I am pleased to announce the appointment of Victoria Rovine, professor of art history, as the next director of Carolina Public Humanities. She begins her new role on July 1.

Professor Rovine has been a member of the department of art and art history faculty since 2014, joining the Carolina community after positions at the University of Florida and the University of Iowa. She is also currently director of the UNC African Studies Center, a position she wraps up at the end of this semester.

She has had a long association with Carolina Public Humanities programming, having given a number of lectures and talks on campus and at community colleges that were sponsored by CPH, the University’s public outreach arm for the humanities. The program is one of the many ways UNC serves North Carolina by bringing faculty expertise and resources to partner with communities throughout the state.

Professor Rovine is a scholar of African art, particularly African textiles and dress practices. She has published widely on African fashion designers, contemporary African artists and the representation of Africa in Europe through visual culture. Her public outreach experience began early in her career, when she worked as an educator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and later as a museum curator at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, where she saw firsthand the value of engagement and partnerships between the academic and public worlds. Her commitment to sharing the value of the humanities as a means of enriching our lives, addressing profound questions and building a stronger democracy could not come at a more important time.

I would like to once more thank Lloyd Kramer, professor of history, for so ably steering Carolina Public Humanities since 2014. The program greatly expanded under his tenure, even during the pandemic. Professor Rovine will find a talented and committed team in place when she begins her new role this summer.

I would also like to thank the members of the search committee, chaired by Christie Norris, director of Carolina K-12, for their efforts: Sarah Geer, CPH Advisory Board Chair; Eric Linwood Johnson, CPH Advisory Board Member; Herica Valladares, Associate Professor, Classics; and Alex Worsnip, Associate Professor, Philosophy.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt

Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts and Humanities

Kenan Eminent Professor of Southern Studies

College of Arts and Sciences

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In advance of the new annual Reckford Lecture in European Studies, join faculty from Art History and Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures for a panel discussion on (Anti-)Fascism and Avant Garde Movements! The event is on February 15, 2024, at 5:30 pm in Toy Lounge of Dey Hall. Refreshments to follow.

Professor Dan Sherman will be representing our department on the panel and speaking about Italian futurism and the so-called “return to order” in France after WW1, with emphasis on Le Corbusier.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Studio Art Martin Wannam, who was just named to the 2023 Silver List.

Modeled on the idea of the Hollywood Black List (the best unproduced screenplays of the year), the Silver List includes 24 photographers selected by nearly 100 curators, educators, publishers, and researchers working in photography in North America. Respondents to the 2023 Silver List were asked to list up to ten artists working in or with photography, with the following criteria:

They love the artist’s work and feel it should be seen more widely

The artist uses the medium of photography (however they define it)

The artist is living and early in their career (however they define it)

Artists who have previously been named to the Silver List are not included in this year’s list.

The resulting list of 24 artists represents the most frequently recommended artists. Collectively they represent a range of approaches to photography, and different ways of engaging with art discourses, contemporary concerns, and personal expression. The artists on the list represent an amazing range of approaches to photography.

Opening November 10, 2023 at CAM Raleigh, Neo-Psychedelia is co-curated by Art History Assistant Professor Kathryn Desplanque and MFA Alumnus Raj Bunnag, and includes the work of Desplanque, Alumni Jerstin Crosby, Chieko Murasugi, Charlie Dupee, and Triangle-based artists Tonya Solley-Thornton and Zach Storm. There will be an opening reception on November 10 from 5-9 pm and the show runs through March 2024.

Group Fiber Exhibition The Threads We Follow Opens at SECCA November 16

Next Generation of Fiber Artists Brings New Perspectives to Traditional Forms

(Winston-Salem, NC) – The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is proud to present The Threads We Follow, a group exhibition of fiber-based works by leading global artists, on view November 16, 2023 through March 10, 2024 in SECCA’s Main Gallery. An opening reception with the artists and curator Maya Brooks will be held Thursday, November 16 from 5 to 8pm, with remarks at 6pm and an opportunity for visitors to meet the artists at 6:30pm. Admission is free and open to the public.

Over several centuries, artists and craftspeople have used fiber to challenge identity-based oppression throughout various global cultures. Many of these artists specifically contemplate the historic devaluation of textiles based upon their association with domestic labor and craft making, where women and communities of color have long interpreted social politics.

The Threads We Follow acknowledges the foundations of fiber arts rooted in explicit gender and cultural expression while demonstrating contemporary understandings of the malleability of identity. The artists throughout this show experiment with structure and form to translate their experiences to materials like thread, fabric, and even hair, creating nontraditional designs including busts, sculptures, and suspended pieces. Ultimately, each of these artists emphasizes the exploratory nature of fiber arts that has continuously allowed space for community-focused experimentation and reflection.

