September 5 – October 11, 2008

Opening Friday, September 5, 7–10pm

Diverse formats and media are used to create works that are both intellectually and visually seductive. Rebecca Murtaugh alters the use of materials such as Post-it Notes™ to transcend the use of everyday objects while Matthew Gehring references pop culture in airbrushed magazines and interactive media.

1708 Gallery

319 W Broad St

Richmond, VA

  ShContemporary 08 returning for the second year to the spectacular Shanghai Exhibition Center promises to create an intriguing dialogue between the Orient and Occident art scenes. 150 world class galleries representing over 20 countries will participate in THE Asia Pacific Art Fair - the best galleries from the East will be juxtaposed with the top Western galleries.”Best of Discovery” a unique curated section featuring over 30 of the most interesting emerging artists from the entire Asia Pacific region will be presented in a unique museum style sales exhibition to the global audience for the first time. ShContemporary is cooperating with 11 specialized curators from the Asia Pacific region which guarantees an in depth research and strong artistic content of newly discovered talent never presented in an art fair.The new matchpoint of the international art scene comes from Asia. ShContemporary is the only international art show that provides a comprehensive, top quality overview of the artistic scene in Asia and creates a cultural cross over with the works of Western artists.ShContemporary 08 coincides with the opening of the Shanghai Biennale; offering art collectors, curators, and art enthusiasts an unparallel art extravaganza!

  Biba Schutz Monday, September 15 at 3:30pm   Location Fine Arts Building, Room 238 www.bibaschutz.com New York artist Biba Schutz has combined her various fields of study to create a totally unique look to her jewelry. She has a BA in design from American University in Washington, DC, as well as education in printmaking from Pratt Graphics Center in NY, and fiber from Instituto de Allende, in Mexico. Schutz’s jewelry shows evidence of both printmaking and fiber, as it is rich in positive and negative space, as well as being wonderfully tactile. Her work is also mostly constructed from oxidized sterling silver, bronze, and copper, giving warmth and depth to her already organic look. Biba Schutz has been featured in numerous publications. 

  Stephanie Bingham (current BFA student in Sculpture) is featured in a group show, Personal Commentaries:  August 31 - September 27 Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts 813 Sophia Street Fredericksburg, VA 22401 - (540) 373-5646 http://fccava.org/2008_exhibits.html 

Exhibition Opening and Book Signing

Thursday, September 4, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Exhibition on View:Thursday, September 04, 2008 — Saturday, October 04, 2008Danziger Projects521 West 26th StreetNew York, New York 212-629-6778

As a staff photographer for Look magazine in 1968, Fusco was commissioned to document all the events surrounding the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy. In addition to capturing the thousands of Americans who stood by the railroad tracks to greet the funeral train carrying Kennedy¹s coffin, he also photographed the mourners gathered at St. Patrick¹s Cathedral in New York, as well as the dramatic night burial in Arlington National Cemetery.Coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy¹s assassination, and just prior to the publication of the Aperture book RFK, James Danziger Projects presents an exhibition of this extraordinary body of work by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco, including many never before seen or published images selected from the untapped treasure trove of slides that comprise the Library of Congress¹s Look magazine collection.This exhibition, and the Aperture book, collectively provide a new perspective on this legendary photographer¹s singular achievement. It also helps solidify the status of this classic body of work as one of the great efforts in photographic reportage and an incomparable document of this pivotal moment in U.S. history.

  Tuesday, September 16 200811:00am – 12:30pm VCU Commons Theater907 Floyd Ave  South African-born, Breitz creates art that is seemingly minimalist, comprised of simplified, recycled, fragmented images from popular culture, in a manner resembling pop art. Yet, despite the initial facade of easy accessibility, Breitz’s work questions and challenges the visual conventions it has appropriated leaving them exposed and vulnerable to new interpretations. The allure of her work lies in the recognizable mages of iconic movie stars, while its significance is created through Breitz’s ability to alter meaning through technique and context. In the process, the pleasures of familiarity inherent in popular visual imagery are transformed into provocative and uncanny works of art. A participant in the 51st Venice Biennale of 2005, Breitz portrays herself as an artist who insists not on living outside society, but who chooses to embrace social realities and utilizes them as medium. The ready-made aspect of her work, while traditionally derived, is implemented into a different genre as Breitz sees the use not as option but rather as an inevitable circumstance of present society. Drawn most to the hidden dysfunctions which dictate personal identity, Breitz becomes a virus which seeks to expose and redistribute the boundaries within consumer society. Breitz views the culture industry as a parent, her audience becomes a growing teenager finally able to think for itself, and her work is the means for this realization. The audience is drawn like a moth to a flame, enchanted by the familiar, yet struck with a new message Breitz has cleverly crafted under it all. 

High and Wide

September 6 – October 18 2008

reception for the artist Saturday September 6, 6–9pm

The Acuna-Hansen Gallery is pleased to present Eric Sall’s first solo show in Los Angeles. Informed by the history of abstract painting as well as popular culture, Eric Sall (MFA Painting and Printmaking alum) creates paintings that are both stunning and visually challenging. Exploiting the physical nature of paint, Sall’s surfaces are lush with intuitive gestures, intriguing composition and imagery that alludes to figuration while remaining firmly grounded in painterly abstraction. 

Acuna-Hansen Gallery 427 Bernard Street.

www.ahgallery.com

Friday September 12, 2008

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Singleton Center for the Performing Arts - Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall Monroe Park Campus

Winners of the Jesus Silva Scholarship for guitar students present a classical guitar concert. 

This concert is free and no tickets are required.

Sanford Biggers assistant professor of Sculpture + Extended Media will be the distinguished lecturer at the opening  of the Sullivan Galleries at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The first show “Ahh… Decadence!,” opens August 23 and will run through September 27. the exhibition, curated by Lisa Wainwright, brings together Biggers with over forty Chicago artists to explore decadence as associated with excessively ornamental expressions that suggest decay, the nonrational, pleasure, sex, and death. Recalling a style that reached its height in Europe during the 1890s, the work in this exhibition reflects a careful and critical perspective on conditions that encourage its return in contemporary art. Biggers, who often incorporates performance into his sculptures and installations and is known for his improvisatory edge, here takes on his first role as exhibition designer. “Ahh… Decadence!” is supported in part by The Kristyna M. Driehaus Foundation.

SAIC Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series:  Sanford Biggers

Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 3pm

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, IL 

Thursday, September 4 at 10am 

Bowe Street Building, Room 535 

‘01 Alumna Rebecca Murtaugh returns to VCU for a lecture kicking off Craft/Material Studies Visiting Artist Lecture 2008-09 series.