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)