2010-2011

FEBRUARY 17  - MARCH 4
Video Art screening series : works on loan from the Electronic Arts Intermix - New York, NY.

Co-curated by WCU Art History Professor Seth McCormick, the video art screening series will run throughout the spring semester and feature a range of works in the collection of EAI.  We kick off this series with two early works that echo the performance-based roots of video art.  These two works deal with issues of synchronization and feedback between the live and the recorded image, exploring the way it conditions the relationship between performer and audience.

Vito Acconci artRemote Control
Vito Acconci
1971, 62:30 min, b&w, sound, Two Channels
With: Vito Acconci, Kathy Dillon

The two-channel piece Remote Control is an exercise in manipulation and control between artist and subject, male and female. On separate channels, the viewer sees Acconci and Kathy Dillon sitting alone in wooden boxes in different rooms, each facing a static camera. Although they can only see and hear each other on separate monitors, they attempt to interact and respond to one another directly, as if their communication were unmediated. Through language and gesture, Acconci tries to manipulate Dillon's actions from his box, as though by remote control. He instructs her to tie herself up with rope, gesturing as though he were actually in her presence, cajoling her to perform his commands, convincing himself that he is in control: "I'm bringing the rope over your knees... I'm lifting your legs gently." The isolation and displacement of the couple, and the viewer's voyeuristic position, serve to heighten the undercurrent of dominance and submission. Dillon, who at first silently complies with Acconci's commands, eventually reacts to his manipulation with an assertion of her own will.

Lip Sync
Bruce Nauman
1969, 57 min, b&w, sound

With the camera mounted upside down, framing only his mouth and neck, Nauman repeats the phrase "lip sync" over and over in loud whisper. Sound and image are intentionally unsynchronized, while the upside-down view of his lips and tongue in action provides a further disorienting quality to the work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Can See Your House from HereFEBRUARY 21- 25
School of Art & Design Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibitions: Courtney Chappell

Image: I Can See Your House From Here, 12" x 12", 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J. Fiber

OCTOBER 24,  2010 - MARCH 25, 2011
Worldviews: A Year in Collecting

The ongoing Worldviews series highlights selections from the permanent collection.  New gifts from Connie and George Bostic in honor of Robert Godfrey include works in a variety of media by Big Al Carter, Margaret Curtis, Alma Johnson and Taylor Spence.  Additions to the collection include ceramics by Akira Satake and Rob Pulleyn, a gift of glass from Richard and Jan Ritter, as well as donations from the Intaglio/Relief Archive to include an engraving by Porge Buck as well as etchings by Kevin Hogan and Terry Schupback-Gordon.  Other new additions to the collection include works by Teresa Prather,  Johanna Obermüller, Ann Ropp, Pinky Bass, Walter Darby Barnard, Ken Abbot, Cathy Griffin, Cundo Bermúdez, Tamara Lischka, Christopher  Rauschenberg, Bill Clements, Jeff Kinzel , Simon Carr.

Image Credit: J. Fiber (collaboration by James Esber and Jane Fine), Forced Entry, 2009 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JANUARY 20 - MARCH 26
In Sunshine and In Shadow: The Patrick Hall International Residency and the WNC University Student Collaborators

Tasmanian artist Patrick Hall collaborated with 18 students from UNC-Asheville, Western Carolina University, Appalachian State University, Haywood Community College and Blue Ridge Community College to create "In Sunshine and in Shadow" a mixed media sculpture, during Hall's International Artist Residency that took place in May 2009 at Marshall High Studios in Marshall, NC. Hall's residency was hosted by the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, and partnering institutions noted above. This exhibit features selected work by students who participated in this residency, as well as documentary photographs of the month long residency. The primary area of focus for this residency was an examination of the transitory nature of human experience. The physical outcome of the project, which Hall calls In Sunshine or in Shadow, was to make a small caravan, a mobile holiday home on wheels. The surface cladding of this vehicle of memory and spaceship for future travel would be hundreds of pairs of sun and eyeglasses and over 300 LED lights. Western Carolina University student participating in the Patrick Hall Residency were, Britney Carroll, MFA '09; Courtney Chappell, MFA '11; Faye Holliday, BFA '11; Mike Polomik, MFA '10; Faye Holliday, BFA '11; Janine Paris, BFA '10 Tracy Kirchmann, MFA '10; and Brandon Guthrie , MFA '09, serving as Faculty Advisor.

