The Cross Mackenzie Ceramic Arts presents new works from Hyun Kyung Yoon (MFA Craft/Martial Studies) opening reception May 16th 6–8pm.  The Exhibition runs from May 16th–June 18th.

Cross Mackenzie Ceramic Arts
1054 31st Washington DC
202.333.7970
www.crossmackenzie.com 

Assistant professor in Kinetic Imaging Stephen Vitiello exhibits his latest installation Four Color Sound at DiverseWorks in Houston Texas. In the installation rooms are lit only by LED lights which blend with a synthesized mist creating a beautiful, meditative space for the occupants. The reactions have been amazing.

DiverseWorks is a non-profit art center dedicated to presenting new visual, performing, and literary art. DiverseWorks is a place where the process of creating art is valued and where artists can test new ideas in the public arena. By encouraging the investigation of current artistic, cultural and social issues, DiverseWorks builds, educates, and sustains audiences for contemporary art.

www.stephenvitiello.com

Another Time’s Forgotten Space
May 22 - June 21
Rare Gallery
521 W 26th St.
New York, NY

Davis a BFA alumnus from Sculpture + Extended Media has been working on his latest show, Another Time’s Forgotten Space, since August 2005. The opening will be held Thursday, May 22nd 6–8pm with an after party at the Hudson Yards Cafe 450 10th Ave at 35th Street.

VCU School of the Arts in Qatar held its 7th commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 10 at 5 p.m. at the Ritz Carlton in Doha, Qatar. Thirty-nine students graduated including 5 from Fashion Design, 23 in Graphic Design, 10 from Interior Design and one Interior and Fashion Design double major. The speaker was Cuban-born American fashion designer Isabel Toledeo.

Graphic Design hosts a senior exhibition show
May 16–23
Opening reception for friends, family, and the public: May 16 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm
Location: 1509 W Main Street

Student works selected for gala recognition, one for national adjudication

The 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 Corinne 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.

The presenting program of VCU Dance is committed to building and engaging dance audiences in the University and Richmond community while providing opportunities for artists to present and create work. Recognized by professional dancers and choreographers as “a place where things are happening,” Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography offers a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for careers in dance.

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

May 9 – June 7, 2008
Opening reception
Friday, May 9, 7-9 p.m.

Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce “Generation of the Stage,” an exhibition featuring new paintings by Erin Arnold. The show will open with a reception on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. The show will continue through June 7, 2008.

Erin Arnold scrutinizes our relationship to visual culture in the age of technology In paintings on view in the current show at Reynolds Gallery, “The Generation of the Stage.” Her imagery and subject matter are drawn from elements of the technology that bombards our daily lives. Arnold explains that these paintings “focus on a youthful American set, the sort that grew up on stage, watching television…They grew up, naturally – watching – but they became aware, quite quickly, of also being watched…In reality television, on YouTube, and on a million surveillance cameras, we watch ourselves.” This Foucauldian self-awareness generates a sense of anxiety amongst the American youth, which Arnold identifies as a generation that appears “puzzlingly irresolute” in contrast to the complexity of our technology. In other words, the new generation is passive and unwilling to critically assess what they see despite our fast-paced visual and technology-oriented culture. With her recent series of paintings, Arnold attempts to unravel the duality of “the hard-to-look-for and the easy-to-look-at” that plagues this new generation.

Arnold is the recipient of the 2007-2008 VCU/Plant Zero Painting and Printmaking Residency Fellowship. Born in Bryan, Texas, Arnold grew up in coastal Maine. She received her BFA from Cornell University in 2005 and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in several solo and group shows in the United States and England. Arnold recently participated in shows at the ISB Gallery in Providence, Rhode Island, the Hunter College Times Square Gallery in New York, and at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Reynolds Gallery
1514 West Main Street
Richmond, Virginia 23220
tel. 804.355.6553

For more information please contact Jenna Jones at Reynolds Gallery at 804-355-6553 or
 breynoldsg@aol.com.

At the recent National Service-Learning conference in Minneapolis, several Art Education faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students facilitated on-site arts-based service-learning projects. For the Empty Bowls project (concept taken from an international project to fight hunger), participants created designs on a ceramic bowl that was later fired for daily usage. These bowls were then sold to either the artists or general public and all proceeds were given to a local organization fighting hunger and homelessness. The second project, called Project Ignition, promoted safe driving for all drivers, especially teens and was created to inspire others to drive safely by sharing a personal story. Participants created Buckle Buddies, a rice and beans filled decorated sock, that was intended to be placed on driver’s seatbelts as a reminder of their pledge for safe driving.

The National Service-Learning conference annually attracts educators, researchers, community members, and youth from all over the globe to hear and present about service-learning issues, network with other service-learning advocates, and participate in service-learning projects.

Photo credit: Sue Schommer

An exhibit by Rachel Hayes (MFA 2006) at the Roger Smith Hotel

May 9–May 30, 2008
Opening Reception - Saturday May 10th from 6-8pm

Inside and Outside, Homespun and Haute, Reflections and Shadows, Sacred and Secular, Revealing and Concealing, Lithe and Dense…
“The Duality of Light Without Violence” will be an unattainable environment to the passing viewers, leaving the installation to be a ‘color shelter’ enclosed within the gallery.
THE LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, THE LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force interaction between high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions and nearly 25,000 daily passersby. For more information, call 212-339-2092, or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com.

The gallery is located on the corner of 47th street and Lexington Avenue
All exhibitions are on view 24/7.

The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY. 10017
212.755.1400
 www.rogersmitharts.com

Saturday, May 3 at 3:00 pm

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

SkowheganTALKS is free with admission to P.S.1
Artists Sanford Biggers (Associate Professor Sculpture + Extended Media) and Paul Pfeiffer will present the third talk in a new series of conversations, SkowheganTALKS.  The series features emerging artists who are recent Skowhegan alumni “interviewing” established artists who have been faculty at Skowhegan.  While the association with Skowhegan is the common factor among all the artists, the conversations focus on subjects of broader interest including the participating artists’ current and past work and the challenges and opportunities inherent in the experience of working as an artist today.  The format of SkowheganTALKS is an extension of the non-traditional teacher student model that is at the core of the Skowhegan experience, one that stresses collegiality over a hierarchical construction.

Skowhegan is pleased to present SkowheganTALKS at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an institution whose embrace of new ideas and trends in contemporary art mirrors the spirit of experimentation and risk-taking that distinguishes Skowhegan.
Upcoming SkowheganTALKS:
Saturday, May 31 - Ellen Altfest (‘02) and Robert Storr (Alum ‘78, Faculty ‘02, and Skowhegan Governor)
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave
Long Island City, 11101

Banner Caption:
Image #1:     Sanford Biggers, The Something’ Suite, 2007, performance at The Box, New York, featuring Biggers’ Cheshire, 2007 video and Imani Uzuri. A PERFORMA Commission. Courtesy PERFORMA and Mary Goldman Gallery. Photo copyright Paula Court

Image #2:     Paul Pfeiffer, Live from Neverland, 2006. Installation at Thomas Dane - two channel video installation. Duration: 10 minutes 18 seconds. Dimensions variable. Ed. of 3, 1 AP. Courtesy the artist and The Project Gallery, New York.