Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Dance and Choreography will present Con.tra.dis.tinc.tive, the Fall 2007 Senior Project Dance Concert on Friday and Saturday, November 16 and 17, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street. Tickets are $10 for the general public and $5 for VCU students with a valid I.D. Rambucks accepted. Tickets can be reserved beginning Monday, November 5 by calling the Grace Street Theatre box office at (804) 828-2020.

Contradistinction: distinction by opposition. The seven choreographers of Con.tra.dis.tinc.tive are united by difference. Each one with a clear voice, these dance artists analyze religion, cultural studies and personal journeys with insight and articulate choreography.

Worn Gallery presents “Awkward Portions,” featuring illustrations by VCU students Cara Frye, Jeff Love and Fighty.

Opening Receptions*: November 2nd
Times and Locations:
6:00–7:00 VCU Fine Art Building lobby
7:00–9:00 Wandering between 319 W. Broad and 6 E Broad St
9:00–10:00 Plant Zero/Artspace

Gallery Host: Diana Cavanaugh

For more information or for viewing appointment contact:
worngallery@gmail.com
 804.334.5519

*Worn gallery is a mobile wearable gallery.
Viewing the exhibited artwork is dependent on the gallery host’s location.
Gallery Host will be dressed in all black and will have the Gallery physically on them during the opening.
Please take note of the location changes.

Mission: A gallery to exhibit contemporary artists who are up to the challenge of working in very very small scales.

Concept: Gallery walls confined to a 4.5 inch wide, 2.5 inch tall, and 1 inch deep space.
Worn on the body in various arrangements and its physical location changes to where-ever the host is.
Public viewing is only possible by having arranged locations at specific times or chance meetings.
Opening nights may be at more than one location, or constantly on the move.
Requests can be made to have the gallery come directly to you.

For more information please visit:

http://www.worngallery.blogspot.com

We’ve always known it, but now Style Weekly has confirmed it. Joe Seipel, VCUarts Senior Associate Dean, has been named as a Richmond “Arts Legend.”

Congratulations also go out to Doug Richards, Murray DePillars, Beverly Reynolds, Peter and Francois Kirkpatrick and the other honorees.

Richmond Magazine’s Pollak Prizes were recently announced, and most recipients have VCUarts connections.

The awards are named in honor of Theresa Pollak, the woman  whose classes, which began in 1928, spawned  VCU School of the Arts.

The following honorees have VCUarts connections. Georgianne Stinnett, photographer, MFA in Photography and Film; Jack Wax, glass artist, professor in Craft/Material Studies, Pam Turner, dancer, former VCU faculty, Sonali Gulati, filmmaker, Assistant Professor, Photography and Film, Gerald Donato and Joan Gaustad, artists and former VCUarts faculty members, Karl Green, fashion/costume designer, Assistant Professor, Theatre.

Heide Trepanier, who earned her MFA in the Painting & Printmaking department and currently adjunct teaches for the Photography & Film graduate program,is taking part in Quirky, a contemporary painting and sculpture exhibition.

Quirky
November 9–December 19, 2007
Curated by Michaël Amy

Opening: Friday, November 9, 6:30 to 8:30 pm

Curator’s Talk: Thursday, November 29, 7:00 pm
Morning Art Talk: Quirky in Context with Tom O’Connor
Thursday, December 6, 9:30-11:00 am

Quirky, an exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture curated by Michaël Amy, opens at the Westport Arts Center on Friday, November 9. The show features work by Dennis Hollingsworth, Shirley Kaneda, Jonathan Lasker, John Newman, Paul Henry Ramirez, Heide Trepanier, and Sofi Zezmer.

“We were intrigued and then captivated by Michaël Amy’s concept for this show,” said Eileen Wiseman, executive director of the Westport Arts Center. “Quirky will appeal to a wide range of gallery visitors—scholars, artists, school children, casual visitors. The show has an inherent sense of purpose, and also a sense of humor.”

Quirky  explores the seemingly accidental twists of color, composition and texture that are found in contemporary abstract painting and sculpture. The works in Quirky playfully mock formalist principals of painting, and cross the boundaries of decorum and “good taste” through the use of vibrant colors and unexpected forms. These lively, eccentric works challenge the status quo, defy categories, and rebel against a culture of conformity.

Heide Trepanier exploits the fluidity of paint to give form to situations that are bewildering and often violent.  Her highly stylized pictures offer a deliberately slick take on the pyrotechnics of 1950s Action Painting. According to Trepanier, the parts within her compositions: “Misbehave, throw up on each other, have orgies, rip each other apart, become divas, destroy small towns, and produce other worlds.”

www.westportartscenter.org

By the By

with

Andy Kozlowski
Krystal Lemmons
Jill Shropshire

Reception: Thursday, November 1st, 6–6pm
Exhibition runs November 1st–30th, 2007

VCUarts Locker 50b Gallery
1000 West Broad Street, 3rd Floor
Richmond, Virginia 23284

www.vcu.edu/arts/locker50b

Fernando Mastrangelo, a 2004 Sculpture MFA alumnus, will be in a group exhibition entitled Red Badge of Courage, curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud. It opens Sunday, October 28th at the Newark Arts Council and runs until December 9th. Mastrangelo is showing new work that includes figures cast in sugar, coffee and rice.

http://www.fernandomastrangelo.com

Daniel Johnson, a junior in the Craft/Material Studies department, presents:

Urban Portraits
Opening Monday, October 22 at the Student Commons Back Gallery

The show runs through November 3rd. A reception will be held October 26 from 5–7pm. Daniel will also offer a portrait service, please contact him at johnsondl2@vcu.edu.

Almitra Corey, 2002 BFA graduate of the Sculpture + Extended Media department, was recently featured in an interview on website Etsy.

A Lawrence Weiner Salon: A reading room, a re-creation, and a text piece
November 2–November 25, 2007
OPENING, Friday November 2 6:00–10:00 pm with an opening performance by Andrew Hurst

Pocket Utopia
1037 Flushing Avenue
Brooklyn, NY  11237
Open Saturdays and Sundays 12-6 and by appointment
 917-400-3869

Pocket Utopia is pleased to organize an experimental salon of conceptual art’s key figure Lawrence Weiner.  The salon will feature a reading room, a re-creation (“A 36” x 36” Removal to the Lathing or Support Wall of Plaster or Wallboard From a Wall,” 1968) and a text piece.  Weiner has long pursued inquiries into language and art-making and posits a radical redefinition of the artist/viewer relationship and the very nature of the artwork.  Here too, the venue or gallery and its relationship to the artist also gets redefined.

By transporting his investigations to Bushwick’s Pocket Utopia, the viewer will discover a comfortable and unobtrusive means to read and experience Weiner’s work and make their own assumptions about the nature of the art object.  Working with the Weiner’s grateful acknowledgment, Pocket Utopia democratizes access to his work.  Although the artist here is all but invisible, the viewer will be able to see even farther, think a little more and read a lot.