Dodd Chairs in the News

The Lamar Dodd School of Art is pleased to share the recent notable accomplishments of past Dodd Chair Mel Chin and current Chair Trevor Paglen.

Mel Chin, Dodd Chair 1994-1997, was recently awarded a prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant. The MacArthur Fellowship confers a $625,000, “no strings attached” genius grant to thinkers, creators and scientists of exceptional caliber and is considered “an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential,” according to the fellowship’s website. The MacArthur Foundation supports people and organizations working to address a variety of complex societal challenges. The grants are generally long-term, strategic investments, focused on building evidence about what works and finding solutions to often intractable problems. The MacArthur Foundation supports causes that strive toward transformative change in areas of profound concern, including the existential threats of climate change and nuclear risk, the challenges in the U.S. of criminal justice reform and in Nigeria of more effective and legitimate government services, and bringing more financial capital to the social sector.

Chin is a category-defying artist whose practice calls attention to complex social and environmental issues. In an expansive body of work ranging from collages, sculptural objects, animated films, and video games to large-scale, collaboratively produced public installations, Chin demonstrates a unique ability to engage people from diverse backgrounds and to utilize unexpected materials and places. Chin was an early pioneer of the practice that now falls under the rubric of socially engaged art. Chin’s Fundred Project (2006–present) has involved nearly half-a-million children and adults across the country who create their own paper currency, “fundred dollar bills,” in a collective effort to bring visibility to the widespread threat of lead poisoning. The “Fundred Reserve” has been displayed in museums, schools, and the halls of Congress, where it brought the value of constituent voices directly to members of Congress and served as an educational opportunity for community members and policymakers.

The MacArthur Genius Grant was also awarded to Current Dodd Chair Trevor Paglen in 2017. His work for the duration of the fellowship focused on documenting the hidden operations of covert government projects and examining the ways that human rights are threatened in an era of mass surveillance. More information on his work during this time can be found here. Paglen is currently co-teaching an Interdisciplinary Seminar at the Lamar Dodd School of Art and will exhibit his work in Athens in 2020.

In addition to his 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, Paglen was also named the 2018 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize winner in Korea. Paglen will hold this title from October 16, 2019 to February 2, 2020. Upon receiving the 2018 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, Paglen commented, “it’s an incredible honor to be awarded the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize. Nam June Paik was an incredible visionary, an artist who taught us how to see a rapidly changing world, and a huge inspiration to me personally. To be recognized in relation to Nam June Paik is truly one of the greatest honor I can imagine.”

Machine Visions, Trevor Paglen’s first solo exhibition in Korea, is an intensive exploration of the unique artistic world that Paglen has created, based on a variety of media. The exhibition title refers to the phenomenon whereby images are no longer created for humans but by machines in order to operate machines. Featuring 19 video, photographic and satellite works, this exhibition offers an overview of Paglen’s oeuvre, including images filmed and reproduced by AI systems, aesthetic constructions of surveillance satellites born of cosmic imagination, and visualizations of invisible state surveillance systems.