Senior Art Majors Exhibition @ Coburn Gallery

Senior Art Majors Exhibition

25 April – 14 May 2013

1-7p.m. Monday through Saturday

Opening: 25 April at 4:30 in Coburn Gallery located on the main floor of the Worner Student Center.

The Senior Art Majors Exhibition is an annual group show displaying the diverse studies of 25 seniors who will be graduating with a Studio Arts degree.

Across the Colorado College campus Senior Art Majors have been showing their works individually.

It is now time to share their works as a collective.

Artists in Alphabetical Order:

Adam Dickerson

Camila Galfore,

Cynthia Taylor

Daniel Alvarado

Deborah Detchon

Denali Gillaspie

Dylan Conway

Emily Franklin

Erin Gould

Hallie Kopald

Hollis Moore

Ian Stabler

John Christie

Lacey Carter

Lila Pickus

Malcolm Perkins-Smith

Renee Wooley

Noah Gallo-Brown

Olivia Myerson

Robin Gleason

Sarah Kelsey

Sophia Schneider

Theodore Benson

Tsipora Prochovnick

This exhibit is supported by
the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund
and the Art Department Stillman Fund for Exhibitions

Any thing that Is strang

 March 25 – April 16, 2013

Coburn Gallery

Friday, March 29 from 4:30 – 6pm

Reception and Gallery Talk by Aaron Cohick, Printer of the Colorado College Press

Free and open to the public

Structured as a reading room, this hands-on exhibition features books, broadsides, posters & other ephemera from two Colorado Springs publishers of handmade books: the NewLights Press and The Press at Colorado College. The work of both presses is focused on a critical engagement with the material word. What, how, why can a printed book or poster be in the screen age? How can an engagement with the physical processes of making texts and books revitalize our perceptions of our culture and our roles in it?

The NewLights Press is an independent publisher of experimental writing and artists’ books, concentrating on where the two can and do overlap. The Press at Colorado College, founded in 1978, is a letterpress studio dedicated to printing and publishing artists’ books, broadsides, posters and other ephemera. Aaron Cohick is behind them both—he founded the NewLights Press in Baltimore in 2000, and in 2010 he became the Printer of The Press at Colorado College.

Coburn Gallery is located in the Worner Campus Center, 902 N. Cascade Avenue, on the Colorado College campus.  Gallery Hours are Monday-Saturday, 1:00 – 7:00 PM.

“Voices from Japan: Perspectives on Disaster and Hope

Perspectives on Disaster and Hope

March 25 — April 6, 2013

IDEA Space

Voices from Japan is a traveling multimedia group exhibition in response to the Tohoku region earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in March 2011. The original exhibition, assembled by the Studio for Cultural Exchange, Isao Tsujimoto, Director, was shown in New York in the summer of 2012 at the Cathedral of Sain John the Divine, and included 100 tanka (31-syllable Japanese poems) by 55 survivors of these disasters. The poems were translated by Laurel Rasplica Rodd (CU Boulder), Amy Heinrich (Columbia U.), and Joan E. Ericson (Colorado College). The exhibition also included photographs by Magdelena Solé, photo collages by Saori and Yoshihito Sasaguchi, calligraphy by Kanji Chiba, and a film about the aftermath by Joe Krakora. The exhibit at Colorado College includes many other forms of expression as well, such as calligraphy, photography, film, music and dance performances. The exhibit also contains a selection of poems, photos and a wall hanging by victims of the Waldo Canyon Fire. Despite the calamities in the Tohoku region, the poetry and other arts represent a form of healing from natural disaster. Voices from Japan aims to show the beauty in this art and the ability of the human spirit to overcome obstacles. Presentation at Colorado College is sponsored by the NEH Professorship.

Cross-Currents Film Series presents: le Grande Voyage

Showing at the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Art Center Film Screening Room

4pm Monday 25 February 2013

Free and open to the public

sponsored by the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund

Reda, a young French-Moroccan guy and his old father drive from the south of France to Mecca in order for the father to do his pilgrimage. At first distant, they gradually learn to know each other.

The film will be introduced by Peter Wright, Assistant Professor of Religion.

Audience members are invited to participate in a discussion following the film.

God, That’s Funny! Humor, Religion, Politics, Identity

Cornerstone Arts Week 2013

February 4 – 8

“What’s So Funny ? Humor, Faith, and Politics.”

Highlighting the vital role the arts play within the liberal arts, the annual Cornerstone Arts Week focuses on a theme, posed as a question, that is examined through exhibitions, performances, films, lectures, and special events. Cornerstone Arts Week 2013 explores the ways in which the arts create bridges between cultures, belief systems, and yes – even political parties

Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 7pm

God, That’s Funny!: Religion, Humor, Politics, Identity

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Richard F. Celeste South Theater

Free and open to the public

Reception to follow at IDEA Space

Sponsored by the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund

“How can I believe in God,” writes Woody Allen, “when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?” It’s a good question and also a good joke; it also reminds us that joking about religion is one of the most necessary, most fertile, and most tendentious things a writer can do. Join us for a panel discussion that boldly goes where polite conversation is told not to stray, into the realms of religion, politics, and humor. What kind of humor does the subject of religion provoke? Why is God something that we’re told not to joke about? Why is it so hard to resist laughing at religion?  What kinds of exchanges, what kinds of connections are made possible across religions when we use the bridge that humor provides?

These and other questions will be the subject of a panel discussion featuring three hilarious writers from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds who use humor to address potentially divisive subjects. Firoozeh Dumas, author of Laughing without an Accent and Funny in Farsi; Jonathan Goldstein, host of NPR’s Wiretap and author of Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bible; and Steven Hayward, Colorado College Professor of English and author of Don’t Be Afraid and The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke.

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Tribal Fusion: Arabic Dance in the Digital World

Cornerstone Arts Week 2013

February 4 – 8, 2013

“What’s So Funny ? Humor, Faith, and Politics.”

Highlighting the vital role the arts play within the liberal arts, the annual Cornerstone Arts Week focuses on a theme, posed as a question, that is examined through exhibitions, performances, films, lectures, and special events. Cornerstone Arts Week 2013 explores the ways in which the arts create bridges between cultures, belief systems, and yes – even political parties.

Friday, February 8, 7pm

Tribal Fusion: Arabic Dance in the Digital World

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Richard F. Celeste South Theater

Free and open to the public

Donna Mejia is a choreographer, lecturer, teacher, administrator, and performer specializing in contemporary dance, traditions of the Arab/African Diaspora, and new fusion traditions in world electronica. She lectures and teaches for colleges, private organizations and dance festivals internationally such as Jacob’s Pillow, and the Bates Dance Festival.

She taught at Colorado College for 10 years and was Director of the Colorado College International Summer Dance Festival for the last half of her term. For twelve years she served as managing director of the award-winning Harambee African Dance Ensemble of CU-Boulder. Donna was Guest Artist in Residence with the Smith College Dance Department for three years and received a full teaching fellowship for her MFA studies.  In 2011, she received the Selma Jeanne Cohen Endowed Lecture In International Dance Scholarship Honor by the Fulbright Association.

Donna is the founder and director of The Sovereign Project: a nonprofit arts collective dedicated to a reverent connection to the body by addressing social repression, distortion, sedentary lifestyle and acts of violence.

Her presentation for Cornerstone Arts Week will include performance and commentary on tribal fusion dance.

Sponsored by the Cultural Attractions Fund and the Theater and Dance Department

First Monday: “SyrianamericanA: A Nation-State of Mind” a lecture and performance by Omar Offendum

Monday, January 21, 2013, 11:15am

Armstrong Hall

Born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents and raised in the Washington, D.C., area, hip-hop artist Omar Offendum uses his lyrical talents to bridge his Middle Eastern roots to his Western upbringing. Offendum began his rap career as one-half of the N.O.M.A.D.S., an Arab/African-American hip-hop duo. In 2010, he released his first solo album, “SyrianamericanA” a potent mix of noir-soaked ’90s rap sounds laced with Islamic poetry and antiquated clips from Western documentaries on Syria.That Offendum has gained fans during the Arab Spring is no coincidence. Profoundly interested in social justice, Offendum feels he must use his music to create awareness. His songs, which are often political, resonate with Arab youths, many of whom have embraced one of America’s most popular forms of protest music: hip-hop. #Jan25, a song dedicated to the protestors who filled Tahrir Square in Cairo during the uprisings quickly went viral. Of the current Syrian conflict Offendum says, “A year and a half after [the protests], it’s a bloodbath…But at the same time, it’s an amazing time to be Syrian — people are saying things that you haven’t heard there in 50 years.”

Omar Offendum has been featured on several major news outlets and toured globally, helped raise thousands of dollars for various humanitarian relief organizations, and lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, American University of Beirut, and  NYU-Abu Dhabi. Sponsored by the Cultural Attractions Fund & the President’s Circle.Watch Omar Offendum’s recent videos here

Cornerstone Arts Week Keynote Presentation by Maz Jobrani

Cornerstone Arts Week 2013

February 4 – 8, 2013

“What’s So Funny ? Humor, Faith, and Politics.”

Highlighting the vital role the arts play within the liberal arts, the annual Cornerstone Arts Week focuses on a theme, posed as a question, that is examined through exhibitions, performances, films, lectures, and special events. Cornerstone Arts Week 2013 explores the ways in which the arts create bridges between cultures, belief systems, and yes – even political parties.

Colliding Currents?

Exploring the Boundaries of Humor, Faith and Politics

Wednesday, February 6, 7 pm

Richard F. Celeste Theater

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

825 N. Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Admission:

General Public: $10

CC ID: $5

Tickets available at Worner Center, 902 N. Cascade Avenue beginning January 28

Cornerstone Arts Week Keynote presenter Maz Jobrani is best known as a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which featured some of the top Middle Eastern-American comics in the world. The Axis of Evil Comedy Central Special premiered in 2007 as the first show on American TV with an all Middle Eastern/American cast. The DVD was also released in 2007. The tour started in the US and later went to the Middle East in the fall of 2007, selling out 27 shows in Dubai, Beirut, Cairo, Kuwait and Amman (where they performed in front of the King and Queen of Jordan.) Maz followed up his Axis of Evil Tour with his own solo international tour titled “Maz Jobrani; Brown and Friendly.” Maz was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he caught the acting bug after portraying the lead in his eighth grade production of “Li’l Abner.” He studied theater throughout high school, and then went on to earn a BA in Political Science and Italian at UC Berkeley. In the fall of 1994, while beginning a Ph.D. program in Political Science at UCLA, he visited the university’s prestigious theater program – and was immediately hooked back on acting. This led to him dropping out of the Ph.D. program to pursue his childhood passion. Maz has done standup on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” “Lopez Tonight,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn,“ Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend,” and England’s Paramount 2 Network. He is also a recurring panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” and has his own podcast with 2 other comedians called “Minivan Men.” His sketch comedy performances at the ACME Theater in Los Angeles were hailed as “devilishly funny” and “extraordinary” by LA Weekly.

Basim Magdy: How to Build an Invisible Monument

Coburn Gallery

January 22 — March 8, 2013

(Closed Block Break: February 13 — 17)

Tuesday, January 22, 4:30pm: Opening Reception and Artist Talk

Free and open to the public

Working in a variety of different media including drawing, painting, animation, installation, sculpture, film, video and sound, Magdy engages elements of humor, irony, and absurdity to alter and expand preconceived notions and entrenched cultural views. He is particularly interested in creating narrative structures that explore the space between reality and fiction and its influence on science, history, global culture and the dissemination of knowledge. Sponsored by the Cultural Attractions Fund.

American Qur’an: Works by Sandow Birk

IDEA Space

January 21 — March 12, 2013

Closed Block Break: February 13 — 17

In response to a decade of travel to various Islamic regions of the world and his own research into Islamic religion, American artist Sandow Birk created a large series of codex–like paintings adapting the techniques and stylistic devices of Arabic and Persian painting and albums, blending the past with the present, the East with the West, creating his “American Qur’an”.

Unlike the Gospels of the New Testament – which relate narratives of Jesus’ ministry on earth – the Holy Qur’an is believed to be the verbatim words of God as communicated through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad in the 7th Century CE. Collected together and grouped generally according to length (rather than chronologically), the 114 chapters (“suras”) form a collection of sermon-like “revelations” that are the fundamental text of Islam.

