108 WRITER DAVE HICKEY MAKES FIRST MTSU VISIT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 25, 2007
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or lrollins@mtsu.edu

INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN WRITER DAVE HICKEY MAKES FIRST MTSU VISIT
Free Nov. 12 Lecture Will Appeal to Local Arts Community & Others, Say Organizers

(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.)—Dave Hickey, a freelance writer of fiction and cultural criticism, will make his first visit to the MTSU campus when he presents a free and open lecture, “Artfair Culture: Playing Fair without the Referee,” at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of MTSU’s Business Aerospace Building.
Characterized as one of the best-known American art and cultural critics currently practicing, Hickey’s upcoming visit was made possible by sponsorship from the university’s art and English departments, the College of Liberal Arts and MTSU’s Distinguished Lecture Fund.
“The art department is excited to host Dave Hickey’s first visit to MTSU,” said Cindy Rehm, assistant professor of art. “Hickey is one of the most preeminent critics of our time … (and) his insightful and accessible writings and spirited lectures offer fresh perspectives on art and culture.”
A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, also dubbed the “genius grant,” Hickey was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 2003. He has written for most major American cultural publications, including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Vanity Fair, The Village Voice and both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times newspapers, to name but a sampling. He currently serves as contributing editor to Art Issues magazine in L.A.
Hickey's critical essays on art have been collected in two volumes published by Art Issues Press; namely, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993), which is in its sixth printing, and Air Guitar, Essays on Art and Democracy (1998), now in its third printing. In 1989, SMU Press published Prior Convictions, a volume of his short fiction, and hiis most recent book, Stardumb (Artspace Press, 1999), is a collection of stories with drawings by artist John DeFazio.
A one-time staff songwriter for Nashville’s Glaser Publications and former arts editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Hickey has enjoyed a varied career, but his writing lectures are credited with helping him gain a “substantial international reputation.”
Regarding his foray into art criticism, Hickey has said, “I began writing about art because I was interested in the gap between what we see and what we see. Also, I wanted to write about things in the world that stayed in the world after I had written about them so (that) whatever I wrote would remain in a live relationship with its subject. If you write about a concert or a play or a public event, that event is gone and nothing remains but the writing. Works of art, however, survive as an ongoing critique of the critique you have written; I like that.”
Currently a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Hickey has been a visiting professor at numerous institutions, including the University of Texas at Austin; The University of California, Santa Barbara; the Otis Parsons Institute; and The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Hickey also has served as owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place, a short-lived but influential Austin, Texas, art gallery that he opened in 1967, and as director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York City.
Rehm said the acclaimed writer/cultural critic’s Nov. 12 talk, will likely find favor with many.
“Hickey’s plain-spoken style will appeal to the local arts community as well as anyone interested in the state of contemporary culture,” she observed.
For more information regarding Hickey’s talk, please contact Rehm at 615-904-8386.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For editorial needs, including to request a black-and-white jpeg of Hickey or a color jpeg of the cover of his latest book, Air Guitar, please e-mail your request to Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at MTSU at lrollins@mtsu.edu.