Small Works Invitational

Colleen Choquette Raphael,

The Flower Eaters III

Reception: Tuesday, December 8, 12:00 – 1:30 PM

The annual Small Works Invitational exhibit will open this week in Arts West Gallery. All pieces do not exceed 100 square inches each and explore a range of media. Artists from across the United States and Canada have been invited to participate. Exhibition continues through February 3rd.

Current Trends in Print

Reception Tuesday, December 1, 12:00 - 1:30

Isabella Canon Room, Center for the Arts

Current Trends in Print, represents artists from across the country. The exhibition has contemporary art from both conventional and non-conventional forms of printmaking, with mediums ranging from mezzotints, screenprints, monoprints, collage/chine-colle, and more. This is an International exhibition with artist represented from the US and as far as Japan.

Installation of Dr. Ahmed Fadaam’s Civilization on Nov. 19

Thursday November 19, Arts West; 4:30 - 6:00

Please join us for the installation of Dr. Ahmed Fadaam’s Civilization, a gift of art to Elon University. The installation of the sculpture will take place on the portico at ArtsWest. A reception will follow, accompanied by a documentary film of the project and a virtual conversation with the artist.

The installation will occur as part of International Education Week and is sponsored by the Office of the University Art Collections, Elon’s Department of Art & Art History, and the Isabella Canon Center for International Studies.

DigiScapes

Work from students in advanced digital courses (Static Imaging, Kinetic Imaging, and Web Art) will be on display in Center for the Arts Ward Gallery November 9 - 13. Reception Tuesday, November 10, 4:30 - 5:30.

Time Arts class soundscapes

Professor DiRosa's Time Arts class constructed a series of soundscapes that responded to the nature of place, more specifically, "home." Working from a shared database of sounds the students recorded, each audio piece lasts from one – three minutes, but vary in style, process, and interpretation. The soundscapes will play in the foyer and main hallway on the first floor of Center for the Arts from October 26 - October 30.

Please join us for the first installment of the 2009/10 Elon Art History Speaker Series

Monday October 26th, Yeager Recital Hall, 6:00 pm
Rebecca Brown, “India's Modern Antiquity: An Unreadable Text, A New Ruin, and the Question of Modernity after 1947”

All that we have in India still lives—several centuries at the same time. The eternity of it all, that is what matters finally.
—Raghu Rai

The simultaneity of India’s past and present often appears in tourist brochures, coffee-table books, and, as above, in the texts of one of India’s premiere twentieth-century photographers. This approach to history and temporality represents more than a stereotype easily sloughed off; it permeates much of how India articulates itself to itself and to the world. If modern approaches to time often privilege progress and place India sometime behind the modern, with one foot in the ancient and always “not yet” modern, then how can artists and architects in the decades after India’s independence be modern? To probe this question, Brown examines two works: K.C.S. Paniker’s Words and Symbols painting of 1964 and Satish Gujral’s Belgian Embassy building of 1980-83. Both artists imbue their works with something of antiquity, but they also provide creative answers to Raghu Rai’s statement—answers that show us India’s relation to its colonial past and ultimately transform the definitions of the modern.

For details about the event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=175382806222

For more information about Elon’s Art History Speaker Series (including the spring speaker) visit -- http://org.elon.edu/arthistory/

DiRosa awarded CATL Scholar grant for her project "(Un)common Partnerships for a Common Purpose"

With the grant, Samantha DiRosa will construct a cross-listed course in Art and Environmental Studies that focuses specifically on collaborations between artists and scientists. For the next two years she will conduct research with students on such collaborations as they exist outside the academy to make the course transformative, timely, and effective. This project will promote sustainability within new areas of the curriculum, create more visible bridges between culturally polarized fields of study, open up additional possibilities for interdisciplinarity, and assist in demythologizing the roles of artists and scientists in society. Read more about the project on CATL's website: http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/teaching/catl-scholars.xhtml

Read more about Young Kim's installation at ArtPrize

...on YouTube

...in The New York Times

...on Michigan Public Radio

Elon Photography professor and ArtPrize artist Young Kim wins special curatorial award

From: http://www.mlive.com/artprize/index.ssf/2009/10/artprizes_young_kim_sweeps_away_his_salt_and_earth_art.html

GRAND RAPIDS - Kneeling on one knee next to one of the 50 portraits he created of salt and red clay, ArtPrize artist Young Kim carefully swept away the first layer of "salt and earth," separating all the debris and red clay from the white salt.
One of several portraits that were altered by ArtPrize goers who visited Young Kim's work at 47 Commerce.
"I'll just separate and then take the salt and recycle it, bring it to area farmers," Kim said as he swept away a man's face at 47 Commerce SWin downtown Grand Rapids.

"Traditionally, art is made to make sure it's going to last a long time. I'm more interested in art reflecting our own (temporary) existence," he said.

With ArtPrize over, artists are starting to sweep out or dismantle the art pieces that drew thousands of people downtown Grand Rapids in the three weeks.

