SAN JOSE, California (January 13, 2011)— The San Jose Museum of Art’s free Lunchtime Lecture series will continue on Wednesday, February 2, at noon, with a talk by Ron Herman, chair of the photography department at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Herman’s topic will be “Race, Gender, and Sexual Identity in Contemporary Photography.” He will discuss select photographs on view in the Museum’s exhibitions Robert Mapplethorpe: Portraits and Degrees of Separation: Contemporary Photography in the Permanent Collection in the context of critical theory and issues relevant to fine-art photographers working today. Visitors are welcome to bring their lunches or purchase food at the Museum’s Café Too!. Admission to the lecture is free. Regular Museum admission applies to the galleries.

Ron Herman holds a BFA and Certificate in Art History from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, and a MFA in Photography from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Fototeca de Cuba, Havana, the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame; and the South Bend Museum of Art. He has photographed for Polo Ralph Lauren and Spiegel, and has lectured on his work and digital imaging technologies at Cornell, Stanford, and Yale universities. He is an award winning educator and Chair of the Photography Department at Foothill College.

The Museum offers Lunchtime Lectures from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month through May 4. Upcoming topics will be “Understanding and Collecting Indian Art” on March 2, “A History Survey of Indian Modern Art” on April 6, and “Difference and the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Art” on May 4.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART

The San Jose Museum of Art is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San Jose, California. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and free to members and children under 6. For more information, call 408-271-6840 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.

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Programs at the San Jose Museum of Art are generously supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by operating support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the James Irvine Foundation; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Adobe Foundation; and the Koret Foundation; the MetLife Foundation; and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose.