January 28, 2003 -- Valerie Cassel, associate curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas, will offer a public lecture on Tues., Feb. 4, at 5 p.m. in the Art Building, Room 158, on the University of Utah campus.

In her two-year tenure at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Cassel has curated the first U.S. solo exhibition of the artist Ghada Amer, as well as exhibitions by Bill Lundberg and emerging artist Sanford Biggers. Currently, Cassel is organizing the exhibition, "Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art," which features work of three generations of contemporary artists. The exhibition is slated to open in April 2003 and travel to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Prior to her position at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Cassel was the director of the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996-2001) and program specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts (1988-1995). In 2000, she served as co-curator of the Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Cassel is the author of numerous articles and essays that have appeared in exhibition catalogues and journals, including NKA Journal for Contemporary African Art and Arts Journal. In addition to her curatorial practice, she serves in an advisory and liaison capacity for several organizations, including Animating Democracy (Americans for the Arts, Washington, DC), The Aurora Picture Show (Houston, Texas), and RxArt (New York, NY).

Cassel is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, Texas (1987, B.S. Communications) and Howard University, Washington, D.C. (1992, M.A. Art History).

For more information, please call the Department of Art & Art History at 801-581-8677.