Presented in the form of illuminated verses and using an English translation of the Qur’an in hand rendered text that is an amalgam of Islamic calligraphy and the letters of urban graffiti that he finds around his Los Angeles neighborhood, Birk illuminates the verses with scenes from contemporary American experiences, both at home and abroad. The project, when finished, will illustrate the entire 114 suras of the Qur’an, 83 of which are represented in this exhibition.

At a time when the United States is involved in wars against Islamic nations and declares itself to be in a cultural and philosophical struggle against Islamic extremists, Birk is recreating the Qur’an in his own hand and illustrating it with everyday scenes as a way to reflect on Islam within the context of American culture, and is inviting viewers to do the same.

American Qur’an was organized by the Andy Warhol Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is circulated by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Pasadena, California. Its presentation at Colorado College is sponsored by the NEH Professorship. The exhibition is part of Cross-Currents: Exploring Tradition and Change in the Islamic World, a year-long series that explores contemporary culture and politics of the Islamic world.

Art in Review – Shows by Dan Colen, Sandow Birk, Karl Wirsum, Anton Henning – NYTimes.com

Laura BenAmots: Battle Portraits, Lions & Lambs.

November 29-December 18, 2012, Coburn Gallery

Thursday, November 29, 4:30: Artist Reception and IDEA Cabaret event

Free and open to the public

Drawn from the artist’s conversations with local veterans, Laura BenAmots’ Battle Portraits probe beyond the specific circumstances of individual soldiers to explore universal themes of grief, healing, and the true costs of human conflict.  The exhibition, in conjunction with the special events at the reception, presents creative and academic responses to trauma.

Winner of the Pikes Peak Arts Council’s Visual Artist of the Year award for 2012, Laura BenAmots has been acknowledged as exceptional in the field. The New York-born painter spent her formative years in Israel and has made Colorado Springs her home for the last eighteen years. She is a dedicated studio artist, passionate community advocate, and long time permanent Art Faculty member and Gallery Director at Pikes Peak Community College.

Her Battle Portraits series has been shown at the Business of Art Center in Manitou (2012); Colorado State University Fine Art Gallery in Fort Collins (2012). The exhibition will travel to the Sangre de Christo Art Center in Pueblo in 2013. The exhibition is supported by a fully-illustrated book featuring an interview with the artist and essays by faculty from Colorado College and Pikes Peak Community College.  Published by the Business of Art Center, the book will be available for purchase at the exhibition.

Eiko & Koma: Residue of Nakedness

November 27 – December 18, 2012, IDEA Space

Tuesday, November 27 4:30pm: Reception and IDEA Cabaret Conversation with Eiko Otake

Artists Eiko & Koma are known for their unique blend of performance works characterized by bold, highly theatrical strokes and handcrafted visual/sound design. They have created a unique and riveting theater of movement out of stillness, shape, light and sound that transcends  genre or discipline.

Throughout their forty-year career, the award-winning duo has collaborated with filmmakers to document performances ; the artists then alter and present these videos to create different experiences of their performances. They have also created “dances for camera” as independent media works that were shown in museums and festivals.  For the exhibition at IDEA Space, Eiko will use these videos as a source material to illuminate core concerns and textures of Eiko & Koma’s life-long work together. She will explore the boundaries of time, memories, and bodies as landscape.

Recipients of the MacArthur Genius Award, Eiko & Koma have developed a collaborative, interdisciplinary movement-based work and have performed in outdoor sites, in museums, and in theaters world-wide.  Since 1972, the Japanese-born choreographer/dancers have challenged and galvanized audiences with their performances. In the forward to Eiko & Koma: Time is not Even; Space is Not Empty, recently published by the Walker Art Center, Olga Viso writes, “Over the course of their forty-year collaboration, Eiko & Koma have created a body of work that is like nothing else in contemporary art.  Primal, intense, and powerfully moving, their pieces explore elemental themes such as birth, death, desire, struggle, and the profound connection between the human and natural realms.  They have been acclaimed and embraced by the American dance community since their arrival in the United States in 1976.  Yet Eiko & Koma do not consider themselves dancers in any traditional sense.  Rather, they think of themselves as artists whose medium is movement and whose work resides in the spaces between dance, theater, performance art, and sculpture.” Among their many accolades, Eiko & Koma have received two “Bessies” (1984 and 1990), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), a MacArthur Genius Award (1996) and United States Artists Fellowships (2006). They were honored with the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) and the Dance Magazine Award (2006) for lifetime achievement in modern dance. In 2012 both Eiko and Koma received inaugural Doris Duke Artist Awards. www.eikoandkoma.org

KRCC Presents: The Big Something Exhibition!

Coburn Gallery / October 29- November 20, 2012

Opening Reception and Gallery Talk with Noel Black and Craig Richardson: Tuesday, October 30 4:30-7pm

The Big Something Exhibition this Fall will be a giant analog version of KRCC’s daily web-based program that seeks to reflect a more nuanced and esoteric view of the many hidden, overlooked and forgotten cultures and cultural artifacts of the Pikes Peak region. On Tuesday, October 30 from 4:30-7pm, Coburn Gallery will host an Opening Reception and Gallery Talk with Noel Black and Craig Richardson, featuring a live DJ, storytelling booth, arcade games, and a vision of our community you won’t see in the mainstream media. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. KRCC Presents: The Big Something is sponsored by The Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund.

Photo by John Suhay, date and title unknown.

Cross-Currents Film Series presents: Position Among the Stars by Leonard Retel Helmrich

Monday, October 8 Monday, 4 – 6pm
Cross-Currents Film Series presents:
Position Among the Stars by Leonard Retel Helmrich
Hosted by Clay Haskell, Artist-in-Residence for Film Studies Cornerstone Art Center Film Screening Room
Free and open to the public

For 12 years, filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich followed an Indonesian family from the slums of Jakarta. This resulted in the trilogy “Stand van de zon”, “Stand van de maan” and “Stand van de sterren” (“Eye of the Day”, “Shape of the Moon” “Position Among the Stars”). Just like in the previous two parts, which received many international prizes, in the third part “Position Among the Stars” the maker shows us the underlying patterns of life in Indonesia. He presents both literally and metaphorically with his revolutionary camera work. The Indonesian Sjamsuddin family is, in a way, a microcosm in which you can recognise the most important issues of life in Indonesia: corruption, conflict between religions, gambling addiction, the generation gap and the growing difference between poor and rich.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and has the largest Muslim population. Grandmother Rumidjah, a confessed Christian, has left the bustle of Jakarta to live with her friend Tumisa in the countryside. Her son Bakti, who has converted to Islam, takes care of her grandchild Tari. Bringing up his Tari is hard for him, so Bakti brings his mother back to town. However, Tari grows up in a time when young people have become much more open and she does not hide her opinions. This behaviour regularly brings her into conflict with the older generations. The problems faced by the Qatari family make the old woman decide to stay in town until Tari has finished her secondary school and can study at university. The whole family regards the bright Tari as their only opportunity of improving their own status and ever being able to escape the slums of Jakarta. Bakti’s job as district chief doesn’t earn him much money. As a result he trains fighting fish to gamble with them the side.

While the whole family does everything they can to collect enough money to pay the college fees for Tari’s study, Tari prefers to spend her time and money with her girlfriends in Jakarta’s nightlife. Her friends from secondary school also bring her into contact with the nouveau riche of Indonesia, which is miles away from her life in the slums. Will Rumidjah managed to allow her granddaughter to study in this economic crisis?

This screening of Position Among the Stars is part of a four-film series that explores aspects of the Islamic world.  Offered in  September and October of 2012 and January and February of 2013, each film has been chosen and will be introduced by a Colorado College faculty member.  After the screening, the audience is invited to linger and participate in a discussion of the film.

Host Clay Haskell holds a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University (1994) and an M.F.A. from American Film Institute (2000).  He was also awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in photography in 1997.  Haskellhas written screenplays for a number of Hollywood production companies; his scripts Happy Trails and The Wrong Brothers are currently in development. He shot and directed the award-winning short film The Chair and the short documentary Ascent to Mount Angel, and he documented the handover of Hong Kong in photographs as one of the first Fulbright Fellows to China. He is cinematographer of the forthcoming documentary The Hollywood Complex (2011) and director of the forthcoming documentary Mississippi Messiah (2012).

Cross-Currents Film Series presents Ten directed by Abbas Kiarostami

Monday, September 10, 4 – 6pm
Cross-Currents Film Series presents Ten directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Hosted by Scott Kryzch, Assistant Professor of New Media
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Art Center Film Screening Room
Free and open to the public

Released in 2002, Ten focuses on ten conversations between a female driver in Tehran and the passengers in her car. The driver, an unusually independent Iranian woman, serves as a present-day Virgil, driving through Tehran in the company of various other women. Her exchanges with her young son, a jilted bride, a prostitute, a women on her way to prayer and others, shed light on the lives and emotions of these women whose voices are seldom heard. Every ride is a conversation, which range in topic from banal discussions of relationships to meditations on God and fate. Directed by one of Iran’s foremost directors, Ten was chosen by the French publication “Les Cahiers du cinéma” as one of the 10 best pictures of 2000s.

This screening of Ten is part of a four-film series that explores aspects of the Islamic world.  Offered in  September and October of 2012 and January and February of 2013, each film has been chosen and will be introduced by a Colorado College faculty member.  After the screening, the audience is invited to linger and participate in a discussion of the film.

Host Scott Krzych holds a B.A. in English from California State University-Northridge, an M.A. in English from the State University of New York-Buffalo and a Ph.D. in screen studies and English from Oklahoma State University. Krzych is  the first tenure-track professor of New Media at Colorado College. His various papers and publications address a range of subjects from digital cinema to video game studies to analysis of Glenn Beck’s television show. His dissertation examines evangelical representations of the apocalypse, including such films as “A Thief in the Night,” “Left Behind,” and “The Omega Code” and such prophecy-based cable programming as “The Hal Lindsey Report” and “Jack Van Impe Presents.”

Cross-Fade: Music and Dance featuring Reza Derakshani

September 12, 4:30pm

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center Main Space
Free and open to the public

An accomplished musician as well as visual artist, Reza Derakshani is interested in combining artistic traditions and media. Trained in classical Persian musical styles, Mr. Derakshani’s recent musical projects combine global and devotional styles with jazz, rock and other modern forms. He has collaborated with a diverse group of artists, including John Densmore of The Doors, Madonna, Branford Marsalis, poet-philosopher Robert Bly, author Deepak Chopra, and choreographer Bill T. Jones, among many others. Mr. Derakshani often performs in proximity to his own vibrant paintings, or works with dancers or poets on collaborative projects. For the performance at Colorado College, he will collaborate with dancers to present an improvisation-based performance. Mr. Derakshani’s paintings are featured in the exhibition Cross-Currents: Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Art of the Islamic World. A public reception will take place in IDEA Space following the performance.  Sponsored by the Dean’s Office.

Cross-Currents: Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Art of the Islamic World

September 3 – October 24, 2012, IDEA Space

(closed September 26 — 30 for Colorado College’s block break)

What will Islamic societies look like in the twenty-first century? While political analysts make predictions, artists within the Islamic world also intervene in these debates, often with profound impact on cultural discourse.  As Robin Wright notes in the 2011 prologue to her book Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, “The profound political stirrings are supported by a strong culture of change. … The social transformations are as pivotal as the political upheavals. Activists are not only adapting the technology of Facebook and Twitter to their causes. They are also experimenting with culture — from comedy to theater, poetry to song — as an idiom to communicate who they are and to end isolation caused by extremists within their ranks.” Focusing the lens on contemporary visual arts, Cross-Currents: Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Art of the Islamic World presents the work of seven international artists whose work lays claim to and honors their varied and complex heritages, while simultaneously challenging accepted norms.

Part of a year-long series of exhibitions, performances, films, and events that explore the elastic capacity of the arts to challenge, expand, preserve, and disseminate aspects of global Islamic cultures, Cross-Currents examines the intersections between historical practices and contemporary artistic priorities. Employing a wide range of media, the seven featured artists each adapt or appropriate aesthetic strategies and themes from older Persian and Arab traditions to address contemporary issues including: the thin line between media coverage and war propaganda; the devastation of urban decay; the challenges of creating and maintaining sacred spaces within other cultural contexts; the experiences of exile and return; and the construction of gender identities in contemporary Islamic cultures.

