STUDENT EXHIBITIONS

A Selection of Paintings, Sculptures and Photographs by Senior Art Students: Alexandra Brockett & Kelly McCann


Alexandra Brockett, Jesus Saves Us


Kelly McCann, Untitled

Smith Warehouse, 1st Floor
Duke University, Durham, NC

Gallery Hours:  9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday. This exhibition will run from April 9-20, 2009

Games & Social Structures: Creating a Social Object
A Selection of Works by Students from Intro to Visual Practice
(Fick/Lasch, Spring 09)

Smith Warehouse,
Duke University, Durham, NC

Gallery Hours:  9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday. This exhibition will run from April 9-20, 2009

PUBLIC LECTURE ON INKA MASONRY



"The Significant Stone: Meaning in Inka Masonry"

Carolyn Dean
Professor, History of Art & Visual Culture
Associate Dean, Arts Division
University of California at Santa Cruz

5:00 PM
April 14, 2009
108 East Duke Building
East Campus, Duke University

PUBLIC LECTURE ON NAZI GERMANY



"The House of Art: A Cultural History of Nazi Germany"

Gregory Maertz
Professor of English and Art History, Saint John's University

April 15, 2009
5:00 PM
108 East Duke  Building
East Campus, Duke University

In this talk Gregory Maertz will share his discovery of the archives of the Haus der Deutschen Kunst and their significance to his new project, the first complete account of the premier cultural institution of the Third Reich from its founding by the Nazi Party to its dissolution during the American occupation.

Sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature and the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies

SYMPOSIUM

The Place of Memory:
Exploring the Revisualization of the Neurosciences

April 24, 2009
8:50 AM - 4:00 PM
John Hope Franklin Center, Room 240
Duke University



This one-day symposium will explore themes relating to the neurosciences and the re-visualization of scientific knowledge through art and digital technology. It will begin with a series of lectures exploring extant examples of art-science collaborations, to be followed by two workshops focusing on themes relating to different aspects of memory.

Please see: http://isis.duke.edu/events/upcoming.html#neurosciencessymposium

Timothy Senior (Senior Research Scholar, ISIS) will discuss ideas relating to memory encoding and consolidation from the perspective of systems neuroscience. Kevin LaBar (Associate Professor, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience) will discuss how emotions modulate memory behaviorally and in the brain. Alison Adcock (Assistant Professor, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience) will discuss how memories for events are affected by an individual's biological "state of brain," including genetic, chemical, and behavioral determinants. In addition, Casey Alt (Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of New Media Arts), and Pinar Yoldas (Artist) will discuss the way in which theories from neuroscience inform their practice within the arts.
This event is run in collaboration with the Duke Visual Studies Initiative and Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS) Program. For more information contact Timothy Senior, tjs31@duke.edu.

VISUALIZING CULTURES


Shiseido advertisement, 1927

Gennifer Weisenfeld, associate professor of art history, recently authored the core essay, "Selling Shiseido: Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan," which is the centerpiece for a new unit of the MIT Web-based project Visualizing Cultures that will be launched in May 2009. The Visualizing Cultures project was begun in 2002 under the co-directorship of MIT Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower and Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture Shigeru Miyagawa to promote image-driven scholarship of Asia, and is partnering with major museums and private institutions to provide analysis of important digital image archives. Both the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston are partners in the project. The Visualizing Cultures mission is to use innovative technology and hitherto largely inaccessible visual materials as an historical lens through which to see and interpret how people throughout Asia have visualized culture and identity.


Shiseido Advertisement, 1925

In addition to serving on the project's advisory board, Weisenfeld worked closely with the Shiseido cosmetics corporation to develop the new unit, which will feature an unprecedented number of commercial and advertising design works sponsored by the company over the first half of the twentieth century. High quality illustrations and extensive image galleries displaying hundreds of example works allow for a much richer picture of the company's visual and material production of the period. Images include examples of Shiseido's product design, print advertising, promotional spaces, marketing strategies, and even contemporary films of the promotional events staged in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo in the 1930s.

Please see:
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/index.html


Shiseido advertisement, 1927

INSTITUT NATIONAL D'HISTOIRE DE L'ART


Fray Diego Valades, Rhetorica Christiana. Detail showing the religious teaching to the Indians with images. 1579. Photo courtesy of Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin.

