ALBANY — The producers of The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at UAlbany have announced the first two guests for the 2022-23 season: art critic Lucy Sante and illustrator Maira Kalman.
The Creative Life series is a major arts initiative of the University Art Museum, New York State Writers Institute and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in conjunction with WAMC Public Radio. Sponsored by The University at Albany Foundation, the series features live onstage interviews conducted by WAMC’s “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue with artists of national and international prominence in conversation about their creative inspiration, their craft, their careers and the demands of sustaining an artistic practice over time. A question-and-answer period closes each program.
Both Creative Life events are free and open to the public. The conversations this fall will take place at 7 p.m. at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus at 1400 Washington Ave. The schedule is as follows:
Lucy Sante - Tuesday, Oct. 18. Lucy Sante is a transgender, Belgian-born nonfiction writer, art critic and cultural commentator of astonishingly wide interests, including the Beastie Boys, early photography and the history of New York City reservoirs. Heretofore known as Luc Sante, she is widely recognized for Low Life (1991) about crime and entertainment in Old New York, 1840-1919 as well as her collected essays, Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 (2007). A second collection, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, came out in 2020. She wrote about her recent gender transition in the February 2022 issue of Vanity Fair.
Maira Kalman - Wednesday, Nov. 16. Maira Kalman is one of America’s most beloved illustrators. Her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. She is also an acclaimed author of books for children and adults. The creator of many covers for THE NEW YORKER, her work adorns books by Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Michael Pollan, and the bestselling Illustrated Elements of Style by Strunk & White. She collaborated with David Byrne (The Talking Heads) on the 2020 book, American Utopia, with text from Byrne’s Broadway show, and more than 150 paintings by Kalman. She has also designed fabric for Isaac Mizrahi, accessories for Kate Spade, sets for Mark Morris, and— with her late husband Tibor Kalman— clocks, umbrellas and other objects for MOMA.
More information can be obtained by calling the UAlbany Performing Arts Center at 518-442-3995.
