The Fredi Schiff Levin Lecture Series

The Fredi Schiff Levin Lecture Series welcomes artists, art historians, curators, and authors to speak at PAAM, both in conjunction with exhibitions and as independent scholars.

The series was established in honor of artist Fredi Schiff Levin, an active member of Provincetown’s arts community from the 1960s until her passing in 2002. We extend our deepest gratitude to The Levin Family, who graciously sponsors this series.

Watch all lectures from our 2022 series on our YouTube channel.

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The 2023 Series

Fredi Schiff Levin Lectures are held on Thursdays at 6pm (doors open at 5:30pm), and livestreamed on YouTube channel. Admission to lectures is included with Museum entry ($15, free for members).

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 AT 6PM:

Exhibiting artist Sky Power in conversation with curator and PAAM CEO Christine McCarthy

WATCH LECTURE

In conjunction with the exhibition Beckoning Color. Sky Power is a contemporary painter based in Provincetown. Her emotion-driven, colorful abstractions and dreamscapes are driven by strong composition and color-as-form, created in the language of abstraction. Influenced by three Hans Hofmann students–Paul Resika, Selina Trieff, and Robert Henry–Power’s paintings seek to show the connection between representational and abstract art through composition.

THURSDAY, JULY 6 AT 6PM:

Artist S Emsaki

RECORDED LECTURE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. PLEASE EMAIL RUBYT@PAAM.ORG.

S Emsaki is an artist whose multimedia practice includes drawing, video, sculpture, printed material, and installation as well as process-based collaborations and happenings. Emsaki was born in the town of Atomic Energy- a temporary suburb on the outskirts of Isfahan, Iran, and works between her native country and the U.S. Emsaki earned a BA from UC Berkeley in 2016 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2020. Their work has been exhibited at Provincetown Art Association & Museum, SOMArts Cultural Center and Southern Exposure in San Francisco, Perrotin Viewing Salon in New York, and most recently the Higgins Art Gallery at Cape Cod Community College. Emsaki has participated in several fellowships, namely the ICA and the Paul Mellon Center in London, the Center for Coastal Studies, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown

THURSDAY, JULY 27 AT 6PM:

Mark Gerald, author of In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch: Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices

In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch: Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices uses text and images to form a complex portrait of psychoanalysis today. It is the culmination of the authors 15-year project of photographing psychoanalysts in their offices across 27 cities and ten countries.

Part memoir, part history, part case study, and part self-analysis, these pages showcase a diversity of analysts: male and female and old-school and contemporary. Starting with Freud’s iconic office, the book explores how the growing diversity in both analysts and patient groups, and changes in schools of thought have been reflected in these intimate spaces, and how the choices analysts make in their office arrangements can have real effects on treatment. Along with the presentation of images, Mark Gerald explores the powerful relational foundations of theory and clinical technique, the mutually vulnerable patient-analyst connection, and the history of the psychoanalytic office.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10 AT 6PM:

Exhibiting artist Mira Schor in conversation with exhibition curator Breon Dunigan

In conjunction with the exhibition Mira Schor: The Summer Studio. Mira Schor is one of the foremost feminist painters of the past fifty years. Operating in the nexus of language, painting, and feminist theory, Schor has continually imbued formalism with political urgency, and reminded viewers that written discourse and physical form are inherently linked.

Schor received her MFA from CalArts where she was a member of the CalArts Feminist Art Program and a participant in the historic feminist art installation Womanhouse. She is the author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture and A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life, and was co-editor with fellow painter Susan Bee of the journal M/E/A/N/I/N/G and M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Theory, and Criticism. Schor is the recipient of awards in painting from the Guggenheim, Marie Walsh Sharpe, and Pollock-Krasner Foundations, as well as the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism. She is a recipient of the 2019 Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award for her work as a feminist painter, art historian and critic and of a 2022 Anonymous Was A Woman Award. 2017 she was elected to the National Academy of Design. Schor is represented by Lyles & King in New York and Marcelle Alix in Paris. She spends her summers in Provincetown.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24 AT 6PM:

Jane Paradise, author of Dune Shacks of Provincetown

On the wild back shore of Provincetown Massachusetts writers, artists and families made summer homes in the early 1900’s. Affectionately called the dune shacks, some were originally life saving huts in the late 1890’s but most were constructed in the 1920’s and 1930’s out of debris and ship wrecked ruins.

Some of these original shacks survive today – some restored, some bandaged, some dilapidated – all loved. Each shack is unique with its own personality and its own name.

Through these photographs Jane Paradise gives a flavor of what it is like to live in a dune shack and/or experience the dune landscape. Most shacks are occupied in the summer, very few in the winter. But the landscape is always accessible.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5 AT 6PM:

Exhibiting artist Salvatore Del Deo in conversation with his son, artist Romolo Del Deo

In conjunction with the exhibition Salvatore Del Deo. Salvatore Del Deo is a contemporary painter whose 75-year career intersected with some of the most defining elements of Provincetown: the art colony, the fishing community, his two restaurants bearing his name, the dunes.

This exhibition will be a celebration of Del Deo’s life and artistic career, featuring portraits, studio work, and the Italian landscapes celebrating his heritage, Provincetown landscapes, and reaffirm his status as a significant contributor to the legacy of the Provincetown Art Colony and to American art history.