Two art lectures on tap for Sept. 13, Nov. 15

New York artist Thomas Nozkowski and Chicago art historian James Elkins will give free public talks this fall at the Hanes Art Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The speakers will come to campus as part of the Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series, sponsored by the art department in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. Both will speak in the auditorium of Hanes Art Center, on South Columbia Street between Franklin Street and Cameron Avenue.

Nozkowski will speak Sept. 13 at 6 p.m. For more than 30 years, he has produced richly colored, small-scale abstract paintings, demonstrating an extensive knowledge of organic and geometric forms. Nozkowski’s paintings have been featured in more than 300 museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide, and he has had nearly 70 solo exhibitions. He will often rework a canvas for years at a time, wiping down, scraping and repainting the original design.

“Nozkowski is exactly the kind of artist who makes the effortful seem effortless,” wrote Marc Mayer, director of the National Gallery of Canada. “With him, abstraction becomes an endless adventure in structure, texture, tone and mood.”

Elkins will speak Nov. 15 at 6 p.m on “Farewell to Visual Studies.” He is the E.C. Chadbourne professor of art history, theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Elkins’ writing focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science and nature. Recent books include “On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art,” “Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction,” “What Happened to Art Criticism?” and “Master Narratives and Their Discontents.”

For more on the speakers, visit http://tinyurl.com/3z8ytjl and http://www.jameselkins.com/#page3.

The Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series was established in 1983 by an endowment supported by alumnae Nancy Hanes White of Raleigh and Robin March Hanes of Charlottesville, Va.