Whisking away the pieces that took him more than a week and 2,500 pounds of salt to put together was always part of the plan, Kim said.

What wasn't necessarily part of the plan was ArtPrize goers using 10 elements Kim had placed as offerings to decorate - or vandalize - the portraits.

The offerings were symbols of the most needed elements for human's subsistence, Kim explained: water, iron powder, sea salt, flour, honey, milk, oil, cotton, wine and fire in the form of matches' heads.

ArtPrize goers used those elements to pepper the portraits with matches' heads , to decorate some or simply used their hands to change the subjects' appearances. Some seemed to be trying the art themselves, others seemed just to be having fun with it.

"I didn't necessarily intend for people to pick up matches' heads and embed them into the portraits. They were symbolic offerings and people took it pretty literally," said Kim, who was neither surprised nor angry about the development.
Mark Copier | The Grand Rapids PressA portrait of a man disintegrates as artist Young Kim brushes it away Sunday.
"Other people think it's defacing the work. I don't think people had a malicious intent. This is another level of engagement," he said. "It's OK. It's part of the process."

Young Kim garnered passionate fans of his "salt and earth' work during ArtPrize. When his piece failed to make the top 10, Twitter users set up a hashtag in his honor: #sorryyoungkim.

The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art made a surprise award on Thursday, the night Ran Ortner was announced as the ArtPrize winner. UICA awarded Young Kim $5,000 for his work.

And then today, the work disappeared with the help of a brush and a dustpan. As Kim swept away the portraits, many people trickled in to take a last look at the exhibit.

Rina Sala-Baker brought her grandson Matthew O'Brien to see Kim's work.

"I've lived in Grand Rapids for 38 years and I've never seen the city so awake," said Sala-Baker, who's originally from Italy. "It's been a great thing for the city."

Two artist lectures and receptions this week

Mariam Aziza Stephan will be giving a talk at her reception in the Isabella Cannon Room on Tuesday from 5:00-6:30 (food and beverages provided). "Her work deals with the painterly languages of representation and abstraction. She explores the seemingly disparate themes of infinity and interconnectedness, through the metaphor of landscape."

Exhibition runs through Monday, November 23rd.

On Thursday, come hear Mark Robinson's talk in Arts West (a roundtable discussion with Will Taylor), 6-7:30. Pizza and beverages will be provided. "Mark is a mixed media and video sculpture artist that is interested in the intersections and networks of culture, technology and visualization. His past works explored the relationships of Quantum (Mechanics) Identity with forms of subjectiviity and cultural mediation found on the internet." He is going to be altering the shape and size of our gallery and has built some type of interactive robot. As a viewer, you will experience a true sound and visual transformation. Also, if you want to see a completely different body of work from Mark, do an internet search for "Lemons the Clown" on YouTube.

Exhibition runs through Thursday, November 5th.

Tri-State Sculptors Conference 10/2 - 10/3

Keynote: Mel Chin Saturday, 10/3, 4:30 - 6:30

Koury Business Center 101

Though he is classically trained, Mel Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. Alchemy, botany, and ecology are but a few of the disciplines that intersect in his work. He insinuates art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and even popular television, investigating how art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. Unconventional and politically engaged, his projects also challenge the idea of the artist as the exclusive creative force behind an artwork. (Biography from: www.pbs.org/art21/artists/chin/index.html)

Open mic night

This Thursday,(tomorrow!) October 1st, the Arts & Letters Learning community is offering a really cool event:

Open Mic Night like you may never have seen before-

Bring your work (anything past/present/in progress), talk about your work, get people to ask questions. Awesome. Good practice for your critique/senior thesis defense!

Thursday, 8pm, Trollinger House

Questions: Joanna Patterson-jpatterson9@elon.edu

Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance, Free Speech and Negativland

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Yeager at 7:30

“Adventures in Illegal Art” is a 90-minute video and storytelling presentation by Mark Hosler, founding member of Negativland, with Q and A to follow. No lawyers were harmed in the making of these events!

Pranks, media hoaxes, media literacy, the art of collage, creative activism in a media saturated multi-national world, file sharing, intellectual property issues, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, artistic and funny critiques of mass media and culture, so-called “culture jamming”.... even if you've never heard of Negativland, if you are interested in any of these issues we think you’ll find this presentation worth your time and attention.

Is Negativland a “band”? Media hoaxers? Activists? Artists? Musicians? Filmmakers? Culture jammers? Comedians? An inspiration for the unwashed many? A nuisance for the corporate few? Decide for yourself in this presentation that uses films and stories to illustrate the many creative projects, hoaxes, pranks and "culture jamming" that Negativland has been doing since 1980.

Most famous for getting sued for their “U2” single, Negativland has had many years of experience being a tiny thorn in the side of the corporate media and entertainment biz. This presentation touches on a number of issues that are very much in public view these days - creative anti-corporate activism, media literacy, intellectual property issues and evolving notions of ownership and law in a digital age, the art of collage, artistic and funny critiques of mass media and culture, pranks and media hoaxes.

