Greg Metcalf comes to teaching Modernisms, Film and Art Theory from a background of Culture Studies and Studio Art. His present research focuses on using film theory to open up new ways of understanding Modern art. Much of Metcalf’s scholarly work involves intersections of art forms and/or cultures. His publications include “The Soul in the Meat Suit: Ivan Albright, Hannibal Lecter and the Body Grotesque,” “Celebrated Commodities and Commodified Celebrities in Andy Warhol’s Portraits,” “If You Read It, I Wrote It: The Anonymous Career of Comic Book Writer Paul S. Newman,” “It’s a Jungle Book Out There: The Sixties in Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book.” “Alien Place, Alien Race: The Western Roots of the Image of the Final Frontier,” “Bob Dylan Under the Cover of Covers,” and “Them Like Us, Then Like Now: The Modernized Historical and Americanized Foreign in Disney’s Animated Films.” His most recent piece, “Jar Jar Binks and Anakin’s Interrupted Journey: Joseph Campbell, Stepin Fetchit and the Lost Structure of Star Wars” in Bloomsbury’s 'Star Wars at 50' explains why everyone (rightly) hates Jar Jar Binks.
He is supposed to be working on the second edition of his 2012 “Binge TV” book, 'The DVD Novel: How the Way We Watch Television Changed the Television We Watch' exploring how streaming television has internationalized while also narrowing the American audience, but he’s actually working on his long-procrastinated “A View from the Loge and the Lap,” a monograph that explores Mary Cassatt’s art through the cinematic concept of “the gaze,” her use of three-point structures to deconstruct gendered identity, and her printmaker’s use of mirrors to reveal truth.
He has curated exhibitions of contemporary Asian Art at the Korean Embassy in DC and the Parents Gallery at the U of MD, and consulted on the exhibition of Warner Brothers Cartoon Art at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. Metcalf's artwork has been internationally exhibited, collected and published and was featured in a short video by the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC in connection with it's exhibition "Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens." It is still available on YouTube.
He received a BA from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, an MFA from Bowling Green University in Ohio, and a PhD from the University of Maryland in College Park.
He has a short attention span and is prone to tangents.
Area(s) of Expertise
Modernism, Film and Ritual Art
Teaching Appointments
Metcalf has previously taught at Johnsd Hopkins University, Baltimore MD; New York University; The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; and the various Universities of Maryland.
Selected Exhibitions
Exhibitions include: Elixir: "Artists Respond to Making and Healing," Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, Washington DC; "Communing with the Elders: Greg Metcalf and Champ Taylor," Salve Regina Gallery, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; Kongo Kingdom Art: From Ritual to Cutting Edge," National Museum of China, Beijing, China and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; Felix Marc Collection of Primitive Art, Congo Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; and "Through a Glass, Snowy: Portrait Snowdome Sculptures," Marlboro Gallery, Prince George's Community College, Largo, MD. Metcalf's non-ritual artwork has won awards in exhibition at the Minnesota State Arts Exhibition, Toledo Museum of Art, the Michigan Watercolor Society National Exhibition, Millennium Portrait Exhibition in New Mexico, and the West Miami Art Center.
Awards, Honors & Residencies
NEH Scholar, America & China: 150 Years of Aspirations & Encounters, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI
Two-time International Delegate, Edinburgh International Children's Theatre Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
Artist in Residence, Saint Olaf College, Northfield, MN