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The Santa Monica College Art Department, in conjunction with Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, is pleased to present "Criticism, Journalism and Looking @ Art," a public lecture by Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight.

The free lecture will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14 at The Broad Stage at Santa Monica College, located on Santa Monica Boulevard at 11th Street.

For additional information, go to http://www.otis.edu/calendar or call (310) 665-6827. Directions and parking information are at http://thebroadstage.com/index.php/193.

Knight is the 2009-10 visiting critic in Fine Arts at Otis. In his course, titled Criticism, Journalism and Looking @ Art, Knight tells Otis students that "Eclecticism is a virtue. For journalistic art criticism, which encounters an unlimited range of art and art-related events, it is also essential."

Knight's lecture will roam far and wide over art, journalism, history and critical art writing by journalists and others and will include examples found in traditional print media and online media. Distinctions will be made among journalistic, trade, academic and theoretical criticism.

A three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism (1991, 2001 and 2007), Knight received the 1997 Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism from the College Art Association - the first journalist to win the award in more than 25 years.

In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Atlanta College of Art. Prior to joining the staff of the Los Angeles Times in 1989, Knight served as Los Angeles Herald Examiner art critic (1980-89), as assistant director for public information at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1979-80), and as curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego (1976-79).