Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Catalogs

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UO Art 2017 MFA
(University of Oregon, 2017) Department of Art, University of Oregon; Campbell, Andrew Douglas; Couch, Chelsea; Weng, Esther; Moore, Joe; Asahina, Lee; Hampton, Mandy; Morgan, Mary Margaret; Wallace, Meril; Linn, Ron
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of French literary critic and theorists Roland Barthes’ influential 1967 essay, The Death of the Author. In countless MFA critiques and seminars, artists have grappled with Barthes’ essay and its implications related to de-skilling, negation of authorial voice, and birth of the reader/viewer. Each of the nine artists included in the University of Oregon’s 2017 MFA Thesis Exhibition undoubtedly addresses the viewer, challenging audiences to explore new ways of thinking about and moving in the world through infiltration, translation, and humor. Yet in all of the artworks presented, the viewer “is born” not at the expense and death of the author, but through a shared insistence on the importance of the relationship between artist and viewer, artistic presence, and/or the laying bare of the production apparatus.