UB to Host Internationally Acclaimed Young Artists Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Department of Visual Studies, in partnership with New York City's Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, will present a lecture by internationally acclaimed artist Ryan Trecartin, named one of the most influential young artists in the world, and his collaborator, Lizzie Fitch.

Their wild and colorful interdisciplinary work has been said to "blow consumer culture and intergenerational relations into huge proportions."

On April 6 UB will screen their film series "Any Ever," the subject of their major exhibition last summer at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The screening will take place from 1-6 p.m., in 112 Center for the Arts.

On April 12 Trecartin and Fitch will present the second lecture in a four-part annual UB Queer Art Lecture Series at 4 p.m. in 112 Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus,

Both events are free of charge and open to the public.

Further details and the program of screenings can be found at http://visualstudies.buffalo.edu/ubVSnews/2012/03/08/fitch-trecartin/.

Jonathan D. Katz, director the UB Visual Studies Department's PhD program, serves as president of the Leslie Lohman Museum, and curator of this series, which features talks by the world's most significant queer contemporary artists who address the relationship between their work and their sexuality.

He says, "This Queer Art Lecture Series, graciously underwritten by the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, provides an unparalleled opportunity to hear from artists working at the cutting edge of contemporary practice.

"But the concerns explored by the artists featured in this series are not limited to those in the LGBT community. The issues of identity and representation that characterize their work are shared by us all, regardless of sexual orientation," he says.

"Trecartin and Fitch are hailed as one of the most innovative collaborative teams working with video and installation today," says Katz.

"They seamlessly meld the overheated immediacy of our Internet-linked world with dissident politics -- including copious drag and a strong bias against unchecked capitalism," he says, adding that Trecartin's "wildly fantastical" narratives and subversive characterizations launch a thoroughly unique perspective on everything not-yet tomorrow.

Katz says Trecartin is widely credited as a past master of new media's electronic techniques. His sophisticated digital manipulations, performances and media, he says, are located solely on the Internet and he merges them into surreal visions.

Trecartin and Fitch have worked together exclusively since they met at the Rhode Island School of Design 2000, and have since collaborated with an uncanny ensemble of family and friends. Their work has been seen at MAMA, Rotterdam, Pays-Bas; MoMA PS1, New York, N.Y.; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; New Galerie de France; and Cour Carrée du Louvre, Paris-France.

Each of the lectures in the UB series also will be presented at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City, the world's first museum dedicated solely to multidisciplinary work by gay and lesbian artists that engages gay/ lesbian historical, social or political issues still excluded from mainstream venues.