2021 Faculty Lecture Series
Michael Glier, Alexander Falck Class of 1899 Professor of Art
Answer Music: Observation and Abstraction of the Living World
March 04, 2021
Mike Glier’s talk focused on three bodies of recent work: "The Forests of Antarctica," "Field Notes," and "Answer Music." Landscape has been at the center of Glier’s art making for a few decades now, and the American Modernists who focused on it have been a constant source of inspiration and guidance. In his words, “Although I love much landscape painting that falls in the realist camp, it’s the overlay of abstraction that Marin, O”keefe, Dove, Burchfield, et al. brought to it that best expresses the mutability and vitality I find there. I’m very taken with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s phrase, “the grammar of animacy” as it applies to art and nature. A grammar of animacy is short on nouns, but rich in verbs, which express the ceaseless, fluid interaction of all things and it’s the American Modernists who made the most contributions to that emerging grammar and it’s my project to attempt to contribute to it.”
Mike Glier makes drawings and paintings about the human relationship with the environment. The Alexander Falck Class of 1899 Professor of Art at Williams College, Glier is a recipient of a National Endowment Fellowship in drawing, a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting, and has had solo exhibitions at Krakow Witkin Gallery, Boston; Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York; Gerald Peters Gallery, New York and Santa Fe; and the Museum of Modern Art, NY. The Drawing Center, NY, The Tyler Gallery, Philadelphia, and the Opalka Gallery, Albany NY, have sponsored national touring exhibitions and he has participated in the Whitney Museum Biennial, NY. He has exhibited internationally at the Lisson Gallery, London; Tanya Grunert Gallery, Cologne; American Graffiti, Amsterdam; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; and was the Artist and Educator in Residence at Hauser and Wirth Gallery, Somerset, England.
This talk was presented as part of the spring 2021 Faculty Lecture Series. The series was founded in 1911 by Catherine Mariotti Pratt, the spouse of a faculty member who wanted to “relieve the tedium of long New England winters with an opportunity to hear Williams professors talk about issues that really mattered to them.” From these humble and lighthearted beginnings, the Faculty Lecture Series has grown to become an important forum for tenured professors to share their latest research with the larger intellectual community of the college.
The Faculty Lecture Series is organized by the faculty members of the Lecture Committee. The aim of the series is to present big ideas beyond disciplinary boundaries. The lectures are free and open to the public.
