Tuesday night the Ryla T. and John F. Lott Endowment Funded Program hosted James Elkins, professor and chair in the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, gave a public lecture titled “The Place of Language in Visual Art.”
The lecture focused on theories of images and if there is always a meaning behind an image. Elkins discussed many different theories of images, including those by Lucretius, Susan Sontag and Nelson Goodman.
Elkins was introduced by Jorgelina Orfilia, the assistant art history professor. Orfilia said having someone like Elkins come to Texas Tech is important because it is a special experience for the students.
“This gives them the opportunity to have contact with such a great professor of art history,” she said. “It also shows him who we are and what we are doing here.”
Elkins spent time with students Tuesday in studio critiques and also worked with individual students.
“He was giving them opinions and ideas,” Orfilia said. “The students were really enchanted by being able to have a scholar give them opinions.”
Not everyone who attended the lecture was a member of the art program. Adrianna Atter, a graduate architecture student from Austin, attended the lecture at the advising of one of her professors.
“This lecture was about words and images, but it’s also about art and experience and how to translate that,” Atter said.
As far as Elkins’ belief words and images need to be separated, Atter said he is not so sure.
“I’m not sure if I do (believe the need to separate word and image), but a lot of the time what matters is the visual,” he said. “There is a magical power images have that people don’t believe writing has.”
After the lecture, Elkins participated in a short question and answer session with the audience.
Be the first to comment on this article!