Biennial Art Symposium

The Utah Valley University School of the Arts, Department of Art & Design, Department of Dance and Woodbury Art Museum are pleased to announce the schedule for the forthcoming 2019 Art Symposium, “Narratives of Gender and Hidden Power in the Visual Arts: Renegades, Revolutionaries & Rebels.” The symposium will be held on Friday, February 22nd at at UVU’s Noorda Center for the Performing Arts Dance Theatre and will feature keynote speaker Liz Lerman, noted choreographer, performer, writer, teacher, and visionary.

The purpose of this symposium is to explore the hidden narratives of gender within the arts to discover messages, symbols, and meanings that exist beneath the surface, whether originally intended or a product of shifting meaning or interpretations.

Tickets for this event are free and available to students, faculty, and the community. To reserve your free ticket, please visit the online UVU Ticket Office:

Symposium Schedule

• 11:00 am

  Welcome and Introduction

  Courtney Davis, Art & Design Department Chair, Utah Valley University
  Jamie Johnson, Assistant Professor of Dance, Utah Valley University

• 11:10 am

  Keynote Speaker: Liz Lerman

  Institute Professor, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University

• 12:00 pm

  Break

• 1:00 pm

  “Fire and Water, Male and Female: Gender and Duality in the Depiction of Aztec Deities”

  Travis L. Clark, Lecturer of Art History, Utah Valley University
  Zachary Nelson, Archeologist, Bureau of Reclamation

• 1:25 pm

  “Ballet’s Binary Genders in a Rainbow-Spectrum World”

  Melonie B. Murray, Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs, College of Fine Arts,
  Associate Professor, School of Dance, University of Utah

• 1:45 pm

  “Putting a New Spin on it: Viewership and 17th-Century Netherlandish Spinning Imagery”

  Angela Wescott, Adjunct Instructor of Art History, Utah Valley University

• 2:05 pm

  Break

• 2:20 pm

  “The Ancient Greek Woman: From Victim to Venus"

  Bob deWitt, Professor, Art History and 3D Modeling, Utah Valley University

• 2:45 pm

  “Asserting Strength and Self: Helen Post’s Evocative Portraits of Twentieth-Century Native American Women”

  Carlyle Constantino, Independent Art Historian

• 3:05 pm

  “Taboo or Truth: Representing the Modern Woman in Visual Art”

  Cyrene Swallow, Bachelor of Science Candidate, Art & Design, Utah Valley University

• 3:25 pm

  “A Dismembered Cogito: Richard Dadd’s Painting, Poetry, and Patricide as an Attack on the Cartesian Concept of Identity”

  Christian Swensen, Master of Arts Candidate, Comparative Studies, Brigham Young University

• 3:45-4:00 pm

  Event Conclusion

Generous sponsorship for the symposium provided by: the National Endowment for the Arts, the Utah Division of Arts & Museums, and Utah Valley University.

The Art History Symposium tradition, which began in 2010, provides a forum for the presentation of student and faculty research drawn from all areas of art history. The symposium also features a keynote lecture by a leading scholar of art history. Previous themes have included: Maximalism in the arts, the intersection of word and image, identity in the American West, and art and mass media.

For more information, please contact symposium director and Department Chair of Art & Design Courtney Davis at Courtney.Davis@uvu.edu (801.863.8118).