The artists’ approaches to traditional themes and forms vary significantly: some engage directly with the past by merging traditional forms with contemporary media, while others merely hint at traditional aesthetic precedents. Yet while remaining culturally, aesthetically, and philosophically distinct, these artists commonly share the desire to probe the tension between the desire to honor the past and to subject it to intense interrogation. – Jessica Hunter-Larsen, Curator

Featuring: Azra Akšamija; Ayad Alkadhi; Shoja Azari; Reza Derakshani; Hayv Kahraman; Naiza H. Khan; Soody Sharifi.

This exhibition and associated programming is made possible by generous support of the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund, the Dean’s Office, and the NEH Professorship. Special thanks to: Leila Heller Gallery, New York; The Third Line Gallery and the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Shehab Gargash, Dubai; Rossi & Rossi, London; and Renaissance Creative.

Image: Ayad Alkadi
Will Not Be Silenced (I Will Not Be Silenced) 2011
Acrylic, pen & yarn on canvas (Courtesy of the artist and Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY)

Senior Art Majors Exhibition

Senior Art Majors Exhibition, 2012

Lost and Found: A North Sea Collaboration: Carl Reed and Thomas Claesson

April 24 – July 14, 2012
Lost and Found: A North Sea Collaboration: Carl Reed and Thomas Claesson

(IDEA will be closed May 16 — 28, 2012)

IDEA Space
Tuesday, April 24, 4:30 – 6pm:
Reception with Carl Reed

This exhibit results from a narrative of unexpected relationships and circumstances. Thomas Claesson, who lives on an island off the west coast of Sweden, has assembled an enormous collection of “lost” objects – items that have washed up on shore, been abandoned or unearthed, or acquired through inheritance. When Claesson met Carl Reed, a sculptor who has worked for years with found objects, the two sensed the potential to realize an unusual collaborative project. The exhibition Lost and Found traces the dynamic of their collaborative process and explores ideas such as the urge to collect, layers of time, recycling, and the blurred distinction between art that is found and art that is made.

The Chapbook in the 21st Century: Efficiency / Excess / Ephemerality

March 27- April 17, 2012
Coburn Gallery
Thursday, March 29, 4:30 – 6pm: Reception with Matvei Yankelevich

The Press at Colorado College welcomes writer, translator, publisher and printer Matvei Yankelevich as the Block 7 Visiting Faculty. Yankelevich is founder of Ugly Duckling Presse, a nonprofit art and publishing collective producing small to mid-size editions of new poetry, translations, and artist books based in Brooklyn, New York, and author of several books and chapbooks. While in residence, he will teach a course in letterpress printing and oversee The Chapbook in the 21st Century: Efficiency / Excess / Ephemerality, a collaborative exhibition at Coburn Gallery featuring books and ephemera from several small press publishers, including Ugly Duckling Presse, as well as works created at The CC Press during the class.

Puppets, politics and pop music: Taiwanese and Chinese puppet theatre in the 20th century

March 27 – April 14, 2012
Puppets, politics and pop music: Taiwanese and Chinese puppet theatre in the 20th century
IDEA Space
Tuesday, March 27, 4:30 – 6pm: Opening Reception and IDEA Cabaret Conversation with Robin Ruizendaal, Director Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum

This exhibition presents puppet theatre as both an art form and a window on the social and political developments in Taiwan and China in the 20th century. With numerous exquisite and antique puppets, stages, artifacts and photographs, the exhibition is a unique voyage through puppet theatre and social history, as well as an aesthetic pleasure.

The Taiyuan Company performs innovative visual music theatre with puppets, actors, video and musicians, and cooperates with artists from many different backgrounds and nationalities. The company’s initial inspiration derived from the Taiwanese glove puppet theatre that has a rich and varied tradition in which music, carving, embroidery and a delicate performance technique all come together. Taiyuan was founded 12 years ago by Paul Lin and managing/artistic director Robin Ruizendaal to continue this tradition, while at the same time creating new modern theatre performances within a distinct Taiwanese context.

This model of conserving tradition and creating new plays has proved to be very successful. The company’s shows have been performed in over 30 countries at venues such as the Purcell Room and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the rainforests of Central America, the Traditional Opera Theatre in Hanoi, Union Square in San Francisco, Casa Mila in Barcelona, the countryside of Cambodia and, of course, the squares and theatres of old Taipei.

The company is based at the Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum in Dadaocheng, the old centre of Taipei.

Members of the company will be in residence at Colorado College this spring and will perform Taipei By Night May 9 — 12. Check the CC calendar for details. www.coloradocollege.edu/events

Tekcno Tipi, performance by Bently Spang

Thursday, April 12, 3:30-5:30pm , Worner Quad on the Colorado College Campus.

Northern Cheyenne artist, performer, and curator Bently Spang explores the history and contemporary meaning of the Plains tipi in this interactive performance. Using sound, lights and video projection, Spang engages in an extended conversation with the tipi – the largest culturally resonant object in the Plains culture. What would the tipi say if it could speak? The performance will evolve to include additional interactions and end with an open invitation for the audience to dance.

Indian Corner

February 24 – March 14, 2012
IDEA Space
Friday, February 24, 4:30 – 6pm: Reception with Wendy Red Star

At the turn of the 20th century, collectors began acquiring Native American objects with increasing fervor. Often, collectors created specific display areas in their homes to showcase their treasures.  Called “Indian Corners,” these areas typically comprised a hodgepodge of ritual objects, textiles, ceramics, and images.  Created and curated by artist and scholar Wendy Red Star, the IDEA Space exhibition Indian Corner examines the politics and poetics of collecting both authentic and commercially produced Native objects. The exhibition features a kitsch version of a 21st Century “Indian Corner” juxtaposed with objects from the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center’s collection of Native American objects.

The Home Show: Geometric Confections. (Brought to you by Viagra Substrates)

February 21 – March 9, 2012
Coburn Gallery
Tuesday, February 21, 4:30 – 6pm: Opening Reception with Dan Raffin

Colorado College Professor of Art Dan Raffin presents  recent sculpture created using computer-aided design program. He writes about the project: “These objects represent the beginning of a project using CAD software to design three-dimensional forms that are then materialized as empty volumes.  They will not help you do anything, whether that is to put your feet up, be instructed, inspired or pleased.  They would rather resist good intentions with obstructive superficiality.”

“a woman like that” Film Screening and panel discussion

Monday, February 13, 2012

4:30 – 6pm: Screening of “a woman like that”

6 — 7pm Encounters with Artemisia: Panel Discussion

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center Film Screening Room, Free

Taught to paint by her father Orazio, a renowned follower of Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the first female artists to achieve recognition in her own time. Her remarkable life story includes a famous rape trial when she was 17 years old, friendship and support from Galileo and the Medici, and most striking for her time – a career as a working, professional artist.

“a woman like that” is the first personal documentary directed by Weissbrod, who has been working in film for close to thirty years. In 2002, Weissbrod was at a career crossroads, mired in directing empty reality television. Fascinated by Artemisia’s story, Weissbrod determines to take a risk and make her own work – but is mysteriously denied permission to film the once-in-a-lifetime retrospective of Artemisia and her father Orazio at the St. Louis Art Museum. Undeterred, she dons a spy camera and goes ‘undercover,’ secretly filming the exhibition. This bold act sets her on a 5-year journey, as she travels to Italy, where curators and collectors open their museums and homes. This unconventional but heartfelt hunt upends typical artist biographies and delivers instead a funny, engaging and all together different kind of documentary. “a woman like that” is a freewheeling tribute to an artist whose own bold life and inspiring message leaps across centuries to speak to us all. The enduring power of storytelling – in paintings, in films and in our lives is revealed, as the filmmaker learns that who gets to tell the story matters, and that maybe she too, can be “a woman like that.”

Following the film, Ellen Weissbrod will be joined by Gale Murray, Professor of Art History; Rebecca Tucker, Professor of Art History; and Sherrie Wolf, featured artist, for a discussion on the legacy of Artemisia Gentileschi.

Lunch and Lecture: Stealing Art by Sherrie Wolf

Monday, February 13, 12 – 1:30pm
Gaylord Hall in Worner Center

Cost for lunch and lecture: $15, Reservations Required. Call 719-227-8263 or email idea@coloradocollege.edu.

Known for her well-researched and meticulous appropriations from Old Master paintings, Sherrie Wolf received a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and an MFA from Chelsea Collage of Art in London. Returning to Portland, she has become one of the most accomplished painters and printmakers in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been widely exhibited both in galleries and museums as well as being included in a numerous collections through out the United States. With one foot in the past and another firmly in the present, I create a dramatic staged setting for my still life images. She writes about her work, “I am especially moved by the magic of illusion, and drawn to complex layers of activity with in a painting. I aim to exploit and to reveal, rather than disguise, the fact that art is artifice. For me painting is a way of exploring visual high-jinx and dramatic effects. I attempt to honor the trompe l’ oeil tradition, as well as grand historic paintings by my predecessors. I am indebted to them.”

Strange Beauty: Baroque Sensibilities in Contemporary Art

December 6, 2011 – February 14, 2012, IDEA Space

Hybrid identities, overlapping narratives, theatrical spaces and virtual realities – these characteristics obviously describe contemporary experience, yet they also apply to certain aspects of the 17^th century. Strange Beauty uncovers connections between Baroque and   contemporary experience.

Wiley Dwayne

Hybrid identities, overlapping narratives, theatrical spaces, virtual realities:  while one readily applies these qualities to contemporary experience, it is not instantly apparent to the casual consumer of history how these characteristics equally apply to the 17^th Century world. Originally a derogatory term, the word “Baroque” typically conjures images of excessive ornamentation, unnecessary complexity, and superficiality.  While these attributes do feature in some Baroque work, the larger concerns of the era, which is sometimes considered to represent the beginnings of a modern psychology, mirror those of our own.  In the Baroque and Contemporary eras, artists have struggled to identify and convey a heightened awareness of the complex relationship of an individual to a multivalent reality that persistently evades concrete definition. Featuring work by contemporary artists Jimmy Baker, Liza Lou, Kehinde Wiley, and Sherrie Wolf, Strange Beauty uncovers connections between Baroque and   contemporary experience.

Exhibition Events

Tuesday, December 6, 4:30pm Opening Reception and IDEA Cabaret: The Past is Just Another Place, featuring Sherrie Wolf and CC faculty.

Kuna Mola: Maintaining Tradition Amid Change

December 13, 2011 – February 3, 2012, Coburn Gallery 

This exhibition, from the collection of independent curator and Colorado Springs resident Joyce Cheney, features over 60 exquisite examples of Molas made by Kuna women in Panama in the latter part of the 20th century.

Mola is the word for both the traditional decorated panels and the blouses into which they are incorporated.  A wide range of imagery can be found incorporated in mola designs: traditional motifs and local plants and animals, plus more recent globally-influenced images such as WWII planes over Panama and modern cruise ships.

Joyce Cheney has been a cultural worker for decades. Previously a storyteller, folk musician and community organizer, she has transitioned backstage to museum exhibit development and non-fiction writing.

Exhibition Event

Tuesday, December 13, 4:30pm Opening Reception and Gallery Talk at Coburn Gallery with curator Joyce Cheney

Parvana

October 6 – November 19, 2011, IDEA Space

Employing the dual translation of the Persian word, Parvana explores the multiple aesthetic, scientific, and literary understandings of moths and butterflies. Featuring artworks by Joseph Scheer, Rebecca DiDomenico, John Buck, and Suzanne Anker, a performance by Eiko & Koma, and specimens from natural history collections, Parvana examines the intersections between scientific and artistic modes of investigation. Parvana is part of Cross-Pollination a larger, community wide project about art insects, and community-based collaborations. www.crosspollinationcolab.com

Joseph Scheer

The Persian term parvana is frequently translated as “butterfly,” but in Indo-Persian/Arabic poetic usage, it almost always refers to the obsessed lover; literally, the moth, parvana attracted to the flame shama. Employing the dual translation of the Persian word, the exhibition Parvana explores the multiple aesthetic, scientific, and literary understandings of moths and butterflies.

Featuring visual artists Joseph Scheer, Suzanne Anker, Rebecca DiDomenico, and John Buck, a collection of entomological  specimens, and a performance by Eiko & Koma, Parvana seeks to uncover the intersections between scientific and artistic modes of investigation. Rather than using the arts as an illustration of scientific study, the exhibition examines how a synthesis of creative expression and scientific methodology can result in a deeper understanding of a subject. Through visual arts, performance, discussion, and presentations, Parvana explores how scientific and aesthetic approaches can combine to enhance our understandings of a subject.

