perspectives in fine art series panelists

Jane Blocker
Jane is professor of art history at the University of Minnesota.  She is author of Seeing Witness: Visuality and the Ethics of Testimony (Minnesota 2009), What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance (Minnesota, 2004) and Where is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity, and Exile (Duke, 1999). Her current book project is called History as Prosthesis: Contemporary Art and Historical Method. She has published articles in Performance Research, Grey Room, Art Journal, Camera Obscura, Cultural Studies, Visual Resources, and Performing Arts Journal.  She has also contributed essays to the following anthologies: Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History (edited by Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield, Intellect Books, 2011), The Aesthetics of Risk (edited by John Welchman, Ringier 2008); After Criticism: New Responses to Art and Performance (edited by Gavin Butt, Blackwell, 2004), An Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World (edited by Grewal and Kaplan, McGraw Hill, 2002), and The Ends of Performance (edited by Phelan and Lane, NYU, 1998).

Patricia Briggs
Patricia is director and curator of the art galleries at University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She has been a contributor to Artforum since 1996. Her writing appears in History of Photography, Women’s Art Journal, Senses and Society, Art on Paper, and other print and online journals. She has curated exhibitions for the Weisman Art Museum, Phipps Center for the Arts, Plains Art Museum, and the Tweed Museum of Art. She writes the blog Scene Unseen: Viewing Notes, which covers art in Racine, Kenosha, and Milwaukee.

Camille J. Gage
Camille began her creative journey in her teens, writing music and touring with a variety of bands including the critically lauded, all-female alt-rock band Tetes Noires. She later segued into public art and mixed media performance, often with a topical edge, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Gage's work explores the duality and temporal nature of life and contemporary social issues. As an artist and engaged citizen, Gage continues to be inspired by the intersection of art and political expression and believes that artists who choose this path have a role to play in shaping the public consciousness. Gage's work has been shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Weisman Art Museum, and Katherine E. Nash Gallery, among others. She has performed at the Walker Art Center, MIA, First Avenue in Minneapolis, and many venues in New York City including The Bottom Line, Knitting Factory, and Folk City. Gage has received grants from FORECAST Public Artworks, Intermedia Arts, and was a recipient of a Southern Theater Overtones Commission. Her work is in numerous individual and institutional collections, including the Weisman Art Museum, MIA, Walker Art Center, Family Housing Fund, Minnesota Historical Society, and Carleton College. Gage is also one of the founding members of Form + Content Gallery, an artist's cooperative in Minneapolis.