A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Jefferson Pinder

Professor, Presidential Professor

Contact

Bio

Jefferson Pinder (he/him) is a time agent. Navigating media, Pinder creates interventions, videos, and objects that transport audiences to a speculative space where history and truth is negotiated. The body becomes a vessel for excavating the brutality and enduring traumas of the past, through performances, historic reenactments, and stylized music videos. Conjuring with neon, rust, and glitter, Pinder harnesses the latent power in everyday objects to unearth unspoken truths about a racialized past. Pinder is connected to a fierce American tradition of art-making and education, emerging from a lineage rooted in his mentor David C. Driskell and James Porter before him.

Awards

The American Academy of Rome Prize, 2025; Smithsonian Artist Residency Fellowship, 2021; John S. Guggenhiem Fellowship, 2017; USA Fellowship Award (Joyce Awardee), 2016

Publications

Phaedra Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance, University of Michigan Press; Celeste-Marie Bernier, Battleground: African American Art (1985–2015), The University of Georgia Press

Exhibitions

Crystal Bridges, Monumental, 2023; Shanghai Biennniale, Why Not Ask Again? Arguments, Counter-arguments, and Stories," 2016

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course is an introduction to the materials, methods, and concepts of sculpture. We will investigate making in relation to material, time and space. We will consider aspects of sculpture such as meaning, scale, process, social engagement, ephemera and site; and explore the formal properties and expressive potential of materials including mold making and casting, wood, metal and experimental media. We will combine the use of materials and methods with ideas that reflect the history of contemporary sculpture. Demonstrations and authorizations will provide students with experience and technical proficiency in sculptural production while readings and slide lectures venture into the critical discourses of sculpture.

Class Number

1916

Credits

3

Description

Performing Objects is an expansive, interdisciplinary studio course that merges elements of Performance Art, Ritual, Theater, Installation Art, Body Art, Social Practice, and Sculpture. Grounded in object-making, this course invites students to explore the performative potential of their creations through physical interaction and live engagement. We will develop installations that invite audience participation, extend our work beyond the classroom into public spaces, and experiment with new ways to activate objects through performance. Emphasis will be placed on crafting dynamic relationships between performer and audience using material, movement, sound, text, spectacle, scale, and environment.

Class Number

1717

Credits

3

Description

This course provides a forum for in depth critiques and exploration of students' individual directions within the context of sculptural practice. Both technical and conceptual input will be given on a tutorial basis. Group discussions, readings, slide/video presentations, field trips and visiting lecturers may augment this class. Enrolled students will be assigned a studio space in the Columbus building. A maximum of 15 students will be admitted per semester. IMPORTANT: This course requires instructor consent. Please do not email the instructor directly. Instead, fill out the form found at this link, https://tinyurl.com/yjpm32ww, to submit your portfolio and application before the deadline.

Class Number

1708

Credits

6