Blurring the boundaries between art and science, Joseph Scheer uses a high-resolution digital scanner designed for scientific research to enlarge moth specimens many times their orginal size, revealing their often-obscured beauty. Inspired by the visual similarity between the dual lobes of the brain and the symmetry of the butterfly,  Suzanne Anker’s MRI Butterfly series associates the two with enchanting results. Rebecca DiDomenico creates artworks made from butterflies that poignantly capture the evanescence typically associated with the insect. John Buck’s prints evoke the moth’s mystery and multi-cultural symbolism. MacArthur Genius Award winners Eiko & Koma have developed a unique blend of modern dance, performance art, video, and costume design that transcends genre or discipline.

Rebecca DiDomenico

Parvana Schedule of Events

Thursday, October 6, 4 – 6:30pm, Parvana Opening ReceptionIDEA Cabaret: The Lepidopterans: The Art & Science of Moths and Butterflies, free.

• 4:00 – 5:00 Alex Vargo & Corinne Scheiner: Nabakov’s Butterflies, CAC Film Screening Room
• 5:00 – 6:00 Art/Science Panel Discussion with Alex Vargo, Joseph Scheer, Rebecca DiDomenico, and Eiko & Koma, IDEA Space.   Reception to follow.

Sunday, October 9, 3pm, Delicious Movement Workshop with Eiko & Koma
Cossitt Gym, free. Presented in collaboration with Imagination Celebration.

Friday, October 14, 7pm, Regeneration a performance by Eiko & Koma featuring Raven, Night Tide, and White Dance (Moth)
Cornerstone Arts Center Richard F. Celeste Theatre, free
Reception and book signing at IDEA Space with Eiko & Koma immediately following the performance. Presented by IDEA and The Colorado College Drama and Dance Department and sponsored by the Virginia Darnes Yates Endowment. Tickets required; available at Worner Center on the CC campus. For information call 719-389-6606.

Friday, October 21, 1pm, Eiko & Koma: Dance for Film Screening and Artist Talk
CAC Film Screening Room, free. Book signing at IDEA Space to follow.

Tuesday, November 1, 4:30pm: IDEA Cabaret: Spooky Spiders, Massive Moths: Bugs in Film
CAC Film Screening Room, free.

Friday, November 4, 12:30pm, IDEA Cabaret: How Bugs Breathe
Lecture and Demonstration by Emilie Gray, Assistant Professor of Biology at Colorado College, IDEA Space, free.

Tuesday, November 8, 4pm IDEA Cabaret: Artist/Naturalist
By Assistant Professor of History, Jane Murphy and Assistant Professor of Philosophy Marion Hourdequin, IDEA Space, free.

During the exhibition, tune into the Morning Mix with Vicky on KRCC 91.5 FM for a butterfly or moth-related song of the day.

Sponsored by: The President’s Circle, the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund, the Virginia Darnes Yates Endowment, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant “Art in the Liberal Arts”

Regeneration by Eiko & Koma

White Dance (Moth) photo by Anna Lee Campbell

Friday, October 14, 7pm

Regeneration by Eiko & Koma

Cornerstone Arts Center Richard F. Celeste Theatre, Free

Colorado College is proud to announce that internationally renowned dancers and multi-media artists Eiko & Koma will be in residence at College in October of 2011. In addition to teaching a class for the Colorado College Drama and Dance department, Eiko & Koma will perform Regeneration featuring three pieces of choreography: Raven, Night Tide, and White Dance (Moth) and will participate in a variety of public programs.

Recipients of the MacArthur Genius Award, Eiko & Koma have developed a unique blend of traditional Japanese dance, modern dance, performance art, video, and costume design that transcends genre or discipline. Since 1972 the Japanese-born choreographer/dancers have challenged and galvanized audiences with their performances.  This is not traditional dance, but a riveting “theater of movement created out of stillness, shape, light and sound.” In the forward to Eiko & Koma: Time is not Even; Space is Not Empty, recently published by the Walker Art Center, Olga Viso writes, “Over the course of their forty-year collaboration, Eiko & Koma have created a body of work that is like nothing else in contemporary art.  Primal, intense, and powerfully moving, their pieces explore elemental themes such as birth, death, desire, struggle, and the profound connection between the human and natural realms.  They have been acclaimed and embraced by the American dance community since their arrival in the United States in 1976.  Yet Eiko & Koma do not consider themselves dancers in any traditional sense.  Rather, they think of themselves as artists whose medium is movement and whose work resides in the spaces between dance, theater, performance art, and sculpture.” Among their many accolades, Eiko & Koma have received two “Bessies” (1984 and 1990), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), a MacArthur Genius Award (1996) and United States Artists Fellowships (2006). They were honored with the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) and the Dance Magazine Award (2006) for lifetime achievement in modern dance.  For more information about Eiko & Koma, visit their website www.eikoandkoma.org.

Regeneration will take place on Friday, October 14 beginning at 7pm in the Cornerstone Arts Center Richard F. Celeste Theatre, located at 825 North Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO. A public reception with Eiko & Koma will follow the performance. The performance and reception are free and open to the public.  Regeneration is presented by the Interdisciplinary Experimental Arts program (IDEA) at Colorado College and the Colorado College Drama and Dance department and is made possible by generous funding by the Virginia Darnes Yates Endowment.  The performance is free, tickets are required.  Tickets are available at the Worner Desk on the Colorado College campus. 719-389-6606.

The St. John’s Bible

October 18 – November 7, 2011, Coburn Gallery

Presented in collaboration with Benet Hill Monastery, this exhibition comprises seventeen illuminations from the St. John’s Bible.

St John's Bible

This Bible is a special project celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN. It is the first complete handwritten and illuminated Bible to be produced since the 15^th Century. The scribing and illuminations were created using a unique combination of centuries-old tradition of craftsmanship with the latest capabilities of computer technology under the direction of Donald Jackson, one of the world’s foremost calligraphers.  Sponsored by Paul Frederick Sheffer Memorial Fund for Roman Catholic Studies and the Colorado College Department of Religion.

Exhibition Events:

Wednesday, October 19, 6pm, Opening Reception at Coburn Gallery;  7pm Lecture by James Cutsinger, Professor of Theology and Religious Thought, University of South Carolina. WES Room, Worner Center on the CC campus.

Thursday, November 3, 7pm, Lecture by Michael Patella, O.S.B, Chair of Committee on Illuminations and Text, Member of Saint John’s Abbey and University. WES Room, Worner Center on the CC campus.

IDEA Fall Symposium: At What Cost? Examining the Price of Power

September 8, 2011

Canadys Station coal fired electricity generator

• Thursday, September 8, 12:15pm Lunch and Lecture: The Legacy of Ludlow and the Colorado Coal Field War, by Dean Saitta, Professor of Anthropology, University of Denver and reading from Ludlow by author Dave Mason Gaylord Hall, $15. Reservations required: 719-389-6606 or idea@coloradocollege.edu
• Thursday, September 8, 4:30pm, Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center Film Screening Room, Lecture by J Henry Fair, “The Power to Change.” Free.

Working American: The Human Experience of the Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914

September 6 – 28, 2011, Coburn Gallery

The conditions in the coal mines of early 20^th century Colorado were notoriously bad, with Colorado ranking second in the nation between 1884-1912 for coal miner deaths.  This exhibit will explore the history of the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914 and the archaeological data produced from the excavations at Berwind and the Ludlow Tent Colony, while also attempting to contextualize these historical events in the realm of the contemporary energy industry.

Refugee Mother and child in Trinidad c 1914

The conditions in the coal mines of early 20^th century Colorado were notoriously bad: Colorado ranked second in the nation between 1884-1912 for coal miner deaths.  In September 1913, with the help of the United Mine Workers of America, coal miners along the eastern slope struck, left coal company towns, and established striker tent colonies along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.  The largest of these tent colonies, Ludlow, was established approximately 20 miles west of Trinidad.  Seven months after the beginning of the strike, April 20, 1914, violence broke out between National Guard Troops stationed in the area and members of the Ludlow Tent Colony, resulting in the burning of the striker camp and 20 deaths.  This event became known as the Ludlow Massacre and attracted increased national interest in the conditions of the coal miners and their families in Colorado.  In 1997, archaeologists began a five-year investigation of the Ludlow Tent Colony site and the town of Berwind. Culminating in Colorado Coalfield War Project, the research produced both historical and archaeological data that helped illuminate the lives of the coal miners and their families before, during, and after the strike of 1913-1914.  This exhibit will explore the history of the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914 and the archaeological data produced from the excavations and contextualize these historical events in the realm of the contemporary energy industry.

J Henry Fair: Industrial Scars

Summer Dates: June 6 – July 15, 2011
Fall Dates: September 6 – 17
IDEA Space is closed from July 16 – September 5

Artist and an environmental advocate J Henry Fair creates large-format photographs of sites of environmental degradation that simultaneously seduce us with their extraordinary beauty and horrify us with their content. Shooting from airplanes or helicopters, Fair captures images of the pollution generated by paper mills, fertilizer factories, power plants, coal mining operations, and oil companies.

Waste Ash at Coal Fired Electrical Plant

J Henry Fair’s large-format photographs of sites of environmental degradation simultaneously seduce us with their extraordinary beauty and horrify us with their content. Shooting from airplanes or helicopters, Fair captures images of the pollution generated by paper mills, fertilizer factories, power plants, coal mining operations, and oil companies.  To compel the viewer to consider the true cost of resource extraction and industrialization, Fair’s Industrial Scars are lyrically beautiful, featuring dynamic compositions and saturated colors that evoke Abstract Expressionist paintings. Occupying dual roles as artist and environmental advocate, Fair seeks to create “an aesthetic look at some of our most egregious injuries to the system that sustains us in hopes that the viewer will come away with an innate understanding of his or her complicity and a will to make a difference.”

Coal Slurry

J Henry Fair’s photographs have been featured in segments on the TODAY Show, CNN, FOX News, and WDR German TV, as well as in most major publications, including ArtNews, National Geographic, TIME, New York Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, and GQ.  He has participated in group and solo exhibitions at major museums, galleries, and educational institutions around the world. In addition to his artistic practice, Fair supports a number of environmental organizations that share his commitment to changing destructive consumer habits and effecting positive change in our environment. He is co-founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY, an organization that is dedicated to the protection of and education about the world’s wolf population.  He is a regular contributor to NRDC’s OnEarth Magazine and blogs regularly about art and the environment.  His book, The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis was released in 2010.

Industrial Scars is made possible by support from the President’s Circle and the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund

IDEA Cabaret: The World is Our Canvas

IDEA Cabaret: The World is Our Canvas The Post-Studio Practice of Harrell Fletcher, Kirsten Gerdes Stoltz & Richard Saxton
Wednesday, February 23, 4:30pm, Cornerstone Arts Center Film Screening Room

Loosely defined, post-studio practice examines what happens when you take art out of the studio and into an unpredictable world. Through arts projects that are embedded within specific social, physical, or natural spaces, these artists explore the question of where, exactly, we locate the experience of creating and understanding art.

Chinese Calligraphy Exhibition

Chinese Calligraphy Exhibition
February 24 – March 11, 2011, Coburn Gallery
Thursday, February 24, 4:30pm: Reception & Talk by Tamara Bentley
This exhibition features traditional Chinese calligraphy created by students in the United States and China.

JoAnn Verburg: Interruptions

January 28-March 5, 2011
IDEA Space
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Note: Closing reception and artist talk March 3, 4:30pm at IDEA Space.

In this new series of photographs, JoAnn Verburg investigates how the intersections of memory and perspective contribute to a sense of place. Focusing on specific human and architectural subjects, Interruptions creates a visual and psychological “portrait” of Spoleto, Italy, an ancient Umbrian city where Verburg and her husband, poet Jim Moore, live part-time. Verburg has exhibited her work extensively in the United States and abroad and was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in 2007.

Over the course of many years, Verburg has explored and photographed her adopted home of Spoleto, carefully selecting and frames specific views of the city, such as its steeply angled buildings, hidden courtyards, and narrow passageways. By subtly manipulating elements of focus and perspective, Verburg emphasizes the subjective nature of perception. In an essay on her recent work, Walter Liedtke, Curator of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York has observed, “Verburg has learned that all observation, including the seemingly most objective, is always subjective, selective, slanted, focused, blurred, disconnected, or somehow interrupted.”

