ROCKPORT – The Center for Maine Contemporary Art will host the eighth annual Skowhegan Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 4, in the main gallery at the center.

The lecture will be presented by William Pope.L, on the faculty at Bates College. He is a member of the 2004 faculty at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Pope.L received his B.A. from Montclair State College, N.J., and his M.F.A. from Mason Gross School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan.

Pope.L has had recent solo exhibitions and performances at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and The Project, New York. He has also been featured at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Drawing Center in New York.

His performances include “Eracism” (2000) at Thread Waxing Space in New York, “Eating the Wall Street Journal” (2000) at the Sculpture Center in New York and “The Black Body and Sport” (1999) in Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Madrid.

His writing has been published in P-Form, M/E/A/N/I/N/G and by Exit Art. Pope.L’s awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission, a Franklin Furnace Award and a Mid-Atlantic Residency.

Pope.L’s lecture will include discussion about his solo exhibitions and performances, including “The Black Factory,” which offers an ironic take on the views of both Afrocentrists and neoconservatives as a way of escaping narrow definitions of American blackness.

The annual lecture was organized eight years ago to honor Bernarda Shahn, Anne Poor, Sydney Simon and Millie Cummings, four individuals who played major roles in the development of the Skowhegan School of Art and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Admission is $5 for the public and $3 for CMCA members, Rockport residents and students.

A reception honoring Pope.L will follow the lecture. For more information, call 236-2875, or visit the CMCA Web site at www.artsmaine.org.