Lecture: Thursday, March 27, 7–8pm
Critique Room 1(Room 238)
Fine Arts Building 1000 West Broad

Workshop: Friday, March 28, 10–12pm
Metals Shop (Room 209)
Fine Arts Building 1000 West Broad

Presented by The Department of Craft/Material Studies

Arthur Ganson has been making kinetic sculpture for 27 years, having received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire in 19778. As a former artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has exhibited in the United States, and Europe, and maintains an ongoing exhibition of sculpture at the MIT Museum in Cambridge.
He is the inventor of the award-winning children’s toy Toobers and Zots and a partner in the toy company HandsOnToys.

On Tuesday, April 15, the VCU Jazz Orchestra will welcome guitarist, composer, and bandleader Anthony Wilson. The concert begins at 8p at Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall ($5 public, free to VCU students with ID). The concert will include works by Wilson as well as other composers and by VCU students.

A sensitive and gifted accompanist as well as a formidable soloist, Wilson has been an indispensable member of Diana Krall’s band since he joined her in 2001 for a series of performances at Paris’ Olympia Theater that were collected on the Grammy-winning CD/DVD “Live In Paris” (Verve). Recent recordings and live appearances with Madeleine Peyroux, Al Jarreau, and Aaron Neville have served to spotlight Wilson’s growing artistry, musical flexibility, and improvisational authority. Bennie Wallace, Larry Goldings, Joe Henry, Harold Land, Chris Botti, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and his father—legendary composer/arranger/bandleader Gerald Wilson—are just a few of the well-respected musicians with whom Anthony Wilson has forged fruitful, lasting partnerships.

A skilled, inspired composer and arranger with a deep understanding of tradition and an equal willingness to take risks, Wilson won the Thelonious Monk Institute International Composers’ Competition in 1995, and has received numerous commissions for small- and large-scale original works. Every year since 2000, Anthony Wilson’s considerable talents as a “triple-threat” guitarist/composer/arranger have landed him at the top levels of all three of those categories in _Down Beat_ Magazine’s International Critics’ Poll. For more information, visit www.anthonywilsonmusic.com and www.myspace.com/anthonywilsonmusic.

Wilson will be leading various rehearsals and workshops at VCU during his three-day residency April 13-15. Make plans now to join the VCU Jazz Orchestra I and Anthony Wilson on Tuesday, April 15! Call (804) 828-6776, Monday through Friday, 2-4 p.m. to purchase tickets in advance and thus avoid any longer lines at the Box Office on concert night.

Photography and Film welcomes visiting artist Alan Berliner. Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers. Berliner has completed over 14 films in the last 25 years and has also worked extensively on installations using video imagery. His recent film work addresses issues of family and history, using unexpected sound/image juxtapositions to reveal searingly powerful insights on how identities are tempered and shaped by our sense of the past.

Thursday, March 27
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Location: Bowe Street, room 535

April 4  – April 27, 2008
OPENING, Friday April 4th  6:00 – 10:00 p.m.
POCKET UTOPIA
1037 Flushing Avenue
[Just off the Morgan L, Bushwick]
Open Saturdays and Sundays 12-6 p.m. and by appointment
Call:  917-400-3869

Pocket Utopia is pleased to present a solo exhibition of artist in residence, Libby Hartle.  Since September, Libby Hartle has been transporting her materials and focusing her art-making to a small table at the back of the gallery, transporting her supplies and transforming her ideas to co-exisit with an exhibition program and a visiting public.
The result is presented here in the form of found papers (parking tickets, lottery stubs, and other detritus), picked up on her walks to the gallery and turned into, through a sorting, soaking and casting process, a brightly colored habitat.  Hartle, working in the space and relating to its visitors has also expanded the floor space into a seating area, or a place to perch and drink tea or sip beer (Hartle is an expert “beeramid” builder).
A visitor can join Hartle as she “hosts” a salon of drawn and collaged structures (homes and bus-mobiles), cut and glued through a semi-architectural drawing process or what Hartle has termed “stickitecture.”  The space is filled and formed for the viewer to sit and plan their escape.
There will be a salon discussion on Wednesday, April 28th  at 6:00 p.m. where the artist will be present to talk about the post-studio practice and artist residencies.  Refreshments will be served.  This discussion is a part of Austin Thomas’s salon series titled, “Excuse me, you have art in your teeth.”

Pocket Utopia is an away-from center, off-center, exhibition, salon and social space run by artist Austin Thomas.

Pocket Utopia
1037 Flushing Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

New Waves 2008
Opening: Friday, April 11, 2008
Contemporary Art Center of Virginia
2200 Parks Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA

Derek Coté is a alumnus from the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media MFA progarm.

Doha, Qatar, VCUQatar in cooperation with Dar al-Funoon Gallery, Kuwait
March 19 –April 19 2008.

‘Tawasel/Continuity: Contemporary Artists from Sudan’ comprises the works of Muhammad Omar Khalil, Mahmoud Mohamed Farah, Rashid Diab, Ahmed Abdel Aal and Islam Kamil. The aim of this exhibition is to highlight the generational continuity in the work of the artists who span three generations and their inspiration drawn from their Sudanese origins. Most of them have lived in the Sudanese diaspora in North America, Europe and the Middle East for large parts of their lives. The works shown span from the printworks of Muhammad Omar Khalil, to mixed media works on paper by Rashid Diab and Ahmed Abdel Aal, to the painted canvases of Mahmoud Mohamed Farah and Islam Kamil.

