Artist Buster Simpson to visit UNM

Seat­tle artist Buster Simp­son will be a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor in the School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Col­lege of Fine Arts from Mon­day, Oct. 22 through Fri­day, Oct. 26.

While here, Simp­son, will con­duct a stu­dio with stu­dents in the Land­scape Archi­tec­ture and Land Arts of the Amer­i­can West pro­grams. The stu­dents will design and install tem­po­rary instal­la­tion pieces at 11 sites on the UNM main cam­pus. The pieces will be up from Fri­day, Oct. 26 to Tues­day, Oct. 30.

Simp­son will give a pub­lic lec­ture in George Pearl Hall on Wednes­day, Oct. 24, at 5:30 p.m.

Simp­son is one of the nation’s fore­most eco­log­i­cal artists. For more than 30 years, he has engaged cit­i­zens in aes­thet­ics, pol­i­tics and the envi­ron­ment. Humor and rich metaphors dis­tin­guish his work, with many of his decep­tively sim­ple sculp­tures offer­ing solu­tions to real prob­lems. Since the 1970s, has worked on major infra­struc­ture projects, site mas­ter plan­ning, sig­na­ture sculp­tures, museum instal­la­tions and com­mu­nity projects. He is known for a wide range of work includ­ing stand-alone sculp­ture as well as inte­grated and/or col­lab­o­ra­tive works. His pieces incor­po­rate eco­log­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal, social and aes­thetic con­sid­er­a­tions, con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing them into the site-specific val­ues of place.

Coor­di­na­tors for the visit are Alf Simon, pro­fes­sor and asso­ciate dean, School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning; and Cather­ine Har­ris, assis­tant pro­fes­sor, Art and Art His­tory in the Col­lege of Fine Arts.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu