Lecture by Warren Lehrer on his work as a writer, designer, and pioneering practitioner of visual literature. Lehrer talks about his obsessions with capturing the shape of thought, reuniting the pictorial and oral roots of storytelling with the printed word, and bridging documentary and expressive forms. He discusses his pilgrimage with language through art, typography, music and theater into literature, and deconstructs and performs excerpts of his books and multi-media projects including i mean you know, FRENCH FRIES, The Portrait Series. Crossing the BLVD, and his new illuminated novel, A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, which contains 101 books within it. One part artist lecture, one part author reading, and one part performance, Lehrer’s “lectures” are always entertaining, thought provoking, and informative.
Another lecture by Lehrer places his own work in the context of Visual Literature—that field of writing in which the visual composition of the text is co-joined with the meaning. He deconstructs and performs examples of Vis Lit from cave paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and pattern poetry, to Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Stein, cummings, Patchen, and concrete poetry, to artists’ books, environmental textworks, the new wave of typo-pictorial novels, and e-books. In his entertaining way, Lehrer brings to life semiotic and deconstructionist theories as well as manifestoes and other seminal texts pertinent to Vis Lit. He ponders the origins of storytelling and the future of reading and writing in the age of ipads and short attention spans. This talk works well in conjunction with Warren’s presentation on his own work and can also be part of a multi-day visit accompanying a performance and/or exhibition to your college, art or writing center.
INQUIRE ABOUT A LECTURE/PRESENTATIONS
Lehrer is an “inspiring” and frequent lecturer and presenter (sometimes keynote speaker) at universities, art and literary centers, museums, conferences and symposia around the United States and abroad, including:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Maryland Institute College of Art, The Radcliffe Institute at Radcliffe College, Rhode Island School of Design, The University of the Arts (Philadelphia), The Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester), Yale University, Mills College (Oakland), North Carolina State University, The Art Institute of Boston, University of Florida (Gainesville), California College of the Arts, Art Center College of Design (Pasadena), University of Arizona (Tucson), New York Institute of Technology, Oregon State University (Corvallis), Webster State University (Ogden, Utah), School of The Art Institute of Chicago, University of Tennessee (Knoxville), CUNY Honors College: University Scholars Program, Fordham University, St. Johns University, SUNY New Paltz, SUNY Albany, New York State Writers Institute, Pratt Institute, Clark University, The School of Visual Arts (NY), Rutgers University, NYU Tish, University of Maine, AIGA national conferences and local chapters, College Art Association national conferences, National Association of Oral History conferences, Book Arts and Artist Book conferences, Queens Museum of Art, Godwin-Ternback Museum, The Neuberger Museum of Art, The Cooper Hewitt Museum, The Puffin Forum (Teaneck, NJ), Center for Cultural Exchange (Portland, Maine), International Humanities & Arts Conference (Honolulu), Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City), Pietre Brattinga Gallery (Amsterdam), The Market Theatre Laboratory (Johannesberg), etc.