JoAnn Verburg received a BA in sociology from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has held teaching positions at Yale University and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is the recipient of numerous honors including: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986); multiple artist fellowships from the Bush Foundation (1983, 1993) and the McKnight Foundation (1994, 2004); and a Rockefeller Foundation Residency at the Bellagio Conference and Study Center, Bellagio, Italy (1998). She has exhibited her work extensively in the United States and internationally. In 2007, The Museum of Modern Art mounted “Present Tense,” a mid-career retrospective that traveled to the Walker Art Center. The series that comprises Interruptions has been exhibited at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina (2010) and at Pace/Magill Gallery, New York (2009).

Verburg’s work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions and can be found in permanent collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her photographs have been published in “Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project” (1984), “Picturing Eden” (2006), and “Present Tense: Photographs by JoAnn Verburg” (2007).

On Thursday, March 3 beginning at 4:30pm, the public is invited to revisit the exhibition for an IDEA Cabaret event, A Conversation through Space & Time. To mark the closing of the exhibition, JoAnn Verburg and Colorado College professors Peggy Berg (Dance) and Jonathan Lee (Philosophy) will engage in a lively discussion of the themes raised by the exhibition Interruptions.

David Armstrong: The Burden of the Beholder January 26 – February 11, Coburn Gallery

In an era of Photoshop and digital mash-ups, the casual viewer might be forgiven for thinking that David Armstrong’s surreal images are computer-generated.  Armstrong’s seamless collages are created the old-fashioned way – with scissors, a steady hand, and infinite patience.  The exhibition features images and text from Armstrong’s publication, The Burden of the Beholder, created at the CC Press, and featuring poetry from nineteen nationally-recognized writers. On Wednesday, January 26, 4:30pm Coburn Gallery will host an opening reception featuring a gallery talk by David Armstrong and poetry readings by authors featured in the publication.  The reception is free and open to the public.

Active Engagement

Harrell Fletcher: Corentine's Turtle

March 28 — May 13, 2011, IDEA Space
Sunday, March 13, 4:30pm: Sneak Peek Reception &
Performance
Active Engagement is a collaborative project between Resident Artist Harrell
Fletcher and students in arts and social science classes at Colorado College.
Professor of Art and Social Practice at Portland State University in Portland,
Oregon, Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on socially
engaged, interdisciplinary art and performance projects for over fifteen years.
Through photography, video, dance, and narrative, Active Engagement will
reflect Fletcher and students’ understandings of the intersections between
the military community the broader Colorado Springs community.

IDEA Cabaret: A Conversation Through Space and Time

IDEA Cabaret: A Conversation through Space & Time
Thursday, March 3, 4:30pm, IDEA Space
Featured artist JoAnn Verburg and Colorado College professors Peggy Berg
(Dance) and Jonathan Lee (Philosophy) will engage in a lively, public discussion of
the themes raised by the exhibition Interruptions. How do we truly come to know a
place? How does physical awareness of a place affect our perceptions?

Senior Art Majors Exhibition

April 28 – May 13, Coburn Gallery
Thursday, April 28, 4:30pm: Artists Reception
This annual favorite showcases a selection of works by Colorado College’s
Studio Art majors.

May Stevens: Crossing Time

May Stevens, Confluence of Two Rivers, 2002-03. Acrylic on unstretched Canvas, 80 x 130 inches. Courtesy Mary Ryan Gallery, New York.

September 7 – October 26, 2010
IDEA Space
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Featuring twenty-three works from the 1960s to present, this small-scale retrospective exhibition presents works from significant junctures in May Stevens’ career.  Stevens has been involved in the benchmark social justice movements of the 20th and 21st centuries and has created art that protests wars, stands up for civil rights, promotes feminism, and decries child abuse.  Now in her eighties, Stevens continues to defy expectations by creating monumental landscape paintings that subtly, yet powerfully, connect her personal experience of loss to larger social and philosophical questions. By bringing together artworks from throughout the artist’s historic career, Crossing Time acknowledges Stevens’ position as an artist of enduring social and aesthetic relevance.

May Stevens, Big Daddy and George Jackson, 1972, Collage on paper, 22 x 27.5

May Stevens, Forming the Fifth International, 1985, Acrylic on Canvas, 78 x 120

IDEA Cabaret: Pursuing An Elusive Sense of Place

To celebrate the opening of JoAnn Verburg’s exhibition Interruptions, this IDEA Cabaret event will feature a lively discussion on how a sense of place is communicated in the visual and literary arts. Participants include Scott Johnson, Assistant Professor of Art and Steven Hayward, Assistant Professor of English, moderated by IDEA Curator Jessica Hunter-Larsen. Audience participation in the discussion is encouraged!

round hole square peg: Brian Molanphy

October 8-November 19, 2010, Coburn Gallery

Friday, October 8, 4:30 pm:  Reception and Artist’s Talk with Brian Molanphy
Homecoming Hours:  Friday, Oct. 8-Sunday, Oct. 10, 12:30-6 pm

This solo exhibition featuring 36 ceramics by Brian Molanphy ’90 illustrates “an ambivalence between the reconciliation & the incompatibilities of perfection(s), in this case the circle & the square.”

Brian Molanphy, 2009

Exchange Economies

November 5-December 15, 2010, IDEA Space

The two projects that comprise Exchange Economies uncover the ideologies and practices that support local and global systems of circulation of goods and services, prompting an examination of covert systems of exchange and the implications of the increasing globalization of markets.

Platforms Sandals, Mixed Media, Technology.

The Aphrodite Project:  Platforms

The link between sex work and technology extends back to classical Greece, where all prostitution fell under the domain of the goddess Aphrodite.  The pornai walked the dusty streets of Athens wearing sandals modified to leave footprints with the words “Follow Me” written in the earth.  This history inspired a team comprising an artist, technical experts, and a former sex worker to create the Platforms Sandals:  an integrated technology to improve the working conditions of sex workers.  As social sculptures these practical wearable devices stimulate public dialogue.  Visitors, male and female will be invited to try the shoes, displayed within a faux retail setting.

Harrell Fletcher & Wendy Red Star, Video Still from Made in India, 2009.

Made in India:  In 2007 artists Harrell Fletcher and Wendy Red Star accidentally received two commercially produced rugs through a shipping mishap.  This innocuous event inspired them to try to find the workers who made the rug and “redistribute the wealth” to a factory worker who might have made it.  All they had to go on was a tag that said, “Made in India”.  The three channel video installation documents their quest.

Exchange Economies Events

Friday, November 5, 2010, 4:30 pm, IDEA Space
IDEA Cabaret: In Her Shoes Redux
At this interactive artist talk, the Platforms team of Norene Leddy, Andrew Milmoe, and Melissa Grant will address the larger issues surrounding sex work and technology.  Who gets new technology and when?  What is the true value of sexual service?  What are the ethics of surveillance and tracking?

Wednesday, November 17, 4:30 pm, Film Screening Room & IDEA Space
Artist Talk and Reception by Harrell Fletcher and Wendy Red Star
Professor of Art and Social Practice at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, Harrell Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on socially engaged, interdisciplinary art and performance projects for over fifteen years.  Focusing on selected projects, Fletcher’s talk will trace the evolution of his practice and philosophy.  The audience will then be invited to IDEA Space for a discussion of Made in India with artists Harrell Fletcher and Red Star.

Tuesday, December 7, 4:30 pm
IDEA Cabaret:  Fairly Made
This interactive event explores the politics and poetics of the global free market.  Participants include Colorado College faculty, experts on rug manufacture, Indian Music, and fair-trade food products.

The Emma Goldman Papers

Emma Goldman, 1901, Arrest mug shot (Library of Congress)

September 7-29, 2010, Coburn Gallery

A major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism,  Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was an influential anarchist of her day and an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women’s equality, and union organization.  Deported in 1919, she participated in the social and political movements of her age, including the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War.

Lecture by Dr. Candace Falk: September 23, 4:00PM, Packard Hall. A gallery tour and reception in Coburn Gallery will follow the lecture.

Crossing Boundaries: A Symposium on Feminism & The Arts

May Stevens, Big Daddy and George Jackson, Collage on paper, 22×27.5", 1972.

October 14 & 15, 2010

This two-day event explores the continuing legacy of Feminism in the arts.  All events are open to the public.

Sponsored by the NEH Distinguished Professorship and the Colorado College Art Department.

Thursday, October 14, 4:30 pm

Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics Presents “Gen-Y” CAC South Theater, Free.
Challenging, irreverent, and always entertaining, Feminism & Co. explores the complicated relationship of gender to art, politics and sexuality through creative practice. This program’s theme focuses on Gen-Y feminist activism and features Girls Rock! and the crocheted street art of The Ladies Fancywork Society. Feminism & Co. is a program of the MCA Denver.

Friday, October 15, 2010
11:45 am-1:30 pm: Lunch & Conversation, Gaylord Hall, $15

Take a seat at the table for a fascinating lunch conversation between artist May Stevens; writer and curator Lucy Lippard; filmmaker Joan Braderman; and the architects of Feminism & Co., Elissa Auther and Gillian Silverman.  Lunch is provided.  Reservations Required.

2:30-4:30 pm:  Screening of THE HERETICS with introduction by
Joan Braderman, Film Screening Room (CAC), free.
Focusing on the Heresies Collective as a microcosm as a microcosm of the Women’s Movement, THE HERETICS describes how small groups of women met to consider their situation and devise strategies to unlock their potential.

4:30-6 pm:  Reception with May Stevens, IDEA Space, free.
Join featured artist May Stevens for an informal talk about her life and artistic career.

7:30 pm:  Keynote Lecture:  “Bad Girls, Good Times: Feminist Art and May Stevens”, by Lucy R. Lippard, CAC South Theatre. Free.

Known for her refusal to separate aesthetics from politics, Lucy R. Lippard is a leading feminist, curator, writer, and activist.  She is the author of 20 books on contemporary art and cultural criticism and has curated 50 exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

IDEA Cabaret: Hair-esies

Tuesday, September 14, 4:30pm

IDEA Cabaret Presents Hair-esies

…an interactive discussion on the passions, politics, and poetry of hair…

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center Film Screening Room

The first in a series of multi-disciplinary events, Hair-esies explores the connection between hair, personal and cultural identity, and feminism. A panel of faculty, students, community members, and artists will discuss the convoluted relationships we have with our hair.

Participants:
Rebecca Beren; Elizabeth Clements Mosley; Ashley Crockett; Kathy Giuffre; Kate Holbrook, Alix Hudson; Rashida Nambaziira; Ella Maria Ray; Tomi-Ann
Roberts; Adrienne Seward.

Topics:
Body hair, hair & intellect, hair loss, hair & spirituality, hair & sexuality,
hair & identity.

The audience is invited to bring photographs of best or worst hair moment to the event for inclusion on the
Hair Heresies Wall of Fame.

The (R)evolution Experiment

THE I.D.E.A. SPACE presents A PROJECT BY PATRIZIA HERMINJARD

The (R)EVOLUTION Experiment

How does a digital work evolve through successive generations of collaboration

by a community of participants? (R)evolution is an experiment in which an

original film work is mashed-up creating a new generation of work from which

successive generation can be created. The experiment will culminate with an

installation of selected works exhibited at the Colorado College Edith Kinney

Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center.

Participants may mash-up the original work by adding or subtracting digital

media using open-source or original film/audio material they have created.

Mashed-up videos can reference any theme. Copyrighted materials should not

be used.

The dance for films for (r)evolution were created as part of the DA 325 Dance

and Digital Technology class taught by Patrizia Herminjard during block 8 of 2009.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

1. View movie(s) below.

2. Download movie(s) you want to mash-up by clicking on their respective links.

3. Once your mash-up is created upload it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84zWArVHN0Q

by clicking on “Post A Video Response” and then select “Upload a Video”.

In order to post a Video Response, you must have a YouTube account.

The deadline for all video uploads is March 22, 2010 (the first day of Block 7).

Deadline has been extended to Fall, 2010.  Check back for more details.

4. Check back here to see your film under the first generation films

section entitled Second Generation Films.

5. Selected films will be presented in the Cornerstone Screening Room on

April 30th at 7:30pm. Visit the final Installation during Block 8, April 19th-

May 17th, 2010 in the Cornerstone Arts Center (main space) featuring selected

mashed-up films.
Films will be presented in the Fall of 2010.  Check back for more details.

