"Photo Day" at UK, 11/19/10

Friday, November 19 will be an exciting opportunity for any and all photography students. UK will be hosting a "Photo Day", incorporating workshops, demonstrations, equipment demos, and artist lectures at the Reynolds Art Building on UK's campus.

All the action begins at 9 AM, running until 5 PM when there will be a break for dinner and an opportunity to join in the Lexington Gallery Hop. Everyone will reconvene at 9 PM for the third annual Light-Up UK, where hundreds of strobes and flashlights will be used to illuminate a building on campus. (Here's an example of a related project.)

I do not believe there are any registration fees, so all of the events should be FREE.

Activities:
Camera Obscura, Cyanotypes, Lighting Demos

Workshops:
Portfolio Design, Photography Careers, Book Making

Demos:
Mamiya Digital Cameras, Profoto Lighting Equipment, Sekonic Light Meters

Speakers:
Kate Shannon, Greg Davis, Kristen Sykes, Rebecca Holbrook, Erica Sanko, Christina Gora, Mary Rezny

Sponsors:
Midwest Photo Exchange, Mac-On-Campus

If my schedule allows, I'm planning on attending the event. Let me know if you'd like to join me, particularly students from ART 120: Photography and future students of ART 370: Portrait and Lighting. Hope to see you there!

And for further questions, contact Rob Dickies of the UK Photo Dept.

Show It! Soon

Calling all students:  Show It!, a juried exhibition of student art organized by SODAH, will be on view in the Anne Wright Wilson Fine Arts Gallery November 29 - December 9, 2010.  Submissions are due Tuesday, November 23.  Juror Julie Schweitzer, Executive Director of The Arts Council of Southern Indiana, will speak about professional opportunities for emerging artists at 4:15 p.m., during the opening reception, Monday, November 29, 4-6 p.m.

For more information about submissions, please contact Professor Daniel Graham at Daniel_Graham@georgetowncollege.edu or Laura_Stewart@georgetowncollege.edu

Opportunity: New York Historical Society

Students from curatorial classes (and/or those with experience doing primary research): The New York Historical Society seeks a part-time Research Assistant at 14 hours per week to help with preparations for an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the 1913 Armory Show in fall 2013.Duties will include researching the locations of objects that were in the 1913 exhibition, compiling primary and secondary materials from local libraries and archives, and maintaining records of ongoing efforts on museum databases, in Zotero, and in internal bibliographies. Other duties may include assisting with the preparation of loan letters and reports, and providing other logistical support as needed. Candidates should have research experience in libraries and archives and should be comfortable working with databases and online resources. Accuracy, attention to detail, and the ability to work independently are critical. An advanced graduate student in American art is preferred. Please send a c.v. and a brief writing sample to hr1@nyhistory.org. In the subject line please reference the job title. All responses must be received by December 15. No direct inquiries please. The New-York Historical Society is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

"Ciliary"

Ann Hamilton has become one of the most influential artists for me. Not only was she born in my favorite state and lives there now, but she works mainly with textiles and fabrics and she appeals to my love of color, sound, and tactile value. One of her works that has influenced me is her collection of installation pieces titled “ciliary”; made of bamboo, paper, and fabric. Each circle begins as a long sheet of paper, is lithographically printed with lines drawn by the artist, folded fan-style, and then formed into a circle. The center of the circle has a cluster of fabric, with each of the nineteen pieces varying in color combinations. I also found it interesting to learn that the word “ciliary” is a medical term and refers to the muscles around the iris in the eye that relax and contract to control the amount of light exposure in the eye. The series just left the Gemini G.E.L at Joni Moisant Weyl on October 22^nd, and will make its debut at the IFPDA Print Fair in New York this November!

Photo courtesy of Gemini G.E.L., 2010

American Art(world) Controversy?

Just the other day I was speaking with a few folks about Jasper Johns (and the fact that GC's own Jacobs Gallery has one of his works on view).  Someone in the group made a comment about Johns's role in American art history, and the topic of his being intimately associated with Robert Rauschenberg came up. I knew of this "hidden" history from courses I had taken in graduate school as well as readings I had been assigned about these two artists. 

