Jess Perlitz
Associate Professor of Art, Studio Head of Sculpture, Department Chair
Jess Perlitz is an artist whose work explores participation, communication and performance. She uses object-making to think about the various ways we communicate and translate ownership of space and place. She is particularly interested in various histories of art-making dedicated to political and social use-value that bring to light ideologies and utopian impulses, such as Constructivism and Productivism, the return in art towards the social, and contemporary discussion of monuments & memorials. Perlitz’s work takes a variety of forms ranging from sculpture, community-based projects, performances, and drawings. She was recently the co-leader of the year-long Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project. Perlitz was named a 2019 Hallie Ford Fellow and has won a Joan Shipley award, received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Her projects have appeared in playgrounds, fields, galleries and museums, including Socrates Sculpture Park, Cue Art Foundation, Cambridge Galleries and the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (ICA).