Sunday, May 30, 2010
Arts & Extras: 'Rock star' digital artist unites Hollins, Roanoke College
The Roanoke Times
File 2009 James Mahood from Salt Lake City, Utah, has a look at "Aspire," a bus shelter designed by art students at Patrick Henry High School under the direction of artist Ed Dolinger of Bassett.
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
Recent columns
- 'Ophelia' marks Black History Month
- Art Council's updated website reflects mission to be 'inclusive'
- Metal sculptor who died too young gets retrospective
Arts&Extras blog
Recent posts
In the Roanoke Valley, much discussion about the health of the arts community centers on collaboration among arts organizations -- or the lack thereof.
Those who'd like to see more examples of cooperation should sit up and take notice: Talia Logan, director of Roanoke College's Olin Galleries, and Amy Moorefield, executive director of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, have embarked on the first-ever joint venture between the institutions they head.
Logan and Moorefield worked together at Virginia Commonwealth University's Anderson Gallery before landing the positions they now hold. Logan came to Roanoke College in 2006, and when Moorefield started at Hollins in 2008, both knew they wanted to collaborate on a project -- it was only a matter of finding an exhibition that would make sense to hold at two locations, Logan said.
That exhibit, "Jim Campbell: In the Repose of Memory," will open in September at both schools.
A digital artist who double-majored in engineering and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Campbell's work has been displayed in countries from Germany to Taiwan, with frequent appearances in New York and San Francisco. He has work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
"He's doing truly revolutionary work with electronic media," Moorefield said. "He's a complete art world rock star."
Campbell's experiments exploring film, video, perception and memory include images that are averages of every frame of a motion picture and photographs that contain shadowy images moving through stationary scenes. In one exhibit, a voice box spells every word from the Bible it's attached to by wires.
Roanoke College will host a retrospective sampling from Campbell's two decade-long career, while the Wilson Museum will exhibit his newest work.
The Campbell exhibit is also meant to fill a gap in regional art displays, as electronic media exhibitions tend to be rare in the Roanoke Valley.
A further collaboration is in the works. Moorefield said that Simone Paterson, chair of Virginia Tech's studio art program -- which teaches electronic media art -- will be involved in planning events for the exhibit.
Moorefield noted that, given the economic climate, there's much talk in the region about museums working together. "I hope that other institutions might see our collaboration as something that they might be interested in in the future, and we would certainly welcome working with other institutions," she said. "Practically, it makes a lot of sense to share resources."
Both institutions have ambitious solo plans as well. This fall, Logan plans a exhibit taken from recent acquisitions in the college's permanent collection that includes artists such as Andy Warhol and sculptor Tom Otterness, followed by a display by sculptor Alice Aycock, whose work "The Solar Wind" that stands on the college campus will be restored this summer.
When the Wilson Museum opens its portion of the Campbell show, it will also open "The Fleeting Glimpse: Selections in Modern and Contemporary Photography from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts," an exhibit assembled by Moorefield and Hollins art professor Christine Carr from the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, a major collaborative undertaking in its own right. It will be the first time the VMFA has allowed another museum to curate its permanent collection.
For more information about Roanoke College Galleries, call 375-2332 or visit roanoke.edu. For more information about the Wilson Museum, call 362-6532 or visit hollins.edu.
Dali for dinner
Here's a unique idea for an arts fundraiser. Roanoke home decor shop Plantagenet Rose Interiors is organizing "The Daling Dinner," a fundraiser for the Taubman Museum of Art that will celebrate the work of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali. The items up for silent auction will include two Dali prints donated by Baterbys Art Auction Gallery of Orlando, Fla.
The event takes place at 6 p.m. June 4 at 202 Market in downtown Roanoke, and boasts a menu inspired by Dali's work, though the list that appears online doesn't seem to include melting clocks. Tickets $125.
At last word, the event planners were seeking additional items for the auction. For more information, call 206-2275 or visit plantagenetrose.com.
Juried art show
Speaking of the Taubman, Executive Director David Mickenberg will be the juror for the 11th annual juried show held by Nelson Gallery in Lexington. The theme is "Inside/Outside," with artists free to interpret that however they wish. Artists may submit up to three pieces. Deadline is June 22. For more information, call 463-9827 or visit nelson-gallery.com.
Surreal bus shelters
The city of Roanoke, Greater Roanoke Transit Company and the Roanoke Arts Commission will dedicate a new public sculpture at 1 p.m. June 1, this one at the entrance to William Fleming High School at 3649 Ferncliff Ave. N.W.
Called "Coalesce," this is the second of two creative bus shelters developed by art students under the guidance Bassett artist Ed Dolinger.
The first, called "Aspire," was installed at Patrick Henry High School in November. Though some onlookers have questioned how functional it is as a shelter, it certainly grabs the eye, resembling a torch with flames blown by wind and sporting Patrick Henry's school colors. "Coalesce" is expected to have an entirely different design.
Both projects were funded in part by Roanoke's Percent for Art program.
On the Arts blog
For poets, it's a career pinnacle: faculty members from Hollins University and Virginia Tech have poems in the latest issue of The New Yorker. For this and more arts and culture news, visit my blog at blogs.roanoke.com/arts.
