COMMENCEMENT WAS HELD ON FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2009

Jenny Holzer and Annette Lemieux
receive Honorary Doctorates

Montserrat College of Art held its 39th Commencement on Friday, May 22, at the Cabot Cinema, 286 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA. Internationally recognized conceptual artists Jenny Holzer and Annette Lemieux received Honorary Doctorates from the College and Lemieux gave the Keynote speech.

Forty four students received Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in concentrations including Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Illustration, Painting and Drawing, Photography, Printmaking, and Sculpture. The faculty speaker was Gordon Arnold, author and professor of Liberal Arts at Montserrat, and the student speaker was Sarah DesJardins, who received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting. A reception for students and their families took place at the Beverly Common, adjacent to the Hardie Building, following the ceremony.

Jenny Holzer’s recent work was on display in Montserrat’s Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery during Commencement week. Her work displayed at the College was part of a retrospective of her work which was up at the Whitney Museum of American Art through the end of May. 

“To have had work by Jenny Holzer, an icon of American art, up in our galleries was exciting and we’re truly honored as a community,” says Director of Galleries at Montserrat, Leonie Bradbury. “It is a rare and wonderful opportunity, particularly for our students, to have two artists of this caliber on our campus at one time.”

While on campus both Holzer and Lemieux met with the graduating seniors, and the students were able to talk and learn from the artists who are considered innovators of American art.

Boston-based, Annette Lemieux is currently a Professor at Harvard University. She plays with language and narratives of the American experience. Her work is idea- based, meaning the form follows the idea, leading to a physically varied body of work including sculptural objects, photographic prints and paintings. Lemieux was born in Virginia in 1957 and received her BFA from the University of Hartford, CT. The Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL, will be hosting Lemieux's Mid Career Survey exhibition that opens in 2010 and will travel to the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, MA. Please visit www.kam.uiuc.edu/pr/lemieux/checklist.cfm for more information.

Born in Ohio, Jenny Holzer attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, the Rhode Island School of Design and the independent study program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Originally an abstract artist, Holzer focused on painting and printmaking but following her move to New York City in 1977, she began working with text as art and is best known for her truisms in posters, in projected images on public spaces worldwide, and in LED signs, plaques, benches, stickers, T-Shirts and the internet. In 1989 she was the first American female artist invited to participate in the Venice Biennale.

Annette Lemieux photo by Paul Laster