UC Davis experts: Art and design

The following UC Davis faculty members are available to speak on topics related to art.

How artists respond to world events

Given the significant changes to visual art following other historic political traumas such as World War I, the Holocaust and the Vietnam War, it is inevitable that artists will produce work that incorporates their new sense of the world since Sept. 11, says art historian Blake Stimson. Already art exhibitions in New York, including one that opened before Sept. 11 with explicit terrorist themes, have been re-interpreted in light of the attacks. Stimson, an assistant professor in the Art History Program and co-director of the Critical Theory Program, writes and teaches about how political events of the 1960s transformed the social role of art. He is editor of "Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology" (1999). Contact: Blake Stimson, Art History Program, (530) 752-5644, bstimson@ucdavis.edu.

Avant-garde art, new forms of music, arts and technology

Douglas Kahn, director of the UC Davis Technocultural Studies Program, can talk about new forms of music, history of the avant-garde arts, art and politics, and the role of the arts in educating future technology leaders. Kahn specializes in the cultural history of sound and technology in the arts. He says the arts and humanities have a major role in educating future leaders in creative fields where technology is involved. He wrote Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (1999) and co-edited Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and the Avant-garde (1992). Douglas Kahn, Technocultural Studies/Art History, (530)754-7208, djkahn@ucdavis.edu.

Toys, Christmas, world design

UC Davis environmental design professor emeritus Dolph Gotelli collects toys and Christmas memorabilia as part of his a lifelong visual design scholarship. He has mounted a number of museum exhibitions using toys from his collections. Gotelli can talk about Christmas rituals, Santa Claus and design in cultures around the world. He also boasts one of the largest shopping bag collections in the world. Gotelli can articulate the importance of imagination and why today's material culture—toys, movies, etc., are devoid of stimulation. Contact: Dolph Gotelli, Environmental Design, (916) 456-9734, degotelli@ucdavis.edu.

Losses to the classics

Lynn Roller, professor of classics and art history, can speak about the impact of the looting in Iraq's museums and its consequences for scholarship. She is knowledgeable about historic monuments and urban centers in what was once Mesopotamia and is now in Iraq and southeastern Turkey. Roller can also talk about the art and archaeological monuments of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome. An archaeologist with many years of research experience in Turkey, Roller won the Wiseman Prize, given by the Archaeological Institute of America, for the outstanding book of the year in classical archaeology for her book In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele (1999). Contact: Lynn Roller, Classics, (530) 752-1062, leroller@ucdavis.edu.

• Claudia Morain at the UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu.

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