Greil Marcus: Jay DeFeo and All That Jazz

Noted author and cultural critic Greil Marcus will discuss the work of Bay Area artist Jay DeFeo (1929-1989). DeFeo was part of a vibrant community of avant-garde artists, poets, and musicians in San Francisco during the 1950s and 1960s, and was a faculty member at Mills College in the 1980s. Although best known for her monumental painting The Rose, DeFeo worked in a wide range of media and produced an astoundingly diverse and compelling body of work over four decades. Her unconventional approach to materials and her intensive, physical method make her a unique figure in postwar American art.

Greil Marcus is a contributor to the exhibition catalogue accompanyingJay DeFeo: A Retrospective, on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from November 3, 2012 to February 3, 2013. He is the author ofLipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, The Dustbin of History, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n Roll Music, The Manchurian Candidate: BFI Film Classics, The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, and most recently, The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. With Werner Sollors, Marcus is the editor of A New Literary History of America, published by Harvard in 2009. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Presented by the Jane Green Endowment for Studies in Art History and Criticism.

Reception to follow in Lisser Theater Lobby.