Nationally Known Artist and Writer to Launch Critic and Artist Residency Series at Colorado State University

Nationally known art critic Peter Plagens will launch the Critic and Artist Residency Series at Colorado State University, a program designed by the art department to bring to campus major national and international artists and art critics.Plagens, art critic for Newsweek magazine since 1989, will present the program’s inaugural lecture, "Eighty Years Too Late, but Right On Time," at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 at the Lincoln Center, 417 W. Magnolia St., Fort Collins. Plagens served as professor and chairman of the art department at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from 1980-1984, and is the author of two books, "Moonlight Blues: an Artists Art Criticism" and "Sunshine Muse: Contemporary Art on the West Coast."

"We’re excited about the inaugural talk by Peter Plagens," said Linny Frickman, Hatton Gallery director. "He’s highly regarded as a painter as well as a critic who presents art in all its manifestations to a wide audience. He’s an amusing, irreverent and fascinating speaker."

The Critic and Artist Residency Series continues in 1998 with artist Byron Kim, an abstract painter whose work with color challenges assumptions about identity, memory, culture and race. Kim will talk at 7 p.m. April 16 in the Lory Student Center Theatre on campus.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

The Critic and Artist Residency Series was created from an anonymous $1 million endowment given to the art department early in 1997. The program was developed by the art department as a way to put students, faculty and the community in touch with the latest creative thinking and practices in the art world.

"We’re bringing to campus the very best artists and commentators on the arts, people who are widely known and respected," said Phil Risbeck, art department chairman and professor. "The events are significant for the university and the community at large."

In addition to the Critic and Artist Residency Series, the endowment is being used to maintain and enhance the Stanley G. Wold Visual Resource Center, an electronic library housed in the Visual Arts Building on campus. The center includes CD-ROM and video players, disk storage, study carrels, a slide library and a book library.

For more information, call the Hatton Gallery office at (970) 491-7634.