January 19, 2012 - 8:56pm
My Ann Arbor: Penny Stamps
BY ELIANA FENYES
I’ve always seen Ann Arbor as a city where new artists can thrive. With so many resources around, from the University of Michigan Museum of Art to music venues like the Blind Pig, Ann Arbor welcomes students to observe and experiment with their own art while taking in the art of others.
But for the next few months, students will be invited to learn straight from artists themselves. The Penny Stamps lecture series, put on the by the school of Art and Design, features professionals from every realm of the art world, from musical composition to urban design.
On January 15 I attended the first lecture of the speaker series, where speakers Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson quickly knocked my socks off. Glass, a renowned composer from films such as “The Hours”, and Wilson, a highly respected theatrical renegade, used their long-running opera “Einstein on the Beach” as a platform for discussing their ideas and processes.
If you’re not an art geek, this might sound pretentious, but keep reading: the opera in question is five hours long. Oh, and there are few words in it. No, the performers just sing numbers. It is, after all, about Albert Einstein. Glass and Wilson are the definition of artists that challenge their viewers, as are all the speakers in the series.
These lectures don’t just introduce the community to the worlds of artists; they beg important questions about creativity in modern times. How we can learn to see the world in new ways, create new ideas, and truly solve new problems are all queries addressed by these artists. Hearing these men and women speak is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and everyone in Ann Arbor, from engineers to poets, could absolutely learn something from these lectures. The free of charge lectures run on Thursdays through March, starting at 5:10 p.m. and taking place in the Michigan Theater. More information, including upcoming speakers, can be found on Michigan’s School of Art and Design website.
