Franconia Dinner & Discussion with Visiting Artist Mike Whiting
Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 6pm
Attend VIA FACEBOOK LIVE, please!

**In an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, this Dinner & Discussion featuring Visiting Artist Mike Whiting on Tuesday, March 17 at 6pm CST will be held via Facebook Live. Join us from the comfort of your own home and send your questions for Mike through the Facebook Live portal!

Franconia’s longstanding “Dinner & Discussion” lecture series invites the community to engage with visiting artists in a fun and informal setting. Artists give a one-hour presentation on their work, followed by dinner and a community dialogue about the work. Suggested donation of $10.

Constructed from welded steel and colored with bright automotive enamels, artist Mike Whiting’s playful sculptures draw from the forms and imagery of early video gaming and computer graphics. Recognizing the extreme spareness of forms inherent to the constraints of pixel-based technologies, Whiting states “video gaming and minimalism arrived at the same visual conclusion through different means and by opposite intentions.” Whiting likewise attempts to communicate as much visual information as possible with his essential forms that combine the reductive simplicity of the minimalist movement and the sensibility of pop art in re-contextualizing cultural icons. Whiting’s work can be found in numerous public and private collections, and he has created permanent installations that can be seen in dozens of cities across the United States including: New York, NY; Salt Lake City, UT; Long Beach, CA; Lansing, MI; Denver, CO; Albuquerque, NM; and Palm Desert, CA to name a few. Whiting holds an MFA from Pratt Institute (2002) and a BFA from Brigham Young University (2000).