Notification of acceptance into the Installation will be sent to your YouTube account inbox.

(R)EVOLUTION

Badlands by Hilary Kennedy

Download: Badland(Hilary)

I Loved You First by Breann Gingrich

Download: breannsfinal

Cracked by Jordan Brooks

cracked(jordan)

exactly do they do by Dolo McComb

Download: exactlydotheydobydolo

Grey Wakeup by Alana Yurkanin

Download: GreyWakeUp(Alana)

Subordinate to Time by Madison Moross

Download: subordinatetotime(madison)

Lament by Patrizia Herminjard

Download: lament(Patrizia)

The Lullaby by Rosey Puloka

Download: TheLullaby(Rosey)

The Patrol by Kate Rafter

Download: ThePatrol(Rafter)

Idris Khan: Last 3 Piano Sonatas . . . after Franz Schubert

Idris Khan: Last 3 Piano Sonatas…after Franz Schubert
April 20 – June 26, I.D.E.A. Space

• Saturday, June 26: Reception and Artist Talk by Idris Khan, Film Screening Room, 4 pm
• Live performance of Schubert’s Piano Sonatas by Susan Grace & John Novacek,
  IDEA Space, 5 pm
• Reception to follow performance in IDEA Space
  

“It is important for me to understand the disciplines of contemporary art without boundaries or constraints.” Idris Khan

Multi-media artist Idris Khan creates photographic and video works that blur the boundaries between appropriation and re-creation to challenge the viewer’s assumptions about how different art forms are received and understood. His three-channel video installation, Last 3 Piano Sonatas…after Franz Schubert, engages elements of video, recorded music, and live performance to deconstruct and re-frame the sensory experience of musical performance.

Known for his works based on historical figures such as Caravaggio, Bach, and Freud, many of Khan’s projects involve layering images, texts, or sounds produced by an iconic historical figure to create a composite “portrait”. Last 3 Piano Sonatas…after Franz Schubert was inspired by the music Schubert wrote on his deathbed.  To create the video, Khan wove together moments from numerous performances of the Sonatas. Each fragment of film focuses on a different aspect of a performance.  Through the careful editing of images of hands at the keyboards, hammers hitting strings, and the performer’s gestures, Khan creates a visual rhythm that reinforces the power of the composer’s vision while simultaneously uncovering the subtle artistic choices made within different performance contexts. Khan’s video also invites a layered engagement with time: by choosing sonatas that comprise Schubert’s last artistic gesture, Khan conjures a specific and unrepeatable historical event; by blurring the distinctions between different contemporary performances of the sonatas, Khan collapses time into one, persistent moment.

Idris Khan was born in Birmingham, England in 1978 and now lives and works in London. He received his MA in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in 2004 and has since exhibited internationally in a number of major group exhbitions including The Collection, Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2009); Silent Writings, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2009); Natural Wonders: New Art from London Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow (2009); A Memory After Bach’s Cello Suites, Kunst Film Biennale, Cologne (2008); these valued landscapes, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, England (2008); P2P, Casino Luxembourg, Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg (2008). Recent solo exhibitions of Khan’s works have been held at Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2010); Elementa, Dubai (2009); Thomas Schulte Gallery, Berlin (2009); K20, Dusseldorf (2008); Yvon Lambert, New York (2007); Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2006). His films have been presented at “Tate Britain” and “Kunst Film Biennale in Koln, Germany. Major public art commissions are in London, England and Dublin, Ireland.

Senior Studio Art Majors Group Exhibit: 2010

Opening Reception:  Thursday, April 22, 4:30 pm
Coburn Gallery

Exhibit on display through May 7, 2010

This annual exhibition features selected works in a variety of media by Colorado College’s graduating Art Studio majors.

Seeing Stories

Henry Darger, Child-Headed Whiplash-Tail Blengins, Watercolor on paper, Collection of the American Folk Art Museum

February 2 – March 31, 2010, I.D.E.A. Space

This exhibition addresses strategies of visual storytelling from multiple cultural perspectives, with particular emphasis on self-taught artists. The exhibition features Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime paintings, works by American Self-Taught artists Henry Darger and Mose Tolliver, linocut prints by Namibian artist John Muafangejo, and 19th Century ledger drawings by Northern Cheyenne artists.

Opening Reception and Story Salon #1: Compelling Stories
Tuesday, February 2, 4:30 pm, I.D.E.A. Space
This installment of the Salon Conversation series features a lively public conversation between Adrienne Seward, Colorado College English Professor and folklorist, and Brooke Davis Anderson, Curator of the American Folk Art Museum.

Lunch and Lecture: Henry Darger & Mose Tolliver by Brooke Davis Anderson
Tuesday February 2, 12:30 PM, Slocum Commons
(This event is FULL, no more reservations being taken, 2/1/2010)

Brooke Davis Anderson is the Director and Curator of the Contemporary Center of the American Folk Art Museum.  She has written and lectured extensively in the fields of folk art and African-American art.
Free, reservations required. Contact Jessica Hunter-Larsen at jessica.larsen@coloradocollege.edu to reserve your spot.

Story Salon #2: Collecting Stories
Tuesday, February 16, 4:30pm
The first portion of this exciting double-header Salon features a conversation about Plains Native American ledger art with artist and curator Bently Spang and Colorado College Professor of History Anne Hyde.  In the second portion of the event, collectors Mary Allen-Meilinger and Harold Burch tell the stories of how they built their collections of Self-Taught American art and Australian art, respectively.

Story Salon #3: Seeing Truths
Tuesday, February 23, 4:30 pm
Film Screening Room, Edith Kinney Gaylord
Cornerstone Arts Center
In conjunction with the exhibition The House is Small But the Welcome is Big, this Salon features a presentation of Mozambican teenager Alcides Soares’ documentary about being orphaned by AIDS. The award-winning short film tells the story of Alcides and his friends as they come to terms with the loss of their parents and seek to create new family bonds. Neal Baer, the film’s Executive Producer and Lynn Warshafsky, Executive Director of Venice Arts will present the film and speak about the creation of The House is Small project.

Sponsored by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, the Colorado College NEH Distinguished Professorship, and the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund.

Charlie Tarawa Tjungurrayi, Tale of Two Women, Acrylic on Linen, 1980.

Reproduced from the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers Ledger Book, courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society.

Mose Tolliver, Three Blue Men (detail).

The House is Small But the Welcome is Big

The House Is Small But the Welcome Is Big
Photography By and About African Women and Children Affected by HIV/AIDS

January 19-March 26, 2010, Coburn Gallery (Worner Center)

Exhibit will be closed for CC Spring Break:  March 10th-19th, except by appointment.

Joaquim Varalito, "Hands". Photograph.

Over a period of two years an unlikely group of amateur photographers documented the life and death struggle of HIV/AIDS in sub–Saharan Africa. Eighteen children from Maputo, Mozambique, orphaned by AIDS, and 15 HIV-positive women in Cape Town, South Africa, pointed cameras at images in their communities to tell the uncensored story of their lives. The result is a stirring exhibit of 38 photographs premiering in Colorado Springs at CC’s Coburn Gallery.  The photos are tragic and hopeful, lively and compelling. Some are difficult to look at. All of them are hard to dismiss.

Denver native, CC alumnus, and Emmy-nominated writer/executive producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Neal Baer, M.D., is co-founder of the project.  “These children, as young as 10 and no older than 18, have a lot to say through these images about living on their own and raising younger siblings by themselves,” says Baer. “That’s the harsh truth about AIDS in Africa. Millions of children are growing up alone, a generation without the guidance or love of parents.”

One of the most beautiful photographs is titled, “My Memories” and is a pair of hands gently touching old black and white photographs.  “Photographs of my parents are displayed, which show their past. I show everyone my parents [when they were] alive through these photos, which is a joy for me,” says Joaquim Macamo, the 16 year-old photographer. Macamo lost both of his parents to AIDS in 2001 and lives with his 20 year-old sister.

Tuesday, February 23, 4:30 pm
Film Screening Room
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

A presentation of Mozambican teenager Alcides Soares’ documentary about being orphaned by AIDS will be screened in conjunction with the exhibit. The award-winning short film tells the story of Alcides and his friends as they come to terms with the loss of their parents and seek to create new family bonds. Neal Baer, the film’s Executive Producer and Lynn Warshafsky, Executive Director of Venice Arts will present the film and speak about the creation of The House is Small project.

For more information about the project, visit www.thehouseissmall.org

For more information about Venice Arts, visit www.venice-arts.org

Tour Tuesdays!

Join us every Tuesday at 12:45 pm for a 15-minute tour with a Colorado College student docent.  Tours are informal, free, and no reservations are required.  A perfect way to sneak in some art on your lunch break, we hope to see you in the IDEA Space.

Karen Kunc. Elements, Etching & Woodcut Print. 2007. 10×20

Sugar, Sugar

Exhibition: Sugar, Sugar

November 24, 2009 – January 21, 2010, I.D.E.A. Space

Virtually unknown in Europe until the Middle Ages sugar quickly became ubiquitous in western diets. Influencing agricultural practices, global economies, dietary habits, and language, sugar holds a central place in Western culture. (Just try to imagine a world without it!) Including historical photographs, microscopic enlargements, and literary and artistic responses in a variety of media, this exhibition examines the power of the sweet stuff.  The exhibition features sugar-inspired artworks by Gypsy Ames, Christina Marsh, Karen Kunc, Kate Leonard, Tracy Linder, Meredith Nickie and poetry by Jessy Randall and Dave Mason.

On three Tuesdays during the exhibition, I.D.E.A. will host a series of Sugar Salons featuring sugar-related activities, lectures, and performances.  The final Sugar Salon will close the exhibit on Thursday, January 21, 2010.

• Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 4:30  Sugar Salon #1: Performing Sugar
Chemistry experiments with sugar & performance of Rare Sugar at 6 PM in the South Theater
The first Sugar Salon will feature chemistry experiments with sugar “performed” for the audience and gallery talks by featured artists, who will speak about how the structure and properties of sugar inspired them.  At 6 pm, I.D.E.A. and the C.C. Music Department will present a performance of Rare Sugar.  Australian composer Nigel Westlake was inspired to create the piece after watching a television program about a chemist who works on unusual forms of sugar.

• Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 4:30  Sugar Salon #2: Producing Sugar
The second Sugar Salon focuses on the historical and contemporary impact of the sugar industry, both regionally and internationally.  Featured artist and former sugar beet farmer Tracy Linder and Colorado College faculty will use the exhibition as a springboard for an informal discussion of the local and international economic, social, and political impact of producing sugar.

• Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 4:30  Sugar Salon #3: Sugar Inspirations
The third Sugar Salon celebrates sugar-inspired art and literature.  Featured artists will discuss sugar-related works, artists will discuss sugar inspiration in their works, and authors will read sugar-inspired poetry and prose.  To acknowledge the importance of sugar to the holiday season, the event will also feature a sugarplum tasting and possibly an appearance from the Sugar Plum Fairy.

• Tuesday, January 21, 2010, 4:30 Sugar Salon #4: Sugar Rush
The final Sugar Salon will feature sugar sculptures and a demonstration of sculpting techniques by James Gallo, Executive Pastry Chef at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colorado, with commentary on the history of sugar sculpting and chemistry behind Gallo’s manipulation of sugar as raw material by Sally Meyer, Professor of Chemistry at Colorado College.  At the conclusion of the event, participants will help artist Julia M. Becker ritually destroy the sugar mandala created for the exhibition.

Karen Kunc, Formulae. 2009. 17×56"

Karen Kunc. Elements, Etching & Woodcut Print. 2007. 10×20

Tracy Linder, Sugar Beets. Animal collagen, artificial sinew, polyester.

Women’s Work: Contemporary Women Printmakers

Barbara Krueger, We Will No Longer Be Seen and Not Heard Lithograph, 1985

Exhibition: Women’s Work: Contemporary Women Printmakers
From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation

October 6 – November 12, 2009, I.D.E.A. Space

Wednesday, October 7, 4:30 pm:
Opening Reception and Salon Conversation with Tomi-Ann Roberts, Professor of Psychology and Director of Feminist & Gender Studies at Colorado College, and Elissa Auther, Associate Professor of Art History at UCCS

Featuring a broad range of prints by some of the foremost contemporary women printmakers at work in the United States, Africa, Europe, and Asia, this comprehensive exhibition calls attention to the innovative breadth of themes and variety of printmaking approaches taken by women artists since the early 1970′s.

