2009:  1st Grant Wood Symposium

May 7, 2009, 1142 Court Street, Iowa City, Iowa

Speakers: 
Sally Mason, President of the University of Iowa
Jane Milosch, Curator, Smithsonian’s Renwick Museum
Veronica Conkling, Smithsonian Research Assistant        
Joni Kinsey, Professor of American Art History University of Iowa 

2010:  2nd Grant Wood Symposium: Grant Wood’s World

April 24, 9:00 a.m-1:00 p.m., 140 Schaeffer Hall, University of Iowa

Presentations:
Henry Adams, Case Western Reserve University, “Grant Wood Revisited.”
Lea Rosson DeLong, Independent Scholar, Des Moines, IA, “Drawing Main Street.”
R. Tripp Evans, Wheaton College, “Grant Wood’s Dinner for Threshers: Last Supper or Nativity Scene?"
Sue Taylor, Portland State University, “Grant Wood: Brilliant Subterfuge.

2012:  3rd Grant Wood Symposium: Grant Wood Today

April 13-14, 240 Art Building West, University of Iowa
[Coincided with the public announcement of the Grant Wood Colony and the Grant Wood Fellows Program at the University of Iowa.] 

Keynote Address:
Wanda Corn, Professor Emerita, Stanford University, “The Three Lives of American Gothic.”

Presentations:
Shirley Reece-Hughes, Amon Carter Museum, “Theatrical Productions: Grant Wood’s Visions of America.”
Luciano Cheles, University of Poitiers, “The Italian Renaissance in American Gothic.”
Erika Doss, University of Notre Dame, “Collecting ‘Good American Paintings’: King Vidor and Grant Wood’s Arbor Day.”
Travis Nygard, Ripon College, “Was Grant Wood a Feminist?” Rethinking his Murals.”
Joan Liffrig-Zug-Bourett, Iowa City, “The Life of Nan Wood Graham, Model for American Gothic.”
Joni Kinsey, University of Iowa, “Grant Wood’s Blue House, Munich, 1928,” Gallery Talk, University of Iowa Museum of Art Black Box Theater.
Mel Andringa, Cedar Rapids, Solo Performance, “Grant Wood—New Road.”

2014:  4th Grant Wood Symposium:  Revolt Against the City: Midwestern Culture in Hard Times

April 9, 240 Art Building West, University of Iowa
April 10, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Auditorium
Press Release

Keynote Address:
Anthony Alofsin, University of Texas at Austin, “The Mid-Western Mind of Frank Lloyd Wright.”

Presentations:
Dimitrios Latsis, University of Iowa, “MoMa’s Wood: Regionalism and the Midwest at the Heart of the Modernist Beast.”
Michael Steiner, California State University, Fullerton, “Grant Wood’s Midwest and the Politics of Regionalism in the 1920s and 30s.”
Paula Wisotski, Loyala University, “Revolt in the City: Labor and Art in the Urban Midwest.”
Gregory Gilbert, Knox College, “Federal Art in the Midwest in the 1930s and the Meeting of Rural and Urban Cultures: A Challenge to Grant Wood’s ‘Revolt Against the City.”

2016:  5th Symposium:  Myth, Memories, and the Midwest: Grant Wood and Beyond

October 28-29, 240 Art Building West, University of Iowa
[Coordinated with the 125th Anniversary of Grant Wood’s death and part of a series of celebratory events in Iowa City and elsewhere.]
View recording here 

Keynote Address: 
Erika Doss, University of Notre Dame, “Screwball Regionalism: Grant Wood and Humor During the Great Depression.”

Presentations:
Kerry Dean Carso, State University of New York at New Paltz, “Grant Wood and the After-Life of Victorian Architecture.”
James Swensen, Brigham Young University, “On Common Ground: Grant Wood and the photography of the Farm Security Administration.”
Annelise K. Madsen, Art Institute of Chicago, "Something of Color and Imagination": Grant Wood, Storytelling, and the Past's Appeal in Depression-Era America 
Jason Weems, University of California, Riverside, “Grant Wood’s Regionalist Camouflage.”       
Sue Taylor, Portland State University, “In Springtime: Myth and Memory in Grant Wood's Last Paintings.”                

