A Conversation with Richard Speer and Jennifer Sudul Edwards

Richard Speer, author of The Space of Effusion: Sam Francis in Japan (2020, Verlag, Scheidegger & Spiess AG, Zurich) and curator Jennifer Sudul Edwards, PhD, explore the publication of the latest book on the oeuvre of Sam Francis.

 

Jennifer Sudul Edwards, PhD, who lives in North Carolina, currently serves as the Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art at The Mint Museum in Charlotte. Edwards received her doctorate from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts with a dissertation on the early works of artist Niki de Saint Phalle (a long-time friend of Francis) and has held curatorial posts at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art (where she organized an exhibition of Francis’s works in 2015–2016), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena. In the fall of 2019 Edwards curated the landmark traveling exhibition “Walls: Defend, Divide, and the Divine,” for the Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles. She will bring to the discussion her fresh perspectives and unique curatorial vision regarding Francis’s art and Speer’s book.

 

 

Richard Speer, an art critic, curator and author currently based in Portland, Oregon has authored a number of publications on artists including Peter Halley: Boats Crosses Trees Figures – Gouaches 1977–78, (Karma, 2017) and Journey to the Third Dimension: Tom Cramer Drawings and Paintings 1974–2019 (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 2019). His reviews and essays have appeared in ARTnews, Art Ltd, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Newsweek, and Opera News. In addition to his interests in art and music, Speer has a history in television broadcasting, receiving awards for his arts reporting and feature stories from The Associated Press and The Society of Professional Journalists. With Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) curators, Hollis Goodall (Japanese Art) and Leslie Jones (Modern Drawings and Prints), Speer is co-curating the exhibition “Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing” to open in the spring of 2023.

 

The entire conversation is available for viewing here and on our YouTube channel.