Tishman Auditorium

Visual Arts Lecture Series (VALS)

Each term, Visual Arts at Bennington offers a thematic series of lectures by visiting arts professionals: artists, curators, historians and critics. VALS centers queer and BIPOC emerging as well as internationally-renowned practitioners invited to introduce the College community to the diversity of contemporary art practices within and beyond the U.S.

Past Speakers

Sydney Acosta (Spring '23)
​​​​​Laylah Ali (Fall '21)
Brooke Davis Anderson '84 (Spring '17)
Livia Corona Benjamin (Spring '20)
Monica Bravo (Spring '19)
Daphne Brooks (Spring '18)
Albert Chong* (Spring '21)
Elgin Cleckley (Spring '23)
Dayna Danger (Fall '20)
Matthew de Leon (Spring '21)
Stephanie Dinkins (Fall '17)
Michael Dyber (Spring '17)
Sara Emsaki (Fall '19)
Kota Ezawa (Fall '20)
Nona Faustine (Fall '17)
Genevieve Gaignard (Fall '19)
Ellen Gallagher (Fall '17)
Chitra Ganesh* (Spring '19)
Deborah Gans (Spring '17)
Maria Gaspar (Fall '20)
Theaster Gates* (Spring '17)

Mariam Ghani (Fall '16)
Mario Gooden (Fall '18)
Eric Gottesman (Spring '17)
Summer Hart (Spring '23)
Camille Hoffman (Fall '17)
Candice Hopkins (Fall '19)
Kahlil Robert Irving (Fall '20)
Marisa Morán Jahn (Spring '17)
Fabiola Jean-Louis (Spring '21)
Byron Kim* (Spring '18)
Lucy Kim (Spring '22)
Dr. Marika Knowles (Spring '23)
Namiko Kunimoto (Fall '17)
Terran Last Gun (Fall '19)
sTo Len (Spring '24)
Key Jo Lee (Fall '20)
Cannupa Hanska Luger (Fall '17)
Cyle Metzger (Spring '19)
Susette Min (Spring '21)
Adriana Monsalve (Fall '22)
Joshua Mosley (Fall '16)
Bob Nickas (Fall '16)
Odili Donald Odita MFA '90 (Spring '18)
Akosua Adoma Owusu (Fall '22)
Elle Pérez (Fall '18, Spring '24*)
Clyde Petersen (Spring '19)

Sasha Phyars-Burgess (Spring '22)
Tan Pin Pin (Fall '18)
Akasha Rabut (Spring '24)
Andrew Raftery (Fall '16)
Marcos Ramírez (Fall '19)
Kameelah Janan Rasheed (Fall '22)
Calida Garcia Rawles (Spring '21)
Wendy Red Star (Spring '20)
Jordan Reznick (Spring '24)
Kenny River (Spring '18)
Calli Roche (Fall '21)
Juana Maria Rodriguez (Fall '18)
Gabriel García Román (Spring '22)
Lauren Ruffin (Fall '18)
Tschabalala Self (Spring '18)
Karinne Smith (Fall '21)
Marley Trigg Stewart (Fall '22)
Los Sumergidos (Spring '22)
Eve Sussman '84 (Fall '16)
Ramon Tejada (Spring '21)
Johanna Toruño (Spring '22)
Vincent Valdez (Spring '19)
Kukuli Velarde (Fall '22)
Cosmo Whyte '05 (Fall '19)
Dr. Deborah Willis (Fall '21)

*designates a past Adams-Tillim Lecturer. The Adams–Tillim Lecture is named for two retired Bennington College visual arts faculty members, Pat Adams of Bennington and Sidney Tillim (formerly of New York City—now deceased). The lecture was established in 1992 by David Beitzel. Adams taught painting at Bennington from 1964–1993. Tillim taught art at Bennington from 1966–1993.

Past Themes

  • 2020-2021: Race, Representation, and Contemporary Art in the Age of Black Lives Matter
  • 2019-20: Place Matters: Indigeneity, Subjectivity, and Medium in Contemporary Art
  • 2018-19: Transvisualities: Crossings, Counter-narratives, Collaborations
  • 2017-18: Ways of Seeing: Movements, Migrations, Diasporas
Chitra Ganesh speaking to a crowded room

About the Director

J Vanessa Lyon program director J. Vanessa Lyon received a PhD in the history of art from the University of California at Berkeley. She holds an MA in religious studies from the Iliff School of Theology. A faculty member in Visual Arts, Professor Lyon teaches the histories of art with an emphasis on gender, race, historiography, and post/colonial relationships in early modern through contemporary visual cultures. Her publications on gender and religion in pre-modern art have appeared in Art History, Word & Image, and The Huntington LIbrary Quarterly. Lyon's first book, Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2020. She is the guest curator of Girl You Want, a multigenerational group show featuring, among others, Genevieve Gaignard, Wendy Red Star, Karinne Smith, and Jen Liu, which opened at ArtYard, the contemporary art center in Frenchtown, New Jersey in Spring 2021.  

How to get here

The Campus

The Bennington College campus is located in Bennington, Vermont, just off of VT Route 67A.

Tishman Auditorium 

All readings are held in Tishman Auditorium (#3 on the campus map), which is located near the center of campus. Upon exiting Route 67A and entering the campus drive (also called College Drive), you'll follow it and see a Campus Safety booth (#12 on the campus map) on your left and a red barn (the Barn, #2 on the campus map) coming up on your right. Parking is available in the parking lot (labeled as P on the campus map) below the Campus Safety booth, as well as in the lot behind the library which can be found on the campus map, also labeled with a P. If you continue on the road through campus past the Barn (#2) on your right and the Commons building (#12) on your left, Tishman Auditorium will be visible directly across from the Commons building, on the right side of the road. The building is set back from the road and there is no parking near the building itself. If you've gone past Dickinson Science Building (#4) you've gone too far. 

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