 

 

 

Video Art screening series : works on loan from the Electronic Arts Intermix - New York, NY

Co-curated by WCU Art History Professor Seth McCormick, the video art screening series will run throughout the spring semester and feature a range of works in the collection of EAI.

MARCH 17 - APRIL 1
Input : Output -from video to performance

This series centers on works from the late sixties and early seventies that deal with issues of synchronization and feedback between the live and the recorded image, exploring the way it conditions the relationship between performer and audience.

Left Side Right Side
Joan Jonas
1972, 8:50 min, b&w, sound
In this early work, Jonas translates her performance strategies to video, applying the inherent properties of the medium to her investigations of the self and the body. Jonas performs in a direct, one-on-one confrontation with the viewer, using the immediacy and intimacy of video as conceptual constructs. Exploring video as both a mirror and a masking device, and using her body as an art object, she undertakes an examination of self and identity, subjectivity and objectivity. Creating a series of inversions, she splits her image, splits the video screen, and splits her identification within the video space, playing with the spatial ambiguity of non-reversed images (video) and reversed images (mirrors). Though Jonas' approach is formalist and reductive, her performance reveals an ironic theatricality. Illustrating the phenomenology of video as a mirror, Left Side Right Side is a classic of early performance-based, conceptual video.

Performer/Audience/Mirror
Dan Graham 
1975, 22:52 min, b&w, sound
Recorded at Video Free America in San Francisco, this work is a phenomenological inquiry into the audience/performer relationship and the notion of subjectivity/objectivity. Graham stands in front of a mirrored wall facing a seated audience; he describes the audience's movements and what they signify. He then turns and describes himself and the audience in the mirror. Graham writes: "Through the use of the mirror the audience is able to instantaneously perceive itself as a public mass (as a unity), offsetting its definition by the performer ('s discourse). The audience sees itself reflected by the mirror instantly while the performer's comments are slightly delayed. First, a person in the audience sees himself 'objectively' ('subjectively') perceived by himself, next he hears himself described 'objectively' ('subjectively') in terms of the performer's perception."

 

 

 

MARCH 22 – APRIL 15
ESSE QUAM VIDERI

This exhibition includes 20 self portraits made by Muslim Americans living in North Carolina. The artist has worked with the Muslim community across the state for over two years to compile this series of images and stories. It is sponsored by the Center for Global Initiatives at UNC Chapel Hill and is being shown statewide. The goal of the project is to help the non-Muslim understand this community in a more well rounded, realistic light as compared to the stereotypes and single issue coverage given them in the mainstream media. Many college students do not know a Muslim. This project creates a line of communication directly from the Muslim community to the student. The content of the exhibition ranges from protest to celebration with an overall message that reaffirms our shared humanity. More information online at http://www.muslimselfportrait.info/.

Join us for an artist talk by project director Todd Drake, currently an artist in residence at UNC Chapel Hill’s Center for Global Initiatives, March 22, 2011 at 6 p.m. in the Fine and Performing Arts Center room 130.

 

 

 

 

 

MARCH 24 – APRIL 29
Susan Harbage Page

School of Art & Design Spring 2011 Artist in Residence, Page, creates large-scale photographs, altered textiles, videos and installations that address such concerns as race and gender, identity, politics and immigration. 

Join us for an artist talk by Susan Harbage Page, March 24, 2011 at 4 p.m. in the Fine & Performing Arts Center room 130. 

 

Video Art screening series : works on loan from the Electronic Arts Intermix - New York, NY

Co-curated by WCU Art History Professor Seth McCormick, the video art screening series will run throughout the spring semester and feature a range of works in the collection of EAI.