Artists featured include Anni Albers, Louise Bourgeois, Squeak Carnwaith, Helen Frankenthaler, Fay Jones, Barbara Krueger, Wangechi Mutu, Kiki Smith, and Kara Walker.  A number of themes are explored in the exhibition, including the overlapping issues of gender, the body, and personal fantasies, as well as recent themes of identity, politics, and the environment.  Often laced with humor and a sense of playfulness, the works in the exhibition share a personal vision deeply integrated with references to larger historical themes and conceptual motifs.  At the same time, the works demonstrate a wide variety of traditional as well as contemporary printmaking techniques, from woodcut to etching to offset lithography and digital prints.

Julie Mehretu

Wangechi Mutu

This exhibition was organized by John Olbrantz, the Maribeth Collins Director of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, and Terri Hopkins, Director and Curator at the Art Gym at Marylhurst University.  Support for the exhibition and related outreach programs is made possible by a grant from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.  The exhibition at Colorado College is supported by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust and the Colorado College Art Department.

Future Self Stop-Motion Class in Collaboration with I.D.E.A.

FutureSelf

In collaboration with I.D.E.A., Future Self students participated in a two-week stop motion animation class taught by C.C. grad and I.D.E.A. assistant Danielle Dubler.  Students produced multiple short videos using software such as iMovie and Final Cut Pro in the media labs at the Cornerstone Arts Center.  View some of the videos produced here: http://www.youtube.com/user/FutureSelfStopMotion

About Future Self:

FutureSelf’s goal is to offer arts-based classes, workshops, peer mentoring, opportunities to use skills developed, and public and private recognition of achievements.  Despite mounting evidence that immersion in the arts is the most effective means of reaching at-risk youth, FutureSelf is the only program of its kind in the Pikes Peak Region.
Visit their website to learn more: www.futureself.org

Patrick Dougherty: Creature Comforts

Patrick Dougherty:  Creature Comforts

Site Specific Sculpture
In front of Armstrong Hall, intersection of Cache La Poudre & Cascade

From October 27 to November 14, 2008, internationally renowned sculptor Patrick Dougherty will create a site-specific, temporary sculpture on the Colorado College campus. The sculpture will remain for two years.

In the last twenty years, Patrick Dougherty has created over 150 sculptures in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Comprised of hundreds of woven tree saplings and twigs, Dougherty’s unique, site-specific sculptures integrate natural and man-made environments. Simultaneously intricate and effortless, the sculptures seem almost to have been made through a force of nature, swirled together by prairie winds, or constructed by birds.

Here is the future site of the sculpture:

Patrick Dougherty Sculpture Site

**UPDATE**

The sculpture is in progress on the west side of Armstrong Hall (NE corner of Cascade Ave and Cache La Poudre St).  Here are some pictures from the first week of the project, which involved gathering the willow and saplings for the structure and beginning construction.  Note that all materials involved are sustainably harvested, ie they all grow back very quickly as the plants are not killed but rather trimmed.  These sticks came from an area that must be maintained regularly per mandates by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Avis Urbanus: Performance & Reception with Claudia Esslinger

Avis Urbanus

Sunday, September 20, 4:30 p.m., I.D.E.A. Space, Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Join us for a reception in the I.D.E.A. Space with Claudia Esslinger. Esslinger will discuss her video installation The Synergy Project.

The public is then invited to the Film Screening Room for a screening and live performance of Avis Urbanus, a collaborative video/music project Esslinger created with Colorado College Music Professor Ofer Ben-Amots.  Paul Nagem will provide amplified flute accompaniment.  Free and open to all; refreshments provided.

Sponsored by The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, Colorado College Music Department.

Impermanence: A Cancer Journey by Craig Jenkins

Strength, Digital Photograph by Craig Jenkins

Exhibition: Impermanence: A Cancer Journey by Craig Jenkins

September 8 – October 10, 2009, Coburn Gallery

Friday, October 9, 4:30 PM Reception with Amy Jenkins, Coburn Gallery
A successful painter and photographer, Craig Jenkins (Class of 1984) used his creativity to help deal with his cancer. His series of collage works entitled Impermanence, A Cancer Journey comments upon his three-year-long experience with illness.

Impermanence Exhibit Statement by Craig Jenkins

Craig Jenkins Biography

http://www.craigjenkins.artspan.com/

The Warrior, Digital Photograph by Craig Jenkins

Performance & Talk: Benoit Maubrey: Electronic Guy

Tuesday, April 28, 7 pm
South Theatre, Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Performance artist, “electroacoustic sculptor”, punk musician, and choreographer Benoit Maubrey will perform one of his signature pieces, Electronic Guy which features an electroacoustic tuxedo that shapes feedback and movement into sound sculpture. Following the performance, Maubrey will talk about his other sound and movement based projects.

Fashionably Late for the Relationship

Reception and Artist’s Talk:
Friday, April 3rd, 4:30 P.M.
I.D.E.A. Space, EKG Cornerstone Arts Center

Exhibit Dates:  April 3-May 20, 2009

Fashionably Late for the Relationship is a three-day long public performance by Lian Amaris that was filmed and compressed into a feature-length video work by R. Luke Dubois.  As Amaris prepares for a night out, three days pass in the city around her.  In the live performance, her slow, nuanced actions become a counterpoint to, and critique of, the rapid and unyielding pace of the public environment which she redefines as the private feminine ritual of a boudoir.

Sponsored by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust.

Claudia Esslinger: The Synergy Project

The Synergy Project

August 21 – September 23, 2009, I.D.E.A. Space

Reception & Gallery Talk with Claudia Esslinger: Sunday, September 20, 4:30-6pm, I.D.E.A. Space
Performance and Screening of Avis Urbanus: Sunday, September 20, 6 pm, Film Screening Room, CAC
With live amplified flute accompaniment by Paul Nagem.

This collaborative video piece explores the changing meaning of narratives  through their juxtaposition. Combinations of images and sounds, explore dualities of nature and technology, culture and politics, and strangeness and humor.

Avis Urbanus is a collaborative project featuring music composed by Colorado College Music Professor Ofer Ben-Amots and video by Claudia Esslinger.

1440 Minutes: 24-Hour Art Installation Event

Listening to Architecture

Reception with composer Patrick Zimmerli:
Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 5:30 p.m.

Pre-Concert Lecture follows at 6:15 p.m.
Film Screening Room (adjacent to the I.D.E.A. Space in the CAC)

Exhibit, reception & lecture are free and open to the public.

Concert following at 7:30 p.m., Tickets required.  $5-20, tickets purchased at Colorado College Worner Desk or www.ticketswest.org

Exhibit Dates:  June 9-July 17, 2009, I.D.E.A. Space

In collaboration with composer Patrick Zimmerli, the I.D.E.A. Space in Colorado College’s Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center will highlight the innovative architecture that inspired the composer. Through video, photographs, models, drawings and other ephemera, visitors will have an inside look at the inspiration for Zimmerli’s 4-movement composition, commissioned for the 2009 Summer Music Festival at Colorado College.

Buildings and architects featured:

Milwaukee Art Museum, Quadracci Pavillion, (Milwaukee, WI), Architect: Santiago Calatrava
http://www.mam.org/info/details/quadracci.php

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, (St. Louis, MO), Architect: Tadao Ando, www.pulitzerarts.org

The Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University, (Seattle, WA), Architect: Steven Holl
http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=40

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado College (COS, CO), Architect: Antoine Predock

Patrick Zimmerli: Biography

New York-based composer and saxophonist Patrick Zimmerli has released 6 CD’s. He is currently writing for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and producing a CD featuring pianists Kevin Hays and Brad Mehldau.

Since 2005 Zimmerli has presented a concert series, entitled Emergence, dedicated to the creation and performance of new work. Featuring his 9-piece ensemble and special guests from the classical, jazz, and electronic music communities, the series has seen 17 performances and over 40 premieres.

Current commissions include a large orchestra piece for the Colorado College Summer Music Festival’s 25th Anniversary Season. Other commissions have come from the Ying Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper, and the Belgian jazz octet Octurn.

His work has been performed at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, on NPR’s Fresh Sounds, at the Jazz Composers’ Collective, and at major chamber music festivals throughout the US. Zimmerli’s music has been recorded on the Arabesque, Blue Note, Songlines, Koch, Antilles, Jazz City, and Naive labels, and he has written extensively for radio, TV, and film.

From 2002–2005 Zimmerli was Composer in Residence with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. Awards include first prize in the first annual BMI/Thelonious Monk Institute Composers’ Competition. Zimmerli teaches at Columbia University, where he earned a BA in 1990, an MPhil in 1996 and a DMA in 2000 in Music Composition.

Performance: Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet, Featuring Béla Fleck with Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee

Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:00 p.m.

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center South Theater

Performance is free;
tickets are available at Worner Desk

As an Asian Studies major at Colorado College, Abigail Washburn never set out to be a songwriter or a recording artist. Five years ago when she found herself on stage in a smoke-filled Beijing club playing her banjo and singing old-time Appalachian mountain music in Chinese to a packed house, she was as surprised as anyone. Together with bluegrass banjo master Béla Fleck, acclaimed cellist Ben Sollee, and Grammy-nominated fiddler Casey Driessen, Washburn has developed a truly unique musical style that combines American roots music and Chinese folk songs.

Hear music and learn more about the Sparrow Quartet at:  http://www.abigailwashburn.com/

Sponsored by The Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund, The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust,
the Colorado College Music Department, and the Colorado College Asian Studies Department.

Faculty Throwdown III: Body Art: New Photography from China

Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 3:30 PM, I.D.E.A Space

Faculty Throwdown III:  Body Art: New Chinese Photography

Armed with unique insights and remarkable revelations, Colorado College faculty members Christina Torres-Rouff (Anthropology) and Tom Lindblade (Drama) share and debate interpretations of the Body Art exhibition.

Free, snacks provided.

Building Desires at Cornerstone Arts Center this Fall

Jessica Hunter-Larsen, I.D.E.A. Curator

This fall has proven to be an exhilarating time for the InterDisciplinary Arts program at Colorado College.  While the program began in 2006, the gala celebration of the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center – home to the I.D.E.A. Space – in October has invigorated the program. I am continually energized by the wide variety creative activities that take place in the building and feel especially privileged to be a part of it.

The first interdisciplinary exhibition project to take place in our new home, The Architecture of Desire (September 5 – December 12, 2008) is inspired by the unique architecture of the new Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center. The various components of the project, which includes a two-part gallery exhibition, performances by Project Bandaloop, and a public sculpture by Patrick Dougherty, invite us to examine the multifaceted relationship between architecture and society.

• Can a building inspire and facilitate collaborative creative activities, as the Cornerstone building proposes to do? Project Bandaloop’s electrifying aerial dance performances on the exterior and in the interior of the building provided one answer to that challenge, setting the stage for future creative responses to the building.
• What can be learned from architecture’s failures? Runa Islam’s haunting video installation Scale 1/16” = 1’ featured in The Architecture of Desire Part I, (September 5 – October 22, 2008) invited the viewer to participate in the “reverie” of a building that was abandoned upon its completion. Stripped of its utility, the building has blossomed only within fictional contexts.
• How does a building reflect a society’s relationship with nature? Does it dominate or complement the landscape? Patrick Dougherty’s stickworks sculptures in front of Armstrong Hall allude to the natural world and man-made structures in equal measure: they are cocoons for gargantuan insects, mysterious animal lairs, or whimsical “follies” built for a giant’s garden.
• What does the absence of architecture signify? Afghani artist Lida Abdul’s performance-based videos featured in The Architecture of Desire Part II (November 4 – December 12, 2008) explore the interaction between individuals and ruined buildings. Hauntingly beautiful, the videos invite us to contemplate our identity, when all our civic and domestic structures have crumbled?

I invite everyone in our community to attend The Architecture of Desire Part II and the associated activities, tour Colorado College’s dynamic new building, and reflect on the role architecture plays in nurturing and sustaining a culture.

Warm regards,

Jessica Hunter Larsen, Curator

Lecture: Recent Performance and Photography by Li Wei

Li Wei, Li Wei Falls to the Earth, Photograph

Monday, March 2, 4:30 PM, Film Screening Room
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Lecture: Recent Performance and Photography by Li Wei

Renowned contemporary Chinese performance artist Li Wei , whose photographs are featured
in the Body Art exhibition, will show video clips from recent performances and speak about his career.