Robert Rauschenberg, 7 Characters Truth, 1982

Then, while checking out the College Art Association's online newsletter for blog ideas, I came across several interesting articles.  One concerns graffiti art (Link), and another a truly underground exhibition (Link); a third concerns graduate teaching assistants at one major university being allowed--or not--to unionize (Link), but the article that really caught my attention concerns a new installation at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.  The show purports to decode several well-known American artists' works in order to bring homosexuality in art history to light (Link).  I thought to myself, "What?  No one's ever done that before?"  Apparently, the subject has been too controversial for most museums and curators in the U.S. to undertake.

On a familiar note, in the national news over the weekend, I heard the story of a mother who had blogged about backlash following her 5-year old's fulfilled request to dress up as the Scooby Doo character Daphne for Halloween (Link).  A picture of the child in costume was included in the broadcast, along with various commentaries and interpretations about this rather minor occurrence in American life.  (I wonder if dressing up as Velma would have caused as much of a stir.?.)   

And yet, while trying to decide what to write for today, I debated with myself  for a few moments about whether it would be wise to blog about the subject of homosexuality and art history here.  Is it too controversial?  GC::VA readers, care to comment?

le Centre Pompidou a Paris

A Visit to the Pompidou

First off I'd like to send a warm thank you out to Daniel for recommending that I visit the Pompidou Center in Paris. Within the Pompidou I wandered around viewing works by Matisse, Spero and Duschamps, and also one artist in particular whos work inspired me, Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957).

Frantisek Kupka was a Czech painter and graphic artist who was one of the forerunners of the Modern art movement. His works were first based on realism then he moved more into pure abstraction. The work that struck my fancy in particular was Compliment (1912) as seen below:

The second of his works that I admired was Autour d'un Point (1920):

I retourned to look at these two paintings three or four times while I was at the museum. Kupka's paintings have a life of their own. A quality of a living being and not merely a replication of an idea or a consept. The intracasies of his artwork enlightened me for I often have equated Abstract with primitive and unskilled. Food for thought.

The actual experience

See the product site HERE but this post isn't as much about that.

          I have always been a big fan of innovative designs especially when they are so simple.  I stumbled across  this one the other day and it brought up some funny thoughts about recent conversations relating to experiential replacement.  A number of these conversations have centered around the notion that some in current culture see no real difference between the a representation of an experience and the actual experience, or they actually only see the positives to the representation.  Do you think that with so much knowledge and investigative material at our disposal we are any further along, smarter, more experienced?
         I often run across the scenario of fear in students, students that say they stopped making something or threw it away, or didn't do something because they are "perfectionists", stating that since they couldn't do it right they wouldn't do it. I personally think this is a intersection of the act of doing with a mentality that they "know it" because they have seen it. When in actuality they...

Artist Talk: Ellen Molle at UK

Ellen Mollé, from Nicholasville, is known for creating sculptures and embroideries that echo natural forms and growth patterns: imprints of ferns, hives, fossils and cocoons using materials such as twine, wax, canvas and thread. A selection of previous work by Mollé can be seen on the artist's Flickr website. Mollé's presentation, "Force Fields," is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in the Niles Gallery of the Little Fine Arts Library. The event and reception are free and open to the public. This event is part of the Little/Gaines Artist Series, an event hosted by the University of Kentucky's Lucille C. Little Fines Arts Library and Learning Center and the Gaines Center for the Humanities at UK.

Senior Show Opening and Lecture

The members of the fall 2010 Senior Thesis class invite you to come out and support us as we open our show today in the Cochenour Gallery in the LRC.

The opening is from 2-4pm with an art history lecture starting at 3.

Refreshments will be provided, so come out and enjoy the work of your fellow classmates!

Members of the show include:
Jamie Cornett
Rebecca Redding
Matthew Thompson
Cortney Thorn