2018:  6th Symposium:  Art in Public

September 28-29, 240 Art Building West, University of Iowa
View recording here. 

Presentations:
Friday, September 28

Curriculum Development
Betni Kalk, Creighton University, “Artist-Community Collaborative Murals”
Carrie Ida Edinger, Artist, “On the Line and Community Engagement”
Jane Gilmor, Artist, “Within and Without: Socially Engaged Art Practice Investigates the Invisible Worker; Poverty and Community Building”
Fereshteh Tooshi, Florida International University, “Learning in Public: Socially-Engaged Art and Experimental Education”

Saturday, September 29

Practicing Art in the Public Sphere
David Bright, Pugh Hagan Prahm, PLC, "Permission, Ownership, Copyright, and Preservation, and Sale of Public Art"
Scott Wallace & Lynn Verschoor, South Dakota State University, "Public Art, Private Funds"
Mandy Vink, City of Boulder Office of Arts and Culture, "How Saying No to YES became the Catalyst for Boulder's Public Art Program"

Public Art in Action
Jen Krava, University of Minnesota, "Codified Bodies: Tools to Measure Social Liberation and Inculcate Cultural Change"
Traci Molloy, Art and Education Activist, "Against My Will: A Multigenerational Collaboration with Sexual Assault Survivors from Alfred University"

Sydney Pursel, Artist, “The Feast”

Art Doesn't Happen Here
Michael LeClere, Martin Garnder Architecture, "Art as an Avenue to Promote Industry, Manufacturing, and Placemaking Amidst the Decline of America's Bread Basket, Rust Belt, and & Rural Communities”
Desmond Lewis, Austin Peay State University, "Grit and Grind: Memphis Bred Me"
Dan Perry and Tom Stancliffe, University of Northern Iowa, "Public Art Incubator: Fabricating Community Engagement Through Public Art"

Keynote: Rick Lowe, Houston-based artist and community organizer and 2014 MacArthur Fellow

2020:  Symposium Postponed due to Covid Shutdown

2022:  Seventh Symposium:  A Home and Studio of One’s Own

April 8-9, Art Building West, University of Iowa
April 10, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Auditorium
View recording here.

Friday, April 8, Creativity on the Home Front
Opening remarks by Wanda Corn, Professor Emerita, Stanford University
 Valerie Balint, Senior Program Manager, Historic Artist’s Homes and Studios, "Yesterday and Tomorrow: Re-framing the Historic Artists' Homes and Studios Program"
Joni Kinsey, University of Iowa, “Grant Wood’s Studio-Homes: From Hayloft to Mansion, Overalls to Hollywood"

Saturday, April 9

The Art that is Life, Chair Tripp Evans, Wheaton College
Olivia Armandroff, Ph.D. Student, University of Southern California, "Tiling a Life: Henry Chapman Mercer and His Fonthill Castle"
Michael Clapper, Assoc. Professor, Franklin & Marshall College, "Living the Dream: Maxfield Parrish and The Oaks"
Karen Zukowski, Independent Historian, "The Past and Future of Henry Varnum Poor's Crow House"

Visionaries, Chair, Jane Milosch, Director, Smithsonian Provenance Initiatives
Lisa Stone, Independent Historian, "Home Based and Life-Specific: Artist-Built Environments"
Zac Bleicher, Director, Edgar Miller Legacy, "Edgar Miller's Handmade Homes and Studios of Interwar Chicago" 

Labors of Love, Chair Lauren Lessing, Director, Stanley Museum, University of Iowa
Sarah Rovang, Program Officer, Thoma Foundation, Santa Fe, NM, "'Thinking on a Wall': Home, Space, and the Creative Practice of Georgia O'Keeffe"
Daniel Belasco, Director, Al Held Foundation, "The Artist as Builder: Al Held's Barn Studio, 1965-2005"

Sunday, April 10, Grant Wood's Studio, Chair, Valerie Balint, Senior Program Manager, Historic Artist’s Homes and Studios
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

Grant Wood Studio House open for tours for Symposium attendees

Sean Ulmer, Director, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, “The Grant Wood Studio: A Space  Transformed and Transformational”
Victoria Munro, Director, Alice Austen House, "Alice Austen House"
Helen Harrison, Director, Pollock Krasner House, "'The Country is Wonderful,' Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in The Springs"