New Paintings by Katherine DeGaetani
Painting and Printmaking BFA student

May 2– June 30, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, May 2, 7–9pm
Hors d’oeuvres courtesy of Baja Bean Company
Music by DJ Say Dog

Main Art Gallery
1537 W. Main St., Richmond, VA

May 2, 5-9pm
Kinetic Imaging MFA Candidacy Exhibition. Recent sound and image work of Althea Georgelas
at The Etching Tin Recording Studio, 320 Brook Road

http://iamegon.com/ 

VCU Sculpture MFA Thesis
Annex Exhibition

Sami Ben Larbi
Lily Cox-Richard
David Grainger
Eli Kessler

May 2-18, 2008

Opening Receptions: May 2, 6-9pm & May 9, 7-9pm

2 Locations: 5-7 West Broad St & 209 N Foushee, Richmond VA

Gallery Hours:
Friday 5-7pm
Sat & Sun 12-5pm
and by appointment — contact commonbric.com

Friday May 9, 2008: open until 9pm
Extended hours, in conjunction with the VCU Anderson Gallery Thesis opening

Presented by the Department of Photography and Film

Come see new, innovative and exciting student work.

Over 20 shorts: Animation, Documentary, Narrative and Experimental

Thursday, May 1st, 2008  7pm @ Grace Street Theatre

Free and open to the public

Rachele Riley (MFA Graphic Design 2005) will be chairing a panel “Nerve Impulse: How Graphic Designers Respond to the World” at the ARTspace conference in 2009. The panel will explore contemporary graphic designers whose creative work addresses issues of social and political concern.

In addition to chairing the conference Rachele will be leaving for Nevada in early May to research the history of the Nevada Testing Site and to learn more about the impact of military activity on the people and landscape in this region of the U.S. to work on her project “Evolution of Silence.” This project is supported by a Faculty Research Grant from UNCC. More info on the concept and itinerary can be read online at: http://www.racheleriley.com/work_evolsilence.htm

Natalie “Alabama” Chanin will speak to fashion design and merchandising students on Tuesday, April 29th at 7:00 PM in VCU Student Commons, 907 Floyd Avenue, SALON 4 on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. The talk is open to all VCU students and the public. Natalie Chanin is best known for her work as co-founder and designer of Project Alabama, which became known for elaborately embellished and completely hand-sewn garments, made from recycled materials by local artisans and sold in stores around the world. Natalie was a critic for one of the design studios in the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising this semester.

Ms. Canin creates projects that reflect a wide range of disciplines, from sustainable clothing and home furnishings to a limited edition jewelry line.  Natalie is currently developing an archive of oral histories entitled, “The History of Textiles,” which is a collection of oral histories from textile workers including farmers and their wives, displaced factory workers and home sewers.  Her documentary film, “Stitch,” is like a road map through rural America as told through the eyes of those who made quilts, as well as those who used them.

Today, Natalie runs Alabama Chanin, a company which continues to enlist the craftsmanship of local artisans and strives to bring a contemporary context to age-old techniques. Natalie sees herself as a perpetuator of what she calls the “Living Arts”.  These Living Arts consist of craft and traditions that have been passed down through generations of women and men – connecting us to our roots, our past, our community, and consequently to our present. Natalie has a Degree in Environmental Design from North Carolina State University and works simultaneously as designer, manufacturer, stylist, filmmaker, mother, artisan, cook and collector of stories from her home in Florence, Alabama.

http://www.alabamachanin.com/

Presented by the Department of Craft/Material Studies
Thursday, April 24th from 4–6pm
FAB Gallery
1000 W. Broad

Nancy Blum currently lives and works between New York City and Richmond, VA. She received here MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Arts. Nancy makes drawings, sculpture and installations that explore pattern and the architecture of nature. Her works are visceral, meditative, an rhythmic.

Nancy recently completed a public art commissions fro the charlotte Area Transit System in Charlotte, NC, and the Metro Transit Authority, New York. As well, fifty manhole covers, produced by the Seattle Arts Commission and Seattle City Lights, are placed in heavily trafficked parts of that city and a 77-foot wall of aluminum and resin ‘flowers’ were permanently mounted in the Seattle/Tacoma International Airport.

Nancy has been both an artist in residence and a teacher at countless institutions and her work has been featured extensively in solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries across the country. Her work has been recognized through fellowships with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Peter S. Reed Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.

For more information about the artist, visit www.nancyblum.com.

Responding to the challenge of the biennial format, curators are increasingly taking such shows into uncharted territory. Adam Szymczyk, director of the Kunsthalle Basel and a cofounder of Warsaw’s Foksal Gallery Foundation, and Brussels-based curator and critic Elena Filipovic have divided this year’s Berlin Biennial into a main show on view in the daytime and a series of events taking place in the evenings. Some forty artists are participating in the exhibition component, which occupies three sites—the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie, and a new artist-run outdoor space, the Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum. After hours, performances, screenings, readings, and other events will be held both in these venues and at locations that foster different kinds of artistic production.

http://www.berlinbiennale.de

Translated from German by Oliver E. Dryfuss.

Reception: May 2nd 2008, 7–10 pm, free and open to the public
3rd and Broad (in the lobby and vault areas of old Central National Bank building).
*May 2nd –May 8th  exhibition will be open by appointment only call
8044022971 or 77372872

VCU Sculpture 2009 MFA candidates are pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition marking the end of an exciting academic year. Dont miss this opportunity to see new works by this diverse group of six young artists:

Patrick Cadenhead delves into popular consciousness to explore archetypes of musical celebrity. For this exhibition, he presents a series of mysterious portable monuments.
In her recent sculptures, Mia Feuer investigates the illusion of security through architectural form. Feuer, whose work is informed by time she spent in the West Bank, searches for an understanding of barricades both as signs and as physical realities that restrict freedom and deeply affect peoples lives.

Julie Ann Nagle is fascinated by the unabashed romanticism underpinning the relationship of Enlightenment scientists to the unknown. In many ways, this spirit of wonder is the same spirit with which she enters her studio.  In the making of her objects, Nagle combines scientific practices and sensibilities of the Victorian era with a contemporary understanding of history and the technology of our time.

Brian Taylors installation uses archery, large masses of bundled wicker, and casts of foam and cork to work out connections between bad vision and attention spans.

Chris Mahonski tries to understand the aestheticized image of survival projected in media and advertising. Mahonski, who is deeply engaged with the outdoors, dissects and recombines his experiences with adventures he fantasizes about.  His concerns about the state of out planet manifest themselves in his work, which often borders on the apocalyptic.

In her videos, Maria Pithara wears makeshift appendages which neither restrain nor aid her body. While alluding to the tradition of portraiture, she performs simple actions in front of the camera that allow her to blur the line
between body and object.

*For more information, contact Maria Pithara at mariapithara@yahoo.com

Amy Chan
Lewellyn Hensley
Virginia Samsel
Katie Youell

Exhibition runs May 1st–31st 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 8th, 5–6pm

Locker 50b Project
www.vcu.edu/arts/locker50b
VCU Fine Arts Building, 3rd Floor
1000 West Broad St
Richmond, VA