Peter Saul, Resident Artist Lecture 1986

Peter Saul shows a series of slides of his paintings and drawings to the participants. Saul is interested in putting together disparate ideas and draws from a wide plethora of thoughts which include but are not limited to pop culture, religion, pop art, psychology, psychiatry, identity. Saul also talks about how his painting practice has also been controversial at times for Saul’s depictions of race, gender, and class. For Saul, the purpose of making his work is to terrorize and offend wealthy people. Saul hopes to provoke these kinds of reactions from the rich to remind them and himself that the idea of art is something that is tremendously powerful and something that can also scandalous and problematic. Saul ends his lecture telling participants that he has never seen art as something that should be nice or responsible.