VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Blaffer Art Museum and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts are proud to host multi-disciplinary artist Lynne McCabe (pictured, courtesy of the artist) in residence during the 2012 fall semester.

McCabe makes interactive work that explores the potentialities and limits of "social sculpture" through a social sculpture workshop that doubles as an exhibition - Room to be (Ms.)understood: A Social Sculpture Workshop. The term designates art that is produced collectively, often through a series of flexible parameters that the artist defines for herself, her participants, and her audiences.

By focusing on process, collaboration, interaction, and conversation, McCabe's work is a product of social engagement and active negotiation. These processes take varied forms for McCabe and include performance, installation, text, events, video and sound works.

McCabe's social sculpture workshop will take place at Blaffer Art Museum on Tuesday evenings from 5:30-8:30 pm, beginning August 28 and ending December 4, 2012. The workshop is open to all. Students, faculty and members of the public are encouraged to partake in the experience (class credit available for students enrolled in IART 3365-6395).

This class-as-exhibition builds upon important precedents such as "Night School" at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, "Public Engagement" at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, and "Pick Pocket Almanack" in San Francisco. The project will have an afterlife as a Blaffer publication. Participants will have a role in determining the form of the book and its contents, which may include photographic documentation, scholarly texts and interviews that contextualize McCabe's residency and the practice of "social sculpture". McCabe, along with Blaffer and Mitchell Center curatorial staff, will also maintain a blog about the project which may find other digital life as a podcast.

Originally from Scotland, McCabe received her B.A with honors from The Glasgow School of Art in 1999 and recently received her MFA in Social Practice from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently as part of the 53rd Venice Biennale, and was a recipient of a 2008 Artadia Award. Her work was featured in the 2008 Houston Area Exhibition at Blaffer Art Museum.