Susan Fang (MFA '10) to give talk at ICA as a part of the Coffee Talk series; Wed., Jan. 28, 5:30pm

image: Anthony Campuzano, Begrudgingly after Phyllis Schafly, 2008

Whenever Wednesday: Coffee Talk: Touch Sensitive
Wed, Jan 28 at 5:30pm

Susan Fang on Anthony Campuzano with Jeffrey Green, Assistant Professor of Political Science.

Susan Fang, an MFA candidate in the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, explores the sources and methods of Anthony Campuzano’s “abstract journalism,” followed by coffee and conversation led by Jeffrey Green, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Known for his use of found language, Philadelphia-based artist Anthony Campuzano activates texts from a variety of sources—newspaper headlines, Wikipedia entries, the covers of paperback novels, trivial cultural events, common clichés, pop song lyrics—in drawings that couple intense color with the tangible presence of the artist's hand.

Like his journalistic sources, Campuzano's use of language condenses—he distills language into succinct phrases that express a particular mood, recall a personal anecdote, or echo a national headline. What is removed textually is replaced visually through bold color and the blocky, erratic shapes of his letters, defying the formality of the printed page, and its capacity for endless reproduction, with the deliberate imperfection of the hand. Campuzano dubs his obsession with color and language "abstract journalism." As the sentences dip and dodge through the composition, the act of reading alternately slows or quickens; sometimes lines are reread, sometimes skipped. Regardless of the route taken, the performance of the text becomes central.

Susan Fang focuses on the construction of identity in a contemporary hyperactive society; her work is strongly influenced by comics, cartoons, and material and consumer culture.

Jeffrey Green, Ph.D, Harvard University, J.D. Yale Law School, teaches democratic theory, ancient and modern political philosophy, and contemporary social theory.

COFFEE TALK is a new program featuring a 30-minute tour of the current exhibitions led by a Penn graduate lecturer, followed by coffee on the mezzanine with a faculty member or graduate student generating and moderating an interdisciplinary conversation about ICA’s exhibitions.

For more ICA event information: www.icaphila.org/events/
See Susan's website: www.paperbites.com/index.html