Tri-State Sculptors Exhibition 8/24 - 10/3

Closing Reception, Arts West Gallery, Saturday, October 3rd, 6:00-7:30 pm

The Tri State Sculptors Association, with 300-plus members, exhibit works that range from realistic to conceptual; in scales from architectural to intimate throughout Elon’s campus. Some locations include the Isabella Cannon Room and Patio, Arts West Gallery, and the Sculpture Walk.

Exhibition runs from Monday, August 24th-Saturday, October 3^rd.

Finders Keepers

A Room of Our Own

Friday March 13th from 2 - 4

Opening reception in the Spence Pavilion Lobby (the building in the Academic Village where Philosophy and Religious Studies are located) for "A Room of Our Own."

Located in the two women's restrooms in Spence Pavilion, the exhibition, which features art from the Elon Collection and is part of Alaina Pineda's College Fellows' project, explores issues of gender construction and space. Among other things, the installation highlights the fact that neither WGS nor the Elon Art Collection have "rooms of their own."

The exhibition continues through March 20th.

“And I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in ...” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Chicago painter John Bakker

Artist talk Monday March 9th, 5:00, Arts West Gallery

On his work: Recent trends in art have shifted the focus from the artist and the artwork to the viewer’s response to the work. Bakker’s large scale, multi-paneled, recent works place the audience in a position to reveal their aesthetic by asking: “Does the artist’s intention matter? Does the viewer’s understanding of the artist’s intention structure the meaning of art?” Bakker’s work poses questions about competing interpretative frameworks for art, politics, and theology. Exhibition continues through April 15^th.

Art History Speaker Series

Barbara Abou-El-Haj
What's the Matter with Pilgrimage Studies? History, Historiography, Hagiography and the Camino de Santiago

POSTPONED due to weather

Yeager Recital Hall

Barbara Abou-El-Haj (Associate Professor and Chair of Studies in the History and Theory of Art and Architecture at SUNY- Binghamton) will present: “What's the Matter with Pilgrimage Studies? History, Historiography, Hagiography and the Camino de Santiago" in Yeager Recital Hall at 6:00 p.m.

Abou-el-Haj’s lecture will examine the role of pilgrims and pilgrimage, fundamental to the historiography of Santiago de Compostela, to ask what is overlooked and who is excluded in a history that concerns itself almost entirely with the consumption, not the production, of the cult of Saint James.

She will review the production of the cult in the twelfth century, the documentary sources for Santiago and their modern asymmetrical circulation. She will then trace the centerpiece of pilgrimage studies, the history of the Camino de Santiago (Route or Way of Saint James), its revival in the nineteenth century and its role in political ideology and cultural capital in the twentieth century from Franco’s Spain to its incarnation as an icon for European unity and a premier destination in the trans regional heritage industry.

A Journey of Friends: The Collaborative Art of the Theatrical Designers of Elon

Isabella Cannon Room, Center for the Arts

An exhibition that considers how theatrical design develops and impacts the choices made in theatre production. Renderings, models, sketches, antique garments and other source materials will be on view as well as costumes and props from recent productions. Exhibition continues through April 23.

Ken Hassell to speak at the Ackland Museum - Feb. 26

Ken Hassell, associate professor in the art department, has been invited to speak at the Ackland Museum of Art at UNC Chapel Hill in conjunction with their exhibition At The Heart Of Progress: Coal, Iron and Steam. The exhibition focuses on representations of the industrial revolution in imagery since 1750 also celebrates the Ackland's 50th anniversary. Hassell's presentation is part of a series of discussions on industrialization and the exhibition entitled Perspectives on Progress. The talk will feature his images and scholarship on coal mining in central Appalachia from historical and contemporary perspectives. It will take place Thursday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. in the midst of the exhibition's main gallery.

A Preparation for Death

Arts West Gallery

Reception February 9, noon - 1:30.

Jean Sanders exhibition A Preparation for Death consists of photogravure prints utilizing the Buddhist meditative technique called Tonglin.

Inaugural Small Works Invitational

Arts West Gallery

January 12 - January 28, 2009

Reception: Monday, January 12, 12 - 1:30

We had nearly 100 submissions for this exhibit. Included is work from neighboring institutions like Guilford College, UNCG, NCState, NCSchool of the Arts, as well as institutions like Penn State and Albright College. We received works from California, New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Carolina, and NY. The 2D works ranged from intaglio, silkscreen, and lithography to oil, acrylic, and watercolor paintings; the 3D work included ceramic, bronze, silver and plaster sculpture. This is the inaugural exhibition of the SWI, and it will occur every year. The gallery director, Michael Fels, plans to continue its wide-reaching spectrum and hopes to eventually receive enough work to fill both galleries and publish a catalog with the exhibit. Read more about the exhibit here.