Events Calendar

This is part of the Iowa Innovation, Business, and Law Center's Fall 2022 Speaker Series, From Antiquities to Warhol: Exploring the Intersection of Art and Law.

Lauren Lessing became the director of the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art in July 2018. She brings with her many years of experience working in art museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, where she built the education department and created a host of innovative educational programs. Her parents—both artists—were students of the Stanley Museum’s first director Ulfert Wilke and she has loved the University of Iowa and Iowa City since her first visit here in 2002. Lessing has shaped an ambitious vision for the Stanley that includes a new mission to transform lives by connecting the University of Iowa community, Iowans, and the world with extraordinary works of art. A native Midwesterner, Lessing earned a B.A. in Fine Art at Earlham College and completed her Ph.D. in Art History at Indiana University under the guidance of Sarah Burns. She has curated exhibitions and authored many books, articles, and catalogue essays on various topics in American art.
   
Cory Gundlach joined the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art as a curatorial research assistant in 2012 and was appointed Curator of African art in 2015. As part of Homecoming, the inaugural installation at the Stanley Museum of Art, he curated four exhibitions: About Face: African Masks in Iowa; Centering on Cloth: The Art of African Textiles; Fragments of the Canon: African Art from the Saunders and Stanley Collections; and History Is Always Now. He also co-curated the museum’s collection of African ceramics with Dr. Boureima Diamitani. During his tenure with the museum, Gundlach also curated The Path of Power (2016), Art & the Afterlife: Fantasy Coffins by Eric Adjetey Anang (2017), and Follow Her Lead: Womanhood in African and Diasporic Arts (2019). Last fall (2021), Gundlach hosted Reimagining Ritual & Style: New Conversations on African Art, a three-part symposium with scholars of art, art history, anthropology, and sociology, and communication studies. This summer (2022), Gundlach met with artists and program directors in Senegal and Ghana to pursue partnerships on an artist-residency exchange program. His curatorial work has received support from the University of Iowa International Programs, Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, and Interdisciplinary Project for Advanced Study of Art and Life in Africa (PASALA).
   
As an art historian, Gundlach is an expert on Lobi-style figure sculpture from southwest Burkina Faso, where he completed doctoral research in 2011 and 2012. Before joining the Stanley Museum of Art, Gundlach worked as an exhibition designer at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery in Fort Collins, Colorado, and as an exhibitions manager at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, California. Gundlach holds a B.A. in studio art from Humboldt State University, a B.A. in art history from Colorado State University, and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Iowa.

Lunch registration has been closed to get our order to the caterer, but please feel to attend in person!

If you will attend virtually, please register here for Zoom: https://uiowa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mZBNZBt0TGGSshJ5ae57ZA

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Leslie Gannon in advance at leslie-gannon@uiowa.edu or (319) 335-6817.