Mary Heilmann Artist's Talk

Everyone who's anyone will want to hear artist Mary Heilmann discuss her work, on view in the exhibition Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, in this conversation with Terry R. Myers. The talk takes place immediately before the opening celebration for the Wexner Center's three spring exhibitions.

A pioneer in abstract painting, Heilmann creates lush, evocative suggestions of landscapes and cityscapes where colors buzz with energy. Through years of teaching and a generous spirit, she has become a mentor and touchstone for several generations of artists, leading her to be described as one of today’s “most important yet still under-recognized” artists. Speaking with Heilmann is Terry R. Myers, a critic and curator based in Chicago and Los Angeles. Mary Heilmann: Save the Last Dance for Me, Myers's study of one particular painting by the artist, was published in 2007 by Afterall Books.

Stay after the show for the opening celebration and be among the first to see Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, along with Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond and Jane Hammond: Fallen. Mary Heilmann has ties to both coasts: she was born in San Francisco, grew up in there and in Southern California, studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and moved to New York City (where she currently lives) after graduating in the 1960s. Heilmann initially worked in sculpture and was also associated with the development of conceptual and minimal art but turned to painting in the early 1970s. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York and received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The traveling retrospective of her work (organized by the Orange County Museum of Art) on view at the Wexner Center has generated great enthusiasm among critics and viewers alike. In November 2007 her colorful abstract paintings landed on the covers Art in America and Artforum simultaneously.

Since 1988, Terry R. Myers has written for more than 30 international journals, including Art/Text, Arts Magazine, Flash Art, LA Weekly, New Art Examiner, and Parkett. Currently he is a contributing writer to Art Review, and a regular contributor to Modern Painters. He has contributed essays to numerous exhibition catalogues and books including Sunshine & Noir: Art in LA 1960-1997, Peter Doig: blizzard seventy-seven, and Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting. He has organized several exhibitions, including Kay Rosen: lifelike at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Otis Gallery in Los Angeles, Standing Still and Walking in Los Angeles at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, and Robert Overby: Parallel, 1978-1969 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Myers has taught at Pratt Institute in New York, Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and the Royal College of Art in London. In the fall of 2007, he was named associate professor of painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.