Gaye Chan showing at Southern Exposure, San Francisco

Department Chair and faculty member Gaye Chan is included in an exhibition entitled "On the Ground" curated by Weston Furuya at Southern Exposure in San Francisco.

Chan's contribution, entitled "Free Grindz", is a part of her ongoing work as EATING IN PUBLIC. Free Grindz is both an edible weed information center and a weed seed distribution station. Designed as a shipping crate and made (almost) entirely out of found material, it unfolds into the exhibition itself.

see installation views

On the Ground presents new work arising from artists' relationship to particular localities - San Francisco. O'ahu. Cairo. The North coast of Egypt. Tijuana. Puerto Rico and its diaspora. Mexico City. Puebla. Monterrey. Queretaro. The artists in "On the Ground" build from the specific codes and nuances of these places, creating their own narratives and gestures that begin to reveal or reimagine their communities.

Southern Exposure

3030 20th Street, San Francisco

March 11 - April 23, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, March 11 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Opened in 1974, SOEX is one of the longest running alternative spaces in California, particularly known for their exhibition program of dynamic, cutting edge art, as well as their education and community programs.

Followup with Space&Sound event

A followup video of an event featuring Teebs organized by Space&Sound, a collective cofounded by alum Annie Nguyen, also of ET AL fame. see earlier post

Debra Drexler at Exit Art, New York City

Professor Debra Drexler was one of the invited artists into Exit Art's latest exhibition Fracking: Art and Activism Against the Drill. This exhibition, a project of SEA [Social Environment Aesthetics], will expose this process of gas extraction that is contaminating water supplies worldwide, and encourage audiences to continue educating themselves and their communities on fracking and its detrimental effects.

Fracking opened on December 7, 2010 and has received such a positive response that the exhibition has been extended until March 25, 2011.

Image: Debra Drexler, Too Much Heaven on Earth to Last, 2010

Paul Lavy at The Getty Center in Los Angeles

Assistant Professor & Art History Graduate Director Paul Lavy will be lecturing at the Getty Center in L.A. on March 5, 2011. As part of the Museum's event Ancient Cambodian Bronzes: History Ritual and Relevance, Lavy will be giving a presentation entitled "The Great Contemplative: The Buddha Image in Early Khmer Art and Culture".

Image: Vishnu-Vasudeva-Narayana, Cambodia, Angkor period late 1000's -about 1150
Courtesy of National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Phen

John Szostak at the Sainsbury Institute in London

Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History John Szostak has been at the Sainsbury Institute in London after being awarded the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellowship for 2010 -2011.

While in the UK Szostak has the following presentations:
February 17: Foul is Fair: 'Anti-Beauty' as Vehicle for Artistic Modernism in Japan at the Nissan Institute, Oxford University
February 21: Nihonga Painting and the Japanese Reception of Artistic Modernism for the Asian Studies Seminar Series at the University of Cambridge
March 17: 'Anti- Beauty' Portraits and Modern Painting in Japan at the Sainsbury Institute

The Reformer's Brush: Modernity and Traditional Media in China

Zhang Binglin [1868-1936], Couplet in Bronze Characters

The Reformer's Brush: Modernity and Traditional Media in China opens at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery on February 27, 2011.
This exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai revolution in China and showcases 78 works of Chinese calligraphy and painting from Honolulu collectors Dr. Ernest and Letah Lee and Dr. Chin-tang Lo.
On February 27 at 2:00 pm in the Art Auditorium, Keynote speaker Shana J. Brown will be giving a lecture Do Great Political Thinkers Make Great Artists? Visual Culture as a Medium for Reform in Turn-of-the-Century China.
Immediately following is the opening reception from 3:00 - 5:00 pm.

The Reformer's Brush will be on display from February 27 - April 8, 2011.
Gallery hours are Monday - Friday 10:30 - 5:00; Sunday 12:00 - 5:00 [closed spring break]
Gallery tours will be held Sundays March 6 - April 3 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm
An Educational Chinese Film Series will screened Sundays March 6 - April 3 starting at 3:30 pm in Art 101.

Katie Small: In Residence at the Honolulu Academy of Arts

MFA student Katie Small is 2011's first Orvis Artist in Residence at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Her project Mark and Respond "is a project that explores the relationship between music and painting...responding to an incredibly diverse musical playlist museum visitors will "play" along on their designated, amplified canvas creating their own soundscape. As the public paints producing sounds on their canvas I will listen and respond painting my interpretation of their sound on my canvas."
Katie Small is in residence at HAA starting February 6 until March 20.
You can participate in Mark and Respond Saturdays from 10:00 am - 4:30 pm and Sundays from 1:00 - 5:00 pm.
Also stop by on:
2/20 Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday
2/25 Art after Dark [live painting performance]
3/20 Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday