"By the Book" in the press

Check out the front page of this week's Georgetonian for a full-page article on the Curatorial Studies' class current exhibit, By the Book: 150 Years of Rules, Regulations, & GC Student Life.

Or, read it here online.

Good Moral Character & a Fireside Chat Friday @ 1pm

The college catalogue from 1846 described behaviors that were preferred among the student population: "The College is open to persons who desire to study in particular departments only. Such persons must give satisfactory evidence of good moral character, and possess such previous acquisitions in the branches they mean to pursue, as shall qualify them to study with some of the regular classes." A description of such character is not provided, neither are the means by which one should attain it.

A century and a half later, we have no such clause in the college catalog and yet it goes without question that rules and codes of behavior, or, even guidelines for moral character have been a part of the college's history as much as its traditions. Putting this story into visual and verbal form was the task put before students in my Curatorial Studies course. As I mentioned in an earlier post this semester, each fall students in ART 302 prepare an exhibition that is on display in the Cochenour Gallery around our campus celebration of Homecoming. The first exhibit was curated in 2005 and entitled “Faith Ablaze! The Chapel Fire of 1930.” This show recounted that tragic, chilly April morning as the building was lost to the smoke and flames. For the 2010 exhibition, students have been researching the rules and regulations of the college from the earliest College Catalogs of the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. This proved quite challenging because the topic for the exhibition is not entirely focused or well-documented, such as an historic structure or event. Nor is the focus on a specific population, such as alums from a certain dorm or major or club.

The show has been curated, installed, and is now on view in the LRC. Please join us on Friday from 12-2 in the Cochenour Gallery where students will be on hand to discuss their work. The students who prepared the exhibition include: Celisa Bowen, David Gardner, Bess McHone, Jacob Pankey, and Weezie Payton. We also had the help of an alum, Daniel Ware, class of 2010. While browsing the display case and installation of two dorm rooms, you'll be able to enjoy amazing dainty delights made by GC alum, Amanda Hervey. In addition, we'll convene a Fireside Chat at 1:00 with Doc Birdwhistell and a few other GC alums and friends, including Jane Hope Fields, Ann McCamy, Kyle Potter, Kitty Taylor, and Wallace and Judith Williams. All will share insight about rules and regulations. Topics include:

-Freshman beanies (see image at the head of this post)

-dorm life

-bust of J.J. Rucker -- remember it? seen it? stolen it?

-earliest rules

-the present "rules"

-rules as being good or harmful for students in college

Please join us!

(Un-Qualified) Contemporary Art

The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati currently has on display a temporary exhibition of contemporary art entitled Where Do We Go From Here? This exhibit consists of selections from the Jumex Collection, the largest collection of contemporary art in Mexico, and probably the largest in Latin America. Amassed by Jumex juice company heir Ernesto Lopez during the 1990s, this collection has been lauded as possibly the best collection to incorporate Mexican and Latin American contemporary art with examples from the United States, Europe, and other countries around the globe. Out of the approximately 1400 works that comprise the entire collection, nearly a full third were created by artists either born or working in Latin America. Art historians and critics have celebrated this collection as one of the first to include Latin American art not as a peripheral phenomenon, but as a major artistic player in the global market.

According to the curators, the show is divided into four thematic, interwoven areas: “art about art; art and urban anthropology; text in art; and a series of succinct artist profiles.” Where Do We Go From Here? is an exhibit that is meant to question the current state of art, investigate some prevalent concepts from the past few decades, and to highlight specific artists whose works have contributed greatly to our understandings of contemporary art. As the title indicates, the exhibit also hopes to point toward the possible future or futures of contemporary art. For me, as an historian of Mexican art, this exhibit is exciting because it points to a future in which the contemporary art of Mexico and other Latin American countries, or any country or culture whose art has traditionally fallen outside the “Western canon,” are presented without national qualifiers.

Artists represented in the exhibit include:

Francis Alÿs, Carlos Amorales, John Baldessari, Stefan Brüggemann, Maurizio Cattelan, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Minerva Cuevas, Ale de la Puente, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Claire Fontaine, Claire Fontaine, Reena Spauldings and Bernadette Corporation, Mario Garcia Torres, Douglas Gordon, Daniel Guzmán, Jonathan Hernández, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Jeff Koons, Joseph Kosuth, Gabriel Kuri, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Paul McCarthy, Jorge Méndez Blake, Jonathan Monk, 'Moris' Israel Meza Moreno, Sarah Morris, Gabriel Orozco, Damian Ortega, Richard Pettibone, Jack Pierson, Ugo Rondinone, Ed Ruscha, Rudolf Stingel, Rosemarie Trockel, Kelley Walker, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West, Cerith Wyn Evans

I’ll be planning a visit on a Saturday in November (probably Nov. 20). If anyone is interested in joining me, please contact me for details. The show will be on view through January 30, 2011.

