Visiting Artist vanessa german transmits redemption through assemblage, performance, and community work

“The way that I…gave myself permission to inhabit the fullness of my being as an artist was because it was at the cliff of life or death. And I had always felt otherworldly when I made art; I would feel more true in so many different ways when I was making things.”

-vanessa german

vanessa german creates avenues to feel fully embodied in the face of structural racism through installation, photography, assemblage, poetry, and community leadership. Identifying as a “citizen artist,” german is interested in acts of reshaping and repairing. In much of her work, the Pittsburgh-based artist mediates ritual and folk art practices “at the axis on which Black power, spirituality, mysticism, and feminism converge.”

The Lamar Dodd School of Art welcomes german next week through the school’s Visiting Artist and Scholar program. After she spends two days conducting studio visits with students, german will present a public lecture on Wednesday March 22 at 6 pm in Room S151 of the Main Building of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The lecture is free and open the public.

Art Education Professor Christina Hanawalt shared her motivation in nominating german for this year’s distinguished lecture series, “I put vanessa’s name forward to the committee because I was inspired by a keynote presentation she gave at the National Art Education Association Convention last March in New York City.” Hanawalt added, “Not only is vanessa a highly successful visual artist but she has also done amazing work in providing spaces for community arts engagement, such as the ARThouse, an open studio space for children and adults in the Homewood community of Pittsburgh. Her work — including sculpture, installation, and spoken word poetry — will be relevant to students and faculty across the areas of the Dodd.”

Commenting on the impact of ARThouse, which the artist founded as an extension of her home in 2014 to offer a residency, garden, and performance space to all ages, german affirms “I am engaging creatively with citizens around me, with my neighbors. That is a way of bringing artists and bringing relationship into a place of social healing.”

According to a press release issued by Kasmin Gallery for the recent 2022 solo exhibition vanessa german: SAD RAPPER, german crafted the large assemblages on display by sculpting “wood and plaster which she then adorns with a vast range of materials—some found in her community, others sourced from across the country—including prayer beads, doll parts, handmade patterned quilts, skateboards, rope, silk flowers, cowrie shells, coke bottles, vintage porcelain bells, and astroturf.” Defying a modernist convention in art production of divorcing the sacred from secular physical materials, german lists these collaged ‘ingredients’ “alongside the metaphysical components that the artist sees as indivisible from the physical objects.”

Among german’s most recent accomplishments, the artist was awarded the 2022 Heinz Award for the Arts and was commissioned for the August 2023 exhibition Pulling Together at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. curated by Monument Lab. Her work is on view at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey in the exhibition vanessa german: …please imagine all the things i cannot say… through June 25, 2023.

“vanessa german, sculptor, installation and ‘citizen artist’” YouTube video. The Heinz Awards channel.

About the Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series

The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series has brought over 80 distinguished guests to the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia since 2002. Visiting Artists and Scholars spend three days on campus interacting with students and faculty, the culmination of which is a public lecture on the subject of the artist’s or scholar’s work.

Artist Bio

vanessa german (b. 1976) is a self-taught citizen artist working across sculpture, performance, communal rituals, immersive installation, and photography. Sad Rapper was german’s first exhibition at Kasmin and follows her solo presentation with the gallery at the Independent Art Fair in May 2022.

Her work is held in private and public collections including the Art Bridges Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the West Virginia University Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Figge Art Museum, Flint Institute of Arts, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, David C. Driskell Center, Snite Museum of Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College. german’s fine art work has been exhibited widely, most recently at the Figge Art Museum, The Union for Contemporary Art, The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Flint Institute of Arts, Mattress Factory, Everson Museum of Art, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Studio Museum, Ringling Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.