Varnedoe's lecture will be held in conjunction with SITE Santa Fe's survey exhibition of acclaimed conceptual artist Janine Antoni. The exhibition, which brings together a range of objects and video projects from every phase of the artist's career and also includes a new piece commissioned by SITE Santa Fe, will be on view from September 28, 2002 through January 5, 2003. In his lecture, Varnedoe will address the use of portraiture in Antoni's art.

Prior to his appointment at IAS, Varnedoe served as the Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from 1988 through 2001. At MoMA, Varnedoe curated such seminal exhibitions as "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern (1984) and High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture (1990), as well as acclaimed retrospectives of the work of Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly, and significant historical exhibitions on Van Gogh and Rodin.

Varnedoe is the author of nearly 20 major art books and the recipient of numerous distinctions and honorary degrees. In 1984, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, which resulted in his 1990 book, A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. His teaching positions have included those at New York University, Columbia University, Stanford University, and his alma mater, Williams College. Varnedoe holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Art History from Stanford University and has been a guest lecturer at universities and museums throughout the United States and abroad. At IAS, Varnedoe is currently working on several scholarly projects, including a series of Mellon lectures that he will deliver at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in Spring 2003.

SITE Santa Fe's Art & Culture series is supported by Lannan Foundation, LLWW Foundation, Madelin Coit and Alan Levin, Bobbie Foshay-Miller and Chuck Miller, and Marlene Nathan Meyerson.