ImPrint, Friday | KY.7 Artist Talk, Thursday

ImPrint, this Friday (Oct. 15) in the Wilson Gallery. Sixteen artists—41 works. Opening reception, 5-7 PM. Art talk around 5:15 (Nexus). Print demo, Saturday morning, 9-10 AM.

Also as a reminder, I'll be participating in an artist talk for the KY.7 Biennial for the Lexington Art League at the Louden House in Lexington on Thursday, starting at 7 PM. Four other artists will also be speaking about their work. Hope to see you there.

Nature's Grays

While painting have you ever wondered why you can't find that perfect green? 

I did...

Before I came to France I thought that if I simply squeezed a blob of yellow and a blob of blue paint onto a surface and mixed them together they would turn out to be a perfect replica of natures greens, however there are no "perfect" colors in nature. All colors are a combination of all the colors. For example the color green:

It is not complete until you add its complementary color red:

By combine a color with its complement, you are mixing together all the primary colors (Green=Blue and Yellow; Red). When you start to realize that all colors are present in every color, it opens up your mind to see so many naturally occurring complements. For example shadows are not merely gray and black they are shades of red and violet against the Yellow/green of the leaves. Complements are found every where in nature.

So make this your challenge. Look around at the colors you see in nature. Notice how the red brick buildings make the green trees pop out beside them. If you paint, try to experiment with adding the complement or as Van Gogh would say "breaking the colors." You will then realise that in every thing there is present a mélange of the colors or the grays of nature.

Art Attacks (or, when "swoons" go wrong)

For a long time I have been interested in provocative art--art that provokes viewers to action, that is.  Sometimes the action is far from a "swoon" incident; instead, people physically act out against works of art.  Here are links to a couple of interesting occurrences that have come to my attention, and these are but two of many other occurrences of art attacks out there:

Last summer in Paris, a woman attacked the Mona Lisa with a coffee mug:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6009693/Woman-attacks-Mona-Lisa.html

This summer in Denver, a woman broke through a plexiglass case with a crowbar to attack an "offensive" image: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16270946?source=email

Clearly, in addition to Stendhal's Syndrome, the swoon effect has indeed been documented, although perhaps like so many things in 21st century society, the negative responses get the most press. 

Old Department Laptops....We Shared the Love

Thank you to the students who supported our "Share the Love" program today. We gave four laptops new homes. Students who purchased them contributed funds toward our spring special event "Empty Bowls." This will be an opportunity for students, alumni, and faculty to come together and make art. More on this event forthcoming. Enjoy!

Something(s) new to see...

...and they're right here on GC's campus:  two temporary public sculpture pieces, Totem, 2000 and Die, 2000 by Brad Connell.  Check them out on the pad between the Chapel and the Cralle Student Center.

Imprint knowledge part one Silkscreen vs Letterpress

For my blog this week I thought I would give a brief introduction to some of the print processes you will see in the exhibition ImPrint, opening this friday.  If you find anything in here of interest please be sure to sign up for the class printmaking class in the spring (ART300). Here in the Georgetown College Art Department we have variations of all the processes mentioned in this post. If at any point you want to see more example of printmaking or these processes just let me (Professor Graham) know, and we can chat as long as you would like.

There are 3 major areas of printmaking processes (there are many more minor ones) including Relief, Inaglio, and Planographic processes.  

·       Relief includes, linoleum cuts, woodcuts, photopolymer printing, letterpress, basically anything that has material removed from the surface to create the image.

·       Intaglio (pronounced In-tal-leo) is italian in origin meaning to cut or incise translated in french as "below the surface" this area of printmaking includes etching, vitreography (glass etching), engraving, and collagraph, to name a few.

·       Planographic includes all types of lithography, polyester plate printing, and silkscreen.

This morning I wanted to hit on the two major processes used for creating text which is a major part of the ImPrint exhibition. We will be looking at letterpress and silkscreen, examining their process, differences and some artists that exist in each process.