lectures

On March 27th, 2012, LANDING IN OHIO…

landing in Columbus

…over pretty grids for a talk at the Columbus College of Art & Design tomorrow.

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By Fritz Haeg on March 27, 2012 | travel
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On October 30th, 2011, AN ABANDONED BULGARIAN STEEL MILL…

flying over an abondoned steel mill outside of Sofia, Bulgaia

…is what made the first impression as we approached the Sofia airport over a late autumn umber and ochre landscape, for my first visit to the country (whose only previous associations for me come from the amazing Le Mystere des voix Bulgares album released by 4AD in the late 80′s) for a talk on Tuesday at the Sofia Architecture Week – preceded by an interview in yesterday’s national newspaper.

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By Fritz Haeg on October 30, 2011 | travel
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On October 23rd, 2011, ŁÓDŹ DESIGN FESTIVAL…

Lodz International Festival of Design

…is a great collection of displays, shows, and talks filling a half-refurbished modern factory in the middle of town (with beautiful layers of paint in greens and golds pealing from every surface) where I will be following MVRDV with a lecture “Designing the Wild and Cultivating the City” this evening at 5:30.

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By Fritz Haeg on October 23, 2011 | lectures
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On October 16th, 2011, BRIAN ENO AND MIERLE LADERMAN UKELES…

Brian Eno and Mierle Laderman Ukeles at the Garden Marathon

…were the big hero highlights of the 2nd day of the Serpentine Garden Marathon – Eno giving an inspiring talk that had me scribbling notes for one of the first times since college, arguing for the approach of the bottom-up gardener vs. the top-down architect for the future where the creator/designer/composer/artist “…organizes only in parts…letting the dynamic create the rest…taking you in the direction you want to go…and their life (of the projects) is not exactly what you would envisage for them…” as evidenced in his own ‘generative music’ approach – and Ukeles talking about her time as the nonsalaried artist in residence at the New York Sanitation Department and series of  trash-related projects at the Fresh Kills Landfill for the past 40 years.

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By Fritz Haeg on October 16, 2011 | art
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On May 14th, 2011, ‘FREE RANGE HUMANS’…

Free Range Humans

…was the title of my talk at the PSU Open Engagement conference this afternoon, which I began with these three quotes:
“The performance of a piece of music can be a metaphor of society, of how we want society to be. Though we are not now living in a society which we consider good, we could make a piece of music in which we would be willing to live. I don’t mean that literally, I mean it metaphorically. You can think of the piece of music as a representation of a society in which you would be willing to live.”
“Art is a sort of experimental station in which one tries out living.”
- John Cage

“But specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the ‘expert’ is fooled into accepting his slavery by making him feel that in return he is in a socially and culturally preferred, ergo, highly secure, lifelong position”
- R. Buckminster Fuller

“I always like a plaza where there are benches—but I like it more when people decide to sit on the steps, which is sort of like the first radical act. The first act of revolution: a bench has told me to sit down, so I’m not going to sit there, I’m going to sit where I will bother people walking up the stairs.”
- Vito Acconci

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By Fritz Haeg on May 14, 2011 | lectures
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On March 12th, 2011, LOGGIA OF CUPID AND PSYCHE…

looking up in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche painted by Raphael - fruits! vegetables! nudes!

…whose ceiling is laden with the most sumptuous depictions of all variety of fruit and vegetable was painted by Raphael at Villa Farnesina (1510), and was the highlight of a day that began with the third in a series of talks by Leonard Barkan at the American Academy in Rome on “Food Culture and High Culture, Antiquity and Renaissance”.

 

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By Fritz Haeg on March 12, 2011 | art, food
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On February 16th, 2011, COMING OUT OF THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FLU (PART II)…

a post-flu healthy cozy rainy day in the studio with tea

…there’s nothing quite like it to make you appreciate the little things again (you know, like being able to walk across the room at more than a shuffle, and feeling like you might be around next week, and morning coffee, and actually eating food, and going outside, and sleeping, and stuff like that) – and so sorry it kept me from talks I had scheduled in Rome on Saturday and Milan yesterday (first time that has happened) but upon contacting the person who invited me for both I found her to be down with the same flu…and also sorry to miss Sunday’s local drama as thousands of rightfully fed-up Italian women took to the streets to protest against Silvio Berlusconi.

