the livingblog

Jeanne-Claude taught me about tenacity and courage, risk and scale. In the years that I worked with her, we often traveled to see farmers in Petaluma at 5:30 am, before they milked the cows. She  convinced them, with charm and humor, of the value of ephemeral art.

I remember a spiritual power in her generosity, humanaity,  inspiration and wit.

She passed away from a brain aneurism on Nov. 18, at the age of seventy-four.

The light in the air is a bit dimmer these days.

I will always miss her.

Well, for starters, the Houston Cinema Arts Society hosted its annual Cinema Arts Festival, a five-day celebration of innovative and inspiring media. Sounds like a place where Lynn might be found, no?

Lynn and husband George at an event honoring screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, part of the 2009 Houston Cinema Arts Festival

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Original Receipt from the Dante Hotel (1973-4)

This Saturday the 14 of November, the School of Visual Arts in New York City is hosting Media Modes, a graduate student conference dedicated to emerging theorists and their scholarship on art and technology. Of course, no event of this kind would be complete without addressing Lynn’s oeuvre, especially one including a session entitled “Body, Identity, and the Virtual Space”! This session is one of two (the other being “Spatial Experience and Social Networking”) which kick off the day, and presenting on Lynn’s work is up-and-coming critical writer and curator Jaime Austin. A 2008 graduate of California College of Art’s School of Curatorial Practice, Austin will act as an assistant curator for the 2010 01SJ Biennial, where Lynn has also, in the past, exhibited innovative work in new media. Her paper is entitled “Space, Identity, and Embodiment—On Lynn Hershman Leeson’s The Dante Hotel and Life Squared”. She is the only presenter from a West-Coast school in attendance, although other presenters hail from prestigious programs on both a national and international scale.

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