Smithsonian honors visualization prof for essay on minimalist artist

An essay spotlighting prominent artist and critic [Donald Judd] (http://www.theartstory.org/artist-judd-donald.htm) ’s use of sculpture and prose to elevate architecture in his hometown, Kansas City, earned its author, Susanneh Bieber, Texas A&M assistant professor of [visualization] (https://viz.arch.tamu.edu/) , recognition from the [Smithsonian American Art Museum] (http://americanart.si.edu/) .

In selecting Bieber’s essay for the museum’s 2017 [Terra Foundation for American Art] (https://www.terraamericanart.org/) International Essay Prize, contest jurors called it “a novel contribution rooting Judd’s minimalist aesthetic in a populist Midwestern context” with a “very methodically and cleverly built” argument.

Judd (1928-1994), one of the nation’s foremost postwar artists, is a major figure in the Minimal Art movement, which emphasizes materiality instead of overt symbolism or emotional content.

Bieber, a German national, is the seventh winner of the Terra Foundation prize, which recognizes new findings and original perspectives of historical American art by non-U.S scholars.

The essay will be published in a forthcoming issue of [American Art] (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/amart/current) , the Smithsonian’s peer-reviewed journal for new scholarship.

Bieber studies modern and contemporary American art in an international context, with a particular focus on the relationship between art, architecture and the built environment.

Before earning a Ph.D. in art history in 2012 at Freie Universität Berlin, she curated collections at the Tate Modern in London and the Fresno Metropolitan Museum in California.

Bieber is working on two books: “Construction Sites: American Artists Engage the Built Environment, 1960– 75,” and a book focusing on [American Regionalism] (http://www.artinthepicture.com/styles/Regionalism/) in art, architecture and urban planning.

Richard Nira
rnira@arch.tamu.edu