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By Fritz Haeg on February 16, 2011 | health
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On February 4th, 2011, UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA ‘SAPIENZA’ – FACOLTÀ DI ARCHITETTURA…

Sapienza lecture poster

…is the Italian school of architecture – with a building just north of Piazza del Popolo (whose suggestive nature from certain points of view was recently pointed out by my friend John) which I biked down to this warm sunny morning via Passeggiata del Gianicolo (in just 20 minutes!) – where I gave a two and a half hour lecture on my recent thoughts and activities entitled “Cultivating the City and Welcoming the Wild” (you can see the slideshow here) in Italian – which was a special point of pride given my fixation on spoken language skills, attempting to enter into Italian life, culture and society as much as possible, removing linguistic conversational barriers as best as I can, since first living here 20 years ago, when I experienced a revelatory and surprising interest in language beyond the fixed system of grammar and vocabulary, rather the part that is alive (which I now see as presaging later similarly living and social interests such as gardens and wildlife, dance and movement, salons and educational environments), the spoken word, the living tongue, performative communication involving pronunciation, accent, dialect, gesture, slang, figure of speech and infinite subtlety that can not be understood in a strictly academic way – especially fun in a country where much of the communication comes not from what you say but how you say it.

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By Fritz Haeg on February 4, 2011 | lectures
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On December 5th, 2010, ‘OPEN ENGAGEMENT’…

Open Engagement conference at Portland State University

…is the just-announced May 13-15, 2011 conference organized by Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice program:

The ‘Open Engagement’ conference is an initiative of Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA concentration. Directed by Jen Delos Reyes and planned in conjunction with Harrell Fletcher and the Art and Social Practice students, this year’s conference features internationally renowned artists Julie Ault, Fritz Haeg, and Pablo Helguera. The work by these artists’ touch on subjects including democracy, group work,  the boundary (or lack there of) between art and life, education, and transdisciplinarity. In addition, Open Engagement will play host to the Bureau for Open Culture, the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, and a summit on art and education. The summit features students and faculty from MFA programs focusing on public and social art, including OTIS College of Art and Design, the University of California Santa Cruz, and the California College of the Arts.

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By Fritz Haeg on December 5, 2010 | lectures
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On October 2nd, 2010, A TALK AT daOMA…

daOMA

…7pm this evening as the Fall 2010 Vanguard Speaker at the Joclyn Art Museum Witherspoon Concert Hall in Omaha (where eleven years ago I stayed a night with my aunt & uncle as I drove across country to move to LA from NYC with a small truck full of all of my worldly possessions), and an impressive list of others in the speaker series: Paola Antonelli, Yves Behar, Petra Blaisse, Bruce Mau, Thom Mayne. (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on October 2, 2010 | lectures
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On May 8th, 2010, THE DESERT BOTANICAL GARDENS IN PHOENIX…

the amazing Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona

…is where I am today – giving a talk, and taking a tour of the amazing landscapes of colorful, geometric, and monumental, succulent and cactus gardens (which is bringing back fond memories of annual Spring Break visits here during my high school years to spend time with my grandmother who wintered in Scottsdale).

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By Fritz Haeg on May 8, 2010 | gardens
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On March 28th, 2010, “SUNDOWN SCHOOLHOUSE: PRACTICING MOVING” VIDEOS…

…are what I like to show as people are getting seated for my talks these days, because they make me happy and relaxed, and maybe the audience feels warmed-up vicariously through watching us exercise to Lucky Dragons (more on those awesome folks later) music. (Practicing Moving webpage and full size video)

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By Fritz Haeg on March 28, 2010 | dance
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On March 25th, 2010, NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN…

the grounds of The New York Botanical Garden

…is where I am this morning – giving an Edible Estates talk to about 240 avid gardeners – which begins with a screening of the Lenape Edible Estate video, as told by Eric Sanderson (Mannahatta Project) – filmed in part on the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden – and afterward it is one of the first times I am seeing the new edition of the book finally out in the world – very exciting! (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on March 25, 2010 | lectures
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On January 21st, 2010, THE END OF OIL…

Conversations in Design: A world Without Oil

…is the topic of talks here in Toronto – I’m in good company with other speakers including Tord Boontje and longtime collaborator Enrico Bressan of Artecnica, Sheila Kennedy of Kennedy & Violich, Dr. Dayna Baumeister, co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, Tucker Viemeister, chief of the Lab at Rockwell Group, and Bruce Mau – some of whom are saying we can’t live without oil – but I look forward to seeing what that oil-free world looks, tastes, smells and feels like.

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By Fritz Haeg on January 21, 2010 | climate, lectures
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