Tonight artist Mel Ziegler speaks at PSU’s MFA Monday Night Lecture Series at 7:30 PM at Portland State University’s Shattuck Hall Annex, 1914 SW Park Ave, Room 198.

About his work: “I collaborated for 18 years with Kate Ericson, and our whole thing was finding ways in which our art could infiltrate what we called ‘socially active space,’” Ziegler said. “I’m interested in community. I’m interested in the idea of how art can relate to everything we do.”

From the press release:

Mel Ziegler received his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts. Since that time he has lectured throughout the United States, Europe and South America. He has received numerous awards including National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Awards in 1989 and 1993, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, the Pollock-Krasner Award, and an Augustus Saint-Gaudens Fellowship. His work is shown nationally and internationally. In 1989, he was included in the Whitney Biennial. He is currently the Chair of the Art Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Professor Zeigler’s work includes many permanent public projects including the Downtown Seattle Transit project in Seattle, Washington, "Wall of Words" at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago, and "Come and Go," a project commissioned for the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Spaces, in Cleveland.