Art with an Expert

We’re excited to welcome artist Bill Fontana who will discuss his practice and the commissioned work he created for the Blanton’s Butler Sound Gallery, Landscape Soundings. Takes place in the auditorium, located in the Check-in Building.

This talk is part of Blanton All Day programming on Saturday, December 13 and included with admission. Free for Blanton Members.

Art With an Expert is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Support for this program at the Blanton is provided by the Carolyn Harris Hynson Centennial Endowment.

More about Landscape Soundings:

Since the early 70s, Fontana has used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural spaces. The artist notes that his works “use the human and/or natural environment as a living source of musical information. I am assuming that at any given moment there will be something meaningful to hear and that music, in the sense of coherent sound patterns, is a process that is going on constantly. My methodology has been to create networks of simultaneous listening points that relay real time acoustic data to a common listening zone (sculpture site). Since 1976 I have called these works sound sculptures.”

He has realized sound sculptures and radio projects for museums and broadcast organizations around the world; his work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London; and the 48th Venice Biennale.

If you’ve been enchanted by the use of enconchado (mother-of-pearl) in works featured in Spirit & Splendor, you won’t want to miss this talk! The luminous art of enconchados—paintings inlaid with iridescent mother-of-pearl—was one of the most dazzling innovations of viceregal Mexico, blending European imagery and Indigenous craftsmanship. Drawing from a recent conservation project conducted on an enconchado from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, this talk explores the materials and techniques that converged to create an artwork that literally glows.

We’ll be joined by guest speaker José Luis Lazarte Luna, Associate Conservator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This talk is part of Blanton All Day programming on Saturday, January 10 and included with admission. Free for Blanton Members.

Art With an Expert is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Support for this program at the Blanton is provided by the Carolyn Harris Hynson Centennial Endowment.

About our Speaker

José specializes in the conservation and restoration of Old Master paintings, focusing primarily on European works from the 15th to the 19th centuries, as well as paintings from the Spanish Americas. He holds an MA in Science from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Graduate Program in Art Conservation. José joined the Met’s staff in 2016 after working for various institutions including ARTEX Conservation Studio, Museo del Prado, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 

Featured Image: The Adoration of the Magi, Attributed to Miguel Gonzalez Mexican, ca. 1695–1700