April 8, 2008
Contact: Emanuel Costache '09
Media Relations Intern
413/542-2321
Caroline Jenkins Hanna
Director of Media Relations

413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Artist and film producer Eve Sussman will give the annual Rapaport Lecture in Contemporary Art at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16, in Pruyne Lecture Hall of Amherst College’s Fayerweather Hall. This talk, which is sponsored by the department of art and the history of art, is free and open to the public.

Sussman’s most recent work, The Rape of the Sabine Women, is a reinterpretation of the Roman myth, updated and set in the idealistic 1960s. It is a video-musical conceived in an operatic five-act structure based around Jacques-Louis David’s painting Intervention of the Sabine Women. The video, with 7.1 sound installation, features compositions by Jonathan Bepler that were recorded live on-site and incorporate a bouzouki ensemble, a Pergamon coughing choir and a chorus of 800 voices.

Her previous film, also with the Rufus Corporation, 89 Seconds at Alcázar received critical acclaim from The New Yorker, New York Magazine and The Washington Post. The 10-minute video installation imagines the action occurring before and after the scene depicted in Diego Velasquez’ painting Las Meninas.

Sussman’s Rufus Corporation is a band of itinerant actors, artists, dancers and musicians and includes two horses, an opera singer and a cowboy among its ranks. Living and working in her home/studio in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., Sussman continues to make films and photographs both independently and with the Rufus Corporation, culling ideas from cinematic influences as well as architectural, musical, operatic and sculptural sources.

The Rapaport Lectureship in Contemporary Art Fund, established in 1999, 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.

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