Life is High, Li Wei

A Pause for Humanity, Li Wei

Illusionary Reality, Li Wei

Body Art: New Photography from China

January 27-March 11, 2009
I.D.E.A. Space
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

This compelling exhibit features the work of Cang Xin, Huang Yan, Li Wei, Liu Ren, Ma Yanling, and Wu Yuren – all artists who use the human body as an entirely new art language. Some pieces, with the aid of digital imaging, illustrate a world that only exists within the artist’s imagination. Others, based on performance work where the artist uses his body as the central artistic agent, explore realities of China’s complex contemporary society. Some photos are humorous, others disconcerting, but all are fascinating reflections of life in China today.

The exhibition is organized and curated by Dr. Julie Segraves,
Executive Director of the Asian Art Coordinating Council, Denver, CO.

Funded in part by:  Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China
The Scientific and Cultural District in Colorado

The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust

Colorado College Asian Studies Department

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Cang Xin

Identity Exchange (Opera), Cang Xin

Identity Exchange (Trash Collector), Cang Xin

Ma Yanling

Silk Ribbons (Great Wall), Ma Yanling

Silk Ribbons (Suitcase), Ma Yanling

Huang Yan

Wu Yuren

Li Wei

Liu Ren

Dream Architecture for Dream Cities 2020

Your ideas about our future as a region are just as important as anyone else’s, and together we can inspire, educate and mobilize this community to create a better place for us all to live, work and play.

Using the “Leave a Response” box below, please share your thoughts on the following:

1. What is your vision for your community in 2020?
2. What do you like best about the Pikes Peak region?
3. Describe a moment when you felt the best connection to your community.

Click here to read what others in our Colorado Springs community are saying.

Project Bandaloop

Project Bandaloop performs at Colorado College, October 2008:

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Celebrating the unique architecture of the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Project Bandaloop created a site-specific dance performance using the building’s exterior and interior spaces in October, 2008.

Project Bandaloop honors nature, community, and the human spirit through dance. The company, under the artistic direction of Amelia Rudolph, creates a blend of dance, sport, ritual, and environmental awareness. Inspired by the possibilities of climbing and rappelling, the choreography draws on aerial, vertical and horizontal movement to craft dances, many site-specific. The work explores the relationship between movement and gravity and stimulates viewers’ awareness of their natural and built environments. Project Bandaloop hopes to enrich the quality of life with their performances, out-reach and ability to bring dance to new audiences. Since 1991, the company has enjoyed performing for close to half a million people.

The World’s Largest Indoor Yogic Spiral!

Help us create the world’s largest indoor Yogic Spiral in conjunction with the unveiling of a giant suspended spiral sculpture by Smokebrush artists Kat Tudor and Lindsay Ray.

This event will take place in the Main Space of the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Building at Colorado College on January 19th, 2009. People will start gathering at 4:30pm.

Live music provided by Bob Tudor.

This event also celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President Barack Obama’s Inauguration the next day, January 20th.

What is a Yogic Spiral?

A Yogic Spiral is a group yoga meditation where the participants form an uninterrupted spiral. The ordering of people in the spiral is by men and woman and zodiacal sign. The spiral turns anti-clockwise, which corresponds to what is said to be the yang sense of rotation, hence the name of yang spiral.

To sign up for the Yogic Spiral please visit www.yogicspiral.com

Patrick Dougherty Reception & Artist Talk

Friday, November 14, 4:30PM, Armstrong Lobby

Join us to help celebrate the completion of Patrick Dougherty’s site-specific sculpture on the Colorado College grounds.

Lida Abdul: Reception & Gallery Talk

Monday, December 1st, 4:30 pm
I.D.E.A. SPACE in the EDITH KINNEY GAYLORD CORNERSTONE ARTS CENTER

Join us for a reception for Lida Abdul, whose video works are featured in “The Architecture of Desire: Part II,” currently on display in the I.D.E.A. Space. Abdul was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1973. Displaced in 1986 by the Soviet invasion, Abdul lived in India and Germany before moving to the United States. She returned to Afghanistan in 2001; her subsequent video works address issues of war, exile and reconcilliation. Abdul earned a B.A. from California State University and an M.F.A. from the University of California at Irvine. Abdul’s work was recently featured in “Global Feminisms” at the Brooklyn Museum (2007). A 2006 recipient of the Prince Claus Laureate award for art and activism, Abdul’s works have been featured in the 2006 Sao Paulo Biennial, the 2006 Gwangju Biennial, the 2005 Central Asian Biennial and the 2005 Venice Biennale. Sponsored by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, NEH Distinguished Professorship and CC’s art department and feminist & gender studies.

Free and open to the public; no tickets required.

The Architecture of Desire: Dr. Dadi on Lida Abdul

Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 4:30PM
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center Film Screening Room

Dr. Iftikhar Dadi, Professor of Art History & Visual Studies, Cornell University, will give a lecture on the video and performance work of Lida Abdul. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Architecture of Desire: Dr. Barlow on Runa Islam

Wednesday, October 1, 4:30PM, 2008
Film Screening Room in the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Dr. Melinda Barlow, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, will give a lecture on the film installations of Runa Islam. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In her lecture, Professor Barlow will discuss Runa Islam’s film-based installation Scale 1/16 inch = 1 foot, currently on view in the I.D.E.A. Space, and will place this piece within the context of Islam’s other projects. Professor Barlow contributed an essay on Runa Islam to the exhibition catalog for The Architecture of Desire.

Melinda Barlow is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she received the Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award, the Gold Best Should Teach Award, and the Dorothy Martin Woman Faculty Member Award. A film and video historian who specializes in the work of contemporary experimental women film and video makers and has written extensively about moving image installation, Professor Barlow also researches the art of mentoring women, and has organized more than 20 local and national workshops on the topic over the last five years. An active critic at Sculpture magazine, her essays have appeared in journals such as Camera Obscura, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Millennium Film Journal, Art Journal, Performing Arts Journal, Art in America, Afterimage, American Theatre, and the Spanish animation journal Animac. The editor of Mary Lucier: Art and Performance (Johns Hopkins, 2000), Professor Barlow is the author of Lost Objects of Desire: Video Installation, Mary Lucier, and the Romance of History, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. She is currently working on a series of essays on experimental filmmaker and miniature theatre artist Janie Geiser titled Curiosa in Motion.

Faculty Throwdown II: The Architecture of Desire

Friday, December 12, 3:30 PM, I.D.E.A. Space, Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center.

Faculty throwdown is an informal debate/discussion with two Colorado College professors that is centered around an exhibition in the I.D.E.A. Space. Bob Lee, of the political science department, and David Torres-Rouff, of the history department, will debate their interpretations of the video artworks by Afghani artist Lida Abdul featured in the exhibition “The Architecture of Desire Part II.” Audience members are encouraged to join in the conversation; snacks will be provided.

Sponsored by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, NEH Distinguished Professorship and CC’s art department and feminist & gender studies.

Faculty Throwdown I: The Architecture of Desire

Wednesday, September 10, 3:30 PM, 2008
I.D.E.A Space in the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Join us as Colorado College professors Jonathan Lee (Philosophy) and Kathy Giuffre (Sociology) share and debate their interpretations of The Architecture of Desire.

The Architecture of Desire: Part II

Forced to leave Afghanistan as a child, Lida Abdul’s artworks address the ramifications of exile, war, and oppression. Her compelling images of bombed and ruined buildings challenge conventional thinking about architecture by forcing the viewer to confront the destroyed building not as a ruin or as empty space, but as an expression of architecture of absence. Born in Kabul in 1973, Lida Abdul left Afghanistan at the Soviet invasion in 1979. A 2006 recipient of the Prince Claus Laureate award, Abdul was the first Afghani artist to participate in the Venice Biennale (2005).

The Architecture of Desire is sponsored by: The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and the Bee Vradenburg Foundation.

The Architecture of Desire: Part I

I.D.E.A Space
September 5 – October 22, 2008
Gallery Hours:  Tuesday-Saturday, 12:30-7:00 pm

The exhibition The Architecture of Desire takes Colorado College’s new Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center as its inspiration as well as its site. Created as a teaching and performance space for the arts, the Cornerstone building was designed by architect Antoine Predock with a very specific purpose: to inspire and facilitate collaborative creative activities. Using Cornerstone’s unique architecture as a springboard, The Architecture of Desire explores the idea that every building has a philosophy, a set of guiding principles that define its purpose and therefore its structure, by allowing or prohibiting certain movements or actions, a building’s structure in turn influences our beliefs and behaviors. Featuring site-specific installations by internationally renowned contemporary artists Cristina Iglesias, Runa Islam, and Lida Abdul, this two-part exhibition uncovers the ways in which architecture reflects our worldviews, shapes our actions, and constructs our desires.

Drawing from a variety of inspirations and materials, Spanish sculptor Cristina Iglesias creates architectonic spaces that mediate between industrial and organic environments. Structural influences include the perforated intaglio walls of a Moorish building, the camouflage proscenium of a surveillance hut, the enveloping canopy of a dense forest, or the contemplative protection of a medieval cloister. Created from natural materials such as twigs, sticks, and leaves that have been cast in a mixture of resin and bronze powder, Iglesias’ installation for The Architecture of Desire, Vegetation Room VI, tests the boundaries between industrial culture, the human body, and the natural world. Born in Spain in 1956, Iglesias was one of the youngest artists ever to receive a major exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 1997. She exhibits throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA, and recently won the international competition to create new bronze doors for the extension to the Prado Museum in Madrid, which opened in 2007. Other major public commissions by the artist can be found in Minneapolis, Antwerp, and Barcelona.

Runa Islam creates film installations that simultaneously employ and deconstruct the languages and techniques of narrative filmmaking. Islam often uses architectural structure to reframe physical and narrative space; the length of a shot corresponds to the depth of a room or the height of a wall or constructed spaces may reflect the psychological spaces between characters. Described as a “reverie” of an abandoned building, the installation Scale (1/16 Inch = 1 foot) features a derelict building as a setting and main protagonist for a subtle, psychological drama. Islam was born in 1970 in Dhaka, Bangladesh and currently lives and works in London. A rising contemporary art star, Islam has been featured in the 2005 Venice Biennale (2005) and the 2003 Istanbul Biennial and recently had a large solo exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum.

The Architecture of Desire: Reception & Curator’s Talk

Friday, September 5, 4:30 – 6:00PM

Enjoy light refreshments while you view the exhibition The Architecture of Desire. I.D.E.A. Curator Jessica Hunter Larsen will give an informal gallery talk beginning at 5:15PM.

Performing Identities: Albert Chong, Coco Fusco, and Pushpamala N.

Performing Identities, January 11 to February 16, 2008

Coburn Gallery, Worner Student Center

Featuring photographs and video by artists Pushpamala N., Albert Chong and Coco Fusco, the exhibit challenges historical and contemporary notions of an ethnically-defined self.  Employing strategies of self-portraiture, appropriation and role-playing, the artists relocate cultural stereotypes within a contemporary context to uncover the hidden assumptions and biases embedded within commonly accepted images.

Performing Identities is part of Second Skin, a year-long series of exhibitions and events that explore how identity is reflected, constructed and challenged through the visual and performing arts.

Sponsored by the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust.

Laura Ross-Paul: The Allusive Self

Laura Ross-Paul: The Allusive Self

Coburn Gallery, August 25 – October 5, 2007

One of the Northwest’s most celebrated figurative painters, Laura Ross-Paul is known for creating psychologically resonant and strikingly beautiful paintings that set naturalistic figures within dream-like, abstract landscapes. The combination allows Ross-Paul to represent the point at which internal and external forces combine. The Allusive Self presents paintings from Ross-Paul’s recent body of work, simply titled Naked, which was developed in response to the artist’s recent treatment for cancer. While inspired by her experience, the paintings use gestures, facial expressions, and vibrant colors to convey universal feelings of vulnerability and empowerment. The resulting paintings are beautiful, moving, and complex.

Curve, Laura Ross-Paul

Nicking the Never by Marina Zurkow

Nicking the Never
MARINA ZURKOW

Braingirl by Marina Zurkow

Book as Object: An International Survey of Sculptural Book Art

Afterimages by Scott Johnson

 Afterimages: An Installation in Three Parts
Scott Johnson

September 5-October 21, 2006