Hans Van Miegroet, chair and professor of art history, participated in the fourth annual "Seminaire commun de l'INHA" on March 27 at the Institute national d'histoire de l'art in Paris. The title of van Miegroet's lecture was "Commerce international en reseaux et nouvelle imagerie du Mexique colonial." The seminar is one of six being offered between January and May of this year.

PRINT EXHIBITION


Bill Fick, The Ill-Tempered Zombie, linocut, 38" x 30." Published by Cockeyed Press

"The Ill-Tempered Zombie," a linocut print by Bill Fick, visiting assistant professor of the practice of visual arts, will be a part of a show entitled Dark Americana at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco from April 4-May 9, 2009.

This exhibition features works that point to sinister aspects of American culture- excess, violence, fear, racism, torture, nuclear proliferation, Reaganomics, AIDS, homophobia, homelessness, and the art world-but do so with a certain sense of humor, while employing a form, style, or material with traditional American roots. Works by Raymond Pettibon, R. Crumb, Bruce Conner, and Roger Shimomura will also be among images in this exhibition.

Please see: http://www.baerridgway.com

COLLABORATIONS: HUMANITIES, ARTS & TECHNOLOGY



Bill Seaman, professor of visual studies, presented "From Recombinant Poetics to Neosentience: An Overview of Media Art Works by Bill Seaman" on March 30, as part of the University of North Carolina Institute for the Arts and Humanities' digital arts and humanities initiative, CHAT Festival (Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology).

Art, Performance and Collaboration: The CHAT Festival will take place February 12-20, 2010. CHAT will feature artists and scholars invited from around the world to Chapel Hill, along with new work commissioned from faculty at UNC, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and North Carolina State University, and from North Carolina artists. Throughout the festival week, this work will be displayed at sites across the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. For more information please see: http://iah.unc.edu/chat/festival.

VISUAL RESOURCES CENTER RECONFIGURED


Reconfigured VRC space: Architecture/Design Lab


Reconfigured VRC space: Architecture/Design Lab

During January and February over 200 sq. ft. of space in the Visual Resources Center was cleared and reconfigured into an architectural/ design lab for the department. Two high-end computer stations, an oversized flatbed scanner, a large 12-ink Canon iPF8100 plotter printer, and two large work tables were installed so that faculty and students can learn and experiment with design software programs, such as AutoCad, Maya, and SketchUp, and gaming software, as well as produce high-resolution, oversized printouts of their projects. One of the uses of the lab will be to incorporate new media technologies into art history and architectural history courses, such as those on Gothic cathedrals, Renaissance space, classical style in Greek sculpture, Roman spectacle, and the new course Wired! ("new representational technologies for historical materials").  The lab will also be used to print out design projects from visual arts and visual studies courses.


Reconfigured VRC space: Slide Archive

FILM SCREENING AND WORKSHOP

From the Reel to the Virtual:
The Past and Future of the Moving Image



Inaugural Event: Screening and discussion with filmmaker Malcolm Le Grice, followed by a reception.

April 30, 2009
5:00 PM
Nasher Museum of Art, Auditorium
Duke University

Workshop:

May 1, 2009
9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
0012 Westbrook
West Campus, Duke University

Please see:
http://visualstudies.duke.edu/cool-stuff/events/#reel2virtual

WORKSHOP

Visual Thinking:
How Do Visual Communication Technologies Affect Learning and Knowledge Retention in the Sciences and Humanities?



May 4, 2009
3:00 - 8:00 PM

May 5, 2009
8:30 AM - 5:00 PM

CIEMAS Auditorium and Breakout Rooms
West Campus, Duke University

Please see:
http://cit.duke.edu/events/event.do?eventid=2001&occurid=3811

Registration is limited to allow for interactive sessions; if you are interested please reserve your space by 04/24/2009.

SUMMER COURSES

Summer Term I
ARTHIST 177C-01
Minimalism and the American West
Instructor: Karen Gonzalez Rice


James Turrell, Roden Crater, 1977, Flagstaff, Arizona

This seminar is designed for students interested in exploring the relationship between the cultural, social geography of a specific region-the American West-and the set of varied yet related aesthetic practices loosely defined as Minimalist, including painting, sculpture, land art, and earth art. Students will develop art historical knowledge of art works and artists working in the West and will examine the social, political, and economic contexts of art production in these spaces, considering critical responses, viewer experiences, and impact on communities. No prior knowledge of art history is necessary for this course, although an understanding of the history of modern and contemporary art is helpful.

Please refer all relevant departmental information for inclusion in our weekly announcement to John Taormina, Director, Visual Resources Center, at taormina@duke.edu.