Thematically they range from abstract to figural with notions of calligraphy, addressing the colors, forms, stories and memories of the artists’ homeland.

“This exhibition highlights the artistic creativity of contemporary Sudanese artists and the legacy of Sudan’s artistic traditions. The VCUQatar Gallery is greatly indebted to Dar al-Funoon, Kuwait for its generous loan of works, as well as the artists Mahmoud Mohamed Farah and Islam Kamil, both resident in the Gulf region.” noted Dr. Jochen Sokoly, Gallery Director and Assistant Professor.

The VCUQ Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar is open Sundays-Thursdays, 10:00 am-5:00 PM.

The VCU Department of Music is proud to present “Experiencing Villa-Lobos: An International Festival” at the end of this month.  This 3-day long celebration of the life and work of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos will bring together artists and scholars of Villa-Lobos’ work.  The festival will feature performances by pianist Sonia Rubinsky, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, saxophonist Al Regni, VCU faculty and ensembles, as well as master classes, panel discussions, paper readings and other performances. You won’t want to miss this historic event.

Tickets to Experiencing Villa-Lobos events are available at the VCU Music Box Office (804.828.6776) and most events are $10 and under.  For more information about Experiencing Villa-Lobos, including the full concert schedule, visit the official website.

And if you can’t make it to the Festival’s first concert (March 27 at 8 p.m.), be sure to tune in to 88.9FM WCVE to hear the live broadcast!”

For more information including  a complete schedule visit the festival website.

VCU Dance NEXUS 2007-2008
Student works selected for gala recognition, one for national adjudication

Photo by Sarah Ferguson of VCU Dance majors Corrine Bates and Felix Cruz in senior Rachel Warren’s Into Being.

Richmond, VA —  — Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography participated in the Mid-Atlantic Region American College Dance Festival (ACDF), March 12-16, held at Goucher College. Nine students, two faculty members and Dance Chair Dr. James Frazier traveled to Baltimore, MD over spring break, where the students performed and took classes and the faculty (Dr, Frazier, Melanie Richards and Adam Chamberlin) taught classes. The Department presented two works, Into Being, choreographed by senior Rachel Warren, and etches of herskin, choreographed by senior Ami Dowden-Fant, for adjudication during the festival.

Out of four adjudication concerts containing approximately 50 dances choreographed by students, faculty and guest artists from universities around the region (Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C.), both works presented by VCU Dance were chosen by a process of blind adjudication for inclusion in the festival’s culminating gala performance, consisting of 11 works in total.

Beyond even the gala recognition, Dowden-Fant’s etches of herskin was one of three gala works chosen for presentation and further adjudication at the National American College Dance Festival in New York in June. In addition, VCU Dance junior Danielle Currica was nominated for “best performer” at the National level for her performance in Dowden-Fant’s work, which she danced with freshman Kimberly Palmer.

Rachel Warren’s tango-inspired dance, Into Being, in which she also performed, included sophomores, Felix Cruz and Corrine Bates; Junior, Glen Lewis; and seniors, Tashara Gavin-Moorehead and Ami Dowden-Fant. The sextet’s performance drew interest and admiration from their peers for the duration of the Festival, and in addition to selection for the gala performance, received positive, insightful feedback from the three festival adjudicators.

Junior, Charli Brissey’s solo, Subject, was presented in the ACDF Informal Concert and closed the show with cheers and prolonged applause from the audience. Likewise, the VCU Dance faculty members’ classes were very well attended and extremely well received.

VCU Dance Chair Dr. James Frazier says, “While we continue to become better known amongst students at peer institutions, our reputation precedes us amongst dance professionals. VCU Dance is on the lips of  teachers, choreographers, and dancers all over the place. I become more aware of it with each experience like this. The sophistication of our students’ work and the quality of their performances are consistently acknowledged.”

The VCU Dance NEXUS 2007-2008 Season, with a stunning array of performances, film screenings, guest artist residencies and master classes, delivers all the energy and explosive creativity of a national festival. The VCU Dance NEXUS 2007-2008 Season is made possible in part by funding graciously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the Virginia Commission for the Arts; the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation, the Elmwood Fund, and VCUarts.

Craft/Material Studies Visiting Artist Lecture:
March 20th @ 11:00am in the Fine Arts Building, Room 238

Andy Buck is an artist / craftsman who lives and works in upstate New York. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA 1993) and Virginia Commonwealth University (BA 1987), his work brings together traditional craftsmanship, investigations in form, and richly painted surfaces. An active maker for more than 15 years, Buck has presented his work in over 100 exhibitions in galleries and museums all around the country and abroad. His work is represented by Pritam & Eames in East Hampton, NY, Gallery Naga in Boston, and Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia and has been published in a number of books and magazines. He is currently an Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Careful

March 20 – April 22
Opening reception March 20, 7–8pm

259 10th Ave
Btwn W 25 & 26 Sts
 (Chelsea)

Langdon received her BFA in 2000 from the Department of Painting and Printmaking.