APRIL 28 – MAY 13

Hannah Wilke Through the Large Glass
Hannah Wilke
1976, 10 min, color, silent

Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy
Joan Jonas
1972, 17:24 min, b&w, sound

 

APRIL 7 – MAY 6
School of Art & Design 43rd Annual Art Student Juried Exhibition

An independently juried exhibition featuring the best of new and innovative creative expression in a variety of media by undergraduates of the School of Art & Design. This year’s jurors include Jolene Mechanic, curator of Flood Gallery Fine Art Center and Cameron Campbell-Wilkens, Design Strategist. 
Participate in the show by downloading the prospectus HERE and the entry form HERE.

An independently juried exhibition featuring the best of new and innovative creative expression in a variety of media by undergraduates of the School of Art & Design. This year’s jurors include Jolene Mechanic, curator of Flood Gallery Fine Art Center and Cameron Campbell-Wilkens, Design Strategist.  Participate in the show by downloading the prospectus HERE and the entry form HERE.

 

 

APRIL 6 – JUNE 24
Boundless: Selections from the Book Arts Collection

Boundless explores a wide variety of formats and structures of the Artist Book, a synthesis of form and content which provides a bridge between the traditional book and contemporary art. This exhibit will include a variety of artists including noted Book Artists like Joni Mabe and Dieter Roth as well unique books by photographers, sculptors and painters like Ed Ruscha. Visitors are encouraged to handle a select grouping of tactile books where a viewer’s actions are required to complete the aesthetic idea.

 

 

May 19 - August 5 Rough and Tumble: Landscapes and Cityscapes from the Collection

 

This exhibit features works in a variety of media that depict the natural and unnatural scenery of our planet. Featuring works by Fumio Fujita, Quita Brodhead, Richard Florsheim, Martha Armstrong, Louis Finkelstein and more.

 

5th Anniversary Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition OCTOBER 2011

 

Featuring the work of J. Andrew Davis (Brevard, NC), Brian Glaze (Hendersonville, NC), Hanna Jubran (Grimesland, NC), Deborah LaGrasse (Crawfordville, FL), Robert Winkler (Asheville, NC), this competition and exhibition celebrates the first five years of the Fine & Performing Arts Center at Western Carolina University.  These juried sculptures are on display in the courtyard of the Fine & Performing Arts Center until October 2011.

JULY 11 - NOVEMBER 4 Vitreographs: Highlights from the Collection Vitreographs

 

Fine art prints created from a glass matrix, are hand-pulled prints achieved through intaglio or planographic process, a technique which was pioneered by glass artist Harvey K. Littleton in 1974. This exhibit highlights significant works from the archive of artists’ vitreographs co-published with Harvey K. Littleton at Littleton Studios, Spruce Pine, NC. The Fine Art Museum is host to this vitreograph archive, the largest in the world. 

JULY 21 - SEPT 30 the gods of the machine : John Lytle Wilson

 

Reception Thursday, SEPTEMBER 15, 5 – 7 Artist Interview 4 – 5
Birmingham based painter, John Lytle Wilson, presents his new work.  Wilson’s bold works stem from his interest in the power of images.  From advertising and product design to museum pieces and iconography, we have long used imagery to attract, convert and sell.  John sees these modern and ancient exampels as segments of a larger continuum of social aesthetics.  John uses animal and robot imagery as stand-ins for traditional human subjects, allowing him to explore issues like consciousness, free will and mortality.
 

AUGUST 21 - OCTOBER 28 Understory: ALICE SEBRELL  Reception Sunday, AUGUST 21, 2-4pm

 

Alice Sebrell uses photography and other media (wood, metal, glass, etc.) to create work that combines imagery from the natural world of plants and animals with the human-constructed environment. This exhibition includes selections from several recent bodies of work, both 2D and 3D, all of which reveal a curiosity about (and appreciation for) the secrets of the world. The work asks questions, but provides no answers, about the story behind the narrative…the understory. A North Carolina native, Alice Sebrell is the Program Director for the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in downtown Asheville.