Friday, November 15
10:00 a.m.
“Making art with rocks is something humans have been doing throughout history, across all cultures. The conversations discovered, interpreted then re-interpreted by different generations, exist because stone holds the direct marks of artists eternally. How to acknowledge and respect the work of earlier artists and find a unique voice for myself inside this material, marble? This is the enormous challenge, as a contemporary artist.” – Elizabeth Turk
Elizabeth Turk is an American artist and sculptor known for marble sculpture and community installations. Turk’s marble work searches the boundaries of paradox: the contemporary in the traditional, the lightness in weight, the emptiness in mass, the fluidity of the solid, extended time in a moment. Her intricately carved sculptures defy gravity and make possible that which seems impossible. Inspired by the natural world, she references its myriad of elegant organic structures, yet her work is not complete until abandoned to larger environments. Turk is a MacArthur Fellow, an Annalee & Barnett Newman Foundation recipient, and a Smithsonian Artist Fellow, among other awards. Turk received her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, Rinehart School of Sculpture in 1994, her BA from Scripps College, Claremont, CA in 1983. In 2017 she launched ET Studios (a CA non-profit) to develop open community experiences.
This lecture is presented as a part of the Guest Lecture Series, which focuses on works of art on view in the Museum as well as topics of interest in the broader art world. Lectures are followed by docent-led tours at 11:30 a.m.
$13 members | $16 nonmembers | $8 seniors and military | Free for students (with ID, available on-site at the event only)
Sponsored by The San Diego Museum of Art Docent Council