Events & Calendars 2012-13 Rapaport Lecture in Contemporary Art by Diana Al-Hadid

The 2012-13 Rapaport Lecture in Contemporary Art will be given by noted sculptor/installation artist Diana Al-Hadid on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 4:30 p.m. in Pruyne Lecture Hall (115 Fayerweather). A reception will follow in the hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Diana Al-Hadid was born in Aleppo, Syria, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y. She received her B.F.A. in sculpture and B.A. in art history from Kent State University in 2003 and an M.F.A. in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, in 2005 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. She has received a USA Rockefeller Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Grant, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant and a Pollack-Krasner Grant. Her work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; The Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York; and the Saatchi Gallery, London. Al-Hadid has had solo exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Centro de Arte Contemporánea, La Conservera, Murcia, Spain; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and recently at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, in the exhibition "The Vanishing Point," and at Mass MoCA, North Adams, Mass., in the exhibition "Invisible Cities." She has an upcoming two-person exhibition with the work of Medardo Rosso during the 2013 Venice Biennale as well as an exhibition at the Weatherspoon Art Museum opening Feb. 8, 2013.

“Diana Al-Hadid creates breathtaking sculptures that surprise us by their unusual forms, unconventional use of materials and distinctive range of reference and allusion. Her innovative work opens up new ground for the form and meaning of sculpture,” says Jeremy Strick, director of the Nasher Sculpture Center.

The Rapaport Lectureship in Contemporary Art Fund, established in 1999 at Amherst College, provides support for an annual lecture by an artist, art writer or art critic on some aspect of contemporary art. The goal of the Rapaport Lectureship is to increase awareness and appreciation of contemporary art among students and the community.