The Threads We Follow includes works by Aliyah Bonnette, Amalia Galdona Broche, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, April Bey, Basil Kincaid, Cynthia Alberto, Ebony G. Patterson, John Paul Morabito, Lakea Shepard, Lien Truong, and Pia Camil.

“When I think about fiber and its historic devaluation as a ‘fine art’ tool, I wanted to create an exhibition that showcased contemporary artists’ innovations of the medium,” said curator Maya Brooks. “Fiber is having a moment, where artists connect their personal histories with social commentaries. So, I see this exhibition as an expression of recognizing that moment, especially as I’ve carried this love with me for most of my life and now career.”

Learn more about the exhibition and upcoming programs at SECCA.org.

UPDATE: Read about the show in this article from The Local Reporter

La Eterna Injusticia

BASEMENT ART SPACE
605 Caswll Rd. Chapel Hill NC

Sep 09 to Sep 30 2023
Opening Reception: Sep 09, 6-8pm
With Artist Talk at 7pm

Open Saturdays and Sundays 2-5 pm

The department of art and art history is pleased to welcome Annette Lawrence as its new chair and the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Studio Art. Professor Lawrence comes to UNC-Chapel Hill from the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas (UNT), and brings with her a great deal of experience and many accomplishments as an artist, teacher, and administrator.

As an artist, Professor Lawrence creates complex, visually striking paintings, drawings, and installations that thoughtfully engage with her environment and events taking place around her. Her artistic practice and leadership share a commitment to, in her words, “rigorously consider what counts, how it is counted, and who is counting. This process of questioning and analyzing also informs my approach to leadership. I’m committed to facilitating the experience of making and unmaking, looking and waiting, and finding or recognizing what is in front of us by paying attention.” Over 24 years at UNT, Professor Lawrence became a trusted leader among her peers, culminating in serving as chair of the Department of Studio Art for four years. As a voice for the department within the college and the university, she successfully advocated for enhanced facilities and staffing, among other accomplishments.

In her teaching, Professor Lawrence is committed to facilitating students’ explorations of their own sensibilities and guiding them to develop the skills they need to achieve their visions. She earned her BFA in sculpture from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, and her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Professor Lawrence’s work has been widely exhibited, including in solo shows at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, as well as in the Whitney Biennial. She received a MacDowell Fellowship in 2018, and has been honored with residencies at Skowhegan, the Core Residency Program, and the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, among other honors.

Professor Lawrence’s arrival at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a homecoming of sorts, as she has deep familial connections with the state. Her maternal grandparents were from North Carolina, and moved to Queens, New York, during the Great Migration of the 1930s. Professor Lawrence was born there, and spent summers as a child visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins in Oxford, Mt. Olive, Dudley, and Raleigh, North Carolina—places where some of her relatives still live today. She looks forward to building new connections and community far beyond the department of art and art history and the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Art History Kathryn Desplanque, whose digital humanities project has received a UNC Data Science Seed Grant.

In June 2023, the UNC School of Data Science and Society announced the award recipients of its first round of seed grants designed to jump-start collaborations around interdisciplinary research in data science. All proposals submitted were required to have researchers from different departments, schools, or centers and institutes and were reviewed by the school’s Research Advisory Council (RAC).

“Data science is everywhere on campus. We’re excited to fund six strong proposals, which are both bringing forth beneficial applications and examining data science’s consequences on society,” said Dean Stan Ahalt. “We’re also seeing our university’s research community’s strength in many areas of scholarship which use data science.”

In this first request for proposals, the school received over 40 proposals submitted from 27 departments, eight schools, and two centers and institutes. During the next academic year, awardees will contribute to the broader Carolina community by offering new shared resources — for example, workshops, teaching modules, research-ready datasets, or models of interest — and could potentially shape a larger-scale project designed to attract extramural funding or lead to commercial translation.

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Kathryn’s project:

“Art image analysis (ArtIA): Bringing new tools and expanded ontologies to the curation, analysis, and sharing of images in the digital humanities,” Kathryn Desplanque, department of art and art history with co-PIs Chris Bizon, RENCI; Amanda Henley, University Libraries; and Corbin Jones, department of biology and School of Medicine, department of genetics

Using a large corpus of curated images of political cartoons from 1750-1850 France, the team will illustrate effective data sharing, in the digital humanities, using findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR) principles, with a public database.

Read about the art interventions made by Hong-An Truong’s ARTS 490: Art as Social Action course in Chapelboro’s article “Low-Hanging Fruit: UNC students bring awareness to sexual violence on campus.” Truong and MFA candidate Molly English were interviewed for the piece.

 

Image: Still from Aquadisia (2022) by Stephanie Rothenberg