Mel Ziegler (artist)
Mel Ziegler is an American artist (born 1956) whose artistic practice includes community art, integrated arts, and public art. Biography Ziegler began his undergraduate studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, later transferring to the Kansas City Art Institute. He earned an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia in 1982. Born in Campbelltown, Pennsylvania, Ziegler currently lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the current chair of the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University, and where he was also the host of the 2014 National Arts Administrators' conference. Throughout his career, Ziegler’s practice has examined the role of art in public space, the socially-constructed dimensions of our natural environment, the value of manual labor, and the importance of collaboration between the artist and the broader community. Ziegler has exhibited nationally and internationally and has presented solo exhibitions at venues including: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal in 1998; Artpace, San Antonio, in 1999; Secession, Vienna in 2003; and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska in 2014. Reviewing his 2014 exhibition “An American Conversation” at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Daniel Tidwell writes in Nashville Arts magazine: “[Ziegler] is part historian, conceptual artist,