of over 15 book, legacy, and fellowship awards during her career, including two NAACP Image award nominations, fellowships from the NEA, and most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. Dungy has co-edited various compilations, while her own work has appeared in over 30 anthologies and dozens of print and online venues.
Photo by Madeleine Boyson
England is an Australian-British photographer who lives in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island. She has exhibited in more than 100 museums and art spaces worldwide, received several competitive artist-in-residence fellowships, and been nominated for or granted a number of awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2018 and 2019), Anonymous Was a Woman (2021), and others. England has published three photobooks and appeared in international print publications while teaching photography at several universities. She now guest lectures at C4FAP. England will exhibit her work in the exhibition Degrees in the CSU Department of Art and Art History’s Clara Hatton Gallery from Oct. 28 to Dec. 10.
Support for Dionne Lee: A Muscle Memory and programming has been generously provided by the City of Fort Collins Fort Fund, the FUNd Endowment at CSU, and Colorado Creative Industries.
The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art invites individuals to engage with art and each other to inspire fresh perspectives and wonder. The museum is a catalyst for visual literacy and critical thinking that instills a passion for learning. For updated museum information, go to artmuseum.colostate.edu.
