MECA&D Announces Curator Raechell Smith is Visiting Artist Guest Lecturer on Monday, July 30th
Smith’s address begins at 5:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public
Curator Raechell Smith will deliver the final lecture in the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) 2018 MFA Summer Visiting Artist Lecture Series on Monday, July 30th. Free and open to the public, Smith’s lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. at MECA&D’s Osher Hall, 522 Congress St., 2nd floor, Portland, Maine. The Visiting Artist program is part of MECA&D’s eight-week Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Summer Intensive. In addition to speaking, visiting lecturers attend critiques and conduct studio visits with all
graduate candidates.
Raechell Smith has served as Director and Curator of the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute since its founding in 1999. As a contemporary art space with a strong teaching mission, the Artspace has been recognized for excellence in architectural design, graphic design, and public programming within the region.
Smith has organized solo exhibitions presenting work by regional, national, and international artists including Dawit Petros, Simone Leigh, Kate Gilmore, Ghada Amer, Shirin Neshat, Wenda Gu, the Xijing Men, and Lee Boroson. Public art projects for the Artspace Project Wall have been produced in collaboration with Dan Perjovschi, David Shrigley, Yang Yongliang, Alexis Rockman, Jenny Holzer, and Vik Muniz.
Smith has also curated and collaborated on thematic exhibitions exploring a range of timely and topical issues, include State of the World, exploring the presence of the flag in contemporary global art, On Watch, a meditation on the presence of surveillance in modern life, Making Histories, examining how artists engage and reimagine historical narratives, Humor Me, and Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale.
As an advocate for artists and art communities across the United States, Smith has served on regional and national advisory panels and boards of numerous national and regional organizations that provide critical support to artists, including the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, Artadia, and United States Artists, among others.
Header Image: Kansas City Art Institute
Portrait: Image courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center