Image: Still from Aquadisia (2022) by Stephanie Rothenberg

Artist and former Faculty Member Kimowan Metchewais continues to inspire other artists long after his untimely passing in 2011. Fellow artist Wendy Red Star speaks movingly about how she first encountered his work and what it means to her in this column in the New York Times: Seeing Myself in the Work of an Artist I Never Met

Newest faculty member Martin Wannam is one of the artists chosen for the XXIII Bienal de Arte Paiz in Guatemala.

From their website:

“Fundación Paiz is very excited about the twenty-third edition of the Bienal de Arte Paiz, which will take place from July 13 to 30, 2023, with an outstanding curatorial team made up of Francine Birbragher (USA) and Juan Canela (ESP).

The curatorial team focused on creating an inclusive platform to open dialogue in the region because they noticed that spaces where ideas and thoughts are shared are important to nurture art.

In 2022, a public call was held to select national and international artists. Thanks to this, a very diverse exhibition was built. We are looking for new ways to present art so that it reaches more people!

In addition to the exhibitions, we will have different activities such as conservatories, workshops, and meetings that promote spaces for collective learning. Having your participation is the most important thing!”

You can see the full list of participating artists in the Bienal press release.

Emeritus Professor Mary Sturgeon’s new book The Gymnasium Area: Sculpture (Corinth XXIII.1) was published in December of 2022 and is now available for purchase.

Volume XXIII in the Corinth series is dedicated to the finds from the Gymnasium Area, excavated between 1965 and 1972 by James R. Wiseman and the University of Texas at Austin. Fascicle XXIII.1 presents the marble sculpture, 126 pieces dating between the 6th century B.C. and 5th century A.D. and found in or near a variety of built features, including the ornately decorated Bath-Fountain complex. Among the sculptural finds are portraits of athletes and civic officials and depictions of Dionysos, Hermes, and Aphrodite and the nymphs. Herms and statue bases also form part of the assemblage. This corpus grants us insight into the sculptural practices after the founding of the Roman colony at Corinth, and critical knowledge concerning display context, reuse, and the deposition of sculpture at a gymnasium in a large regional center of the eastern Mediterranean.

Studio Art faculty member Sabine Gruffat will be giving a talk at Duke University on November 1. “Moving and Being Moved: a Conversation with Sabine Gruffat” is at 6 pm at Duke’s Rubenstein Arts Center in the Film Theater.

October 25, 4:30-5:30 pm, Visual Arts Center, 117 Semans Lecture Hall, Davidson College

Sabine Gruffat is a digital media artist and award-winning filmmaker. Her creative work includes experimental video and animation, media-enhanced performance, participatory public art, and immersive installation.

Sabine’s films and videos have screened at festivals worldwide including the Image Forum Festival in Japan, The Ann Arbor Film Festival and Migrating Forms in New York. Her feature essay films I Have Always Been A Dreamer and Speculation Nation have screened internationally including at the Viennale, MoMA, Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, and The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.

She has also produced art for public spaces as well as interactive installations that have been shown at the Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, Art In General, Devotion Gallery, PS1 Contemporary Art Museum, and Hudson Franklin in New York.

She teaches film and animation at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Co-sponsored by Davidson College’s Departments of Art and English and Davidson Arts and Creative Engagement

The College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites applications for Department Chair and Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor in the Department of Art & Art History, which is comprised of diverse faculty representing a range of fields, media, and methodologies. The start date will be July 1, 2023. We welcome candidates in any discipline of art history, studio art practice, or related fields with the credentials to be appointed at the rank of full professor with tenure. Candidates will be asked to articulate an innovative vision for the future of the department that values forward thinking, critical inquiry, creativity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are seeking candidates who have an outstanding record of research and/or artistic achievement, teaching, and service, as well as experience as a dynamic, consultative leader and administrator. The chair supports departmental faculty and staff in their academic, research, and service activities, and facilitates student recruitment, budget administration, and personnel management. We seek applicants committed to diversity and inclusion in higher education, including but not limited to recruiting and retaining diverse faculty, staff, and students. Charged with building these important relationships, the chair will work with a wide range of constituencies. The term of the chair will be four years, with the possibility for a second term, after which the chair will continue to serve on the faculty as a Full Professor. We welcome applications from individuals who may have had non-traditional career paths or who have achieved excellence outside of academia.

We welcome candidates in any discipline of art history, studio art practice, or related fields with the credentials to be appointed at the rank of full professor with tenure. Candidates will be asked to articulate an innovative vision for the future of the department that values forward thinking, critical inquiry, creativity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are seeking candidates who have an outstanding record of research and/or artistic achievement, teaching, and service, as well as experience as a dynamic, consultative leader and administrator.

Job Posting Application Information

Congratulations to Hồng-Ân and Lien on the opening of their group show Circular Ruins at island in NYC.

Rubber Factory begins a new chapter as island | gallery 
inaugural exhibition: Circular Ruins
reception on September 30 from 6 to 8 pm

Open through October 30

BASEMENT X PEEL

Fundraiser Exhibition Event

Opening Reception: Friday, September 9th at Peel.

Closing Reception: Saturday, September 24th at BASEMENT.

BASEMENT X PEEL will be on view at both BASEMENT and Peel from Friday, September 9th until Saturday, September 24th. Peel will host an opening reception and silent auction on Friday, September 9th from 6-9 pm, during the Carrboro, Chapel Hill 2nd Friday Art Walk, with refreshments in the parking lot and live music. BASEMENT will host a closing reception and silent auction on Saturday, September 24th from 6-9 pm with “A STANK/STINK Outdoor Happenings,” a performance art experience.

All work in the exhibition will be available for purchase via both traditional sale and silent auction during both receptions and during all open hours of the exhibition at both locations. All proceeds from sales will go to supporting BASEMENT and Peel programming.

BASEMENT Open Hours: 9/10 & 9/11 and 9/17 & 9/18 from 2-5 pm

BASEMENT address: 605 Caswell Rd. Chapel Hill, NC (stairs to BASEMENT on left of driveway)

Featuring work by Adriana Ameigh // Alissa Van Atta // Allison Tierney //Anna-Christina De La Iglesia // Ashlie Johnson Coggins // Ayla Gizlice David D’Agostino // Dawn Colsia // Emma Stevens // Fabrizio Bianchi // Georgia Paige Welch // Hillary Ensminger // Hồng-Ân Trương // Jean Gray Mohs // Jenn Adams // Jimmy Fountain // John Shaw // Jon Neal // Jonh Blanco // Joy Drury Cox // Jphono1 // Leah Foushee Waller // Madeleine Grace Popkin // Madison Speyer // Mark Allen Soderstrom // Mark Anthony Brown Jr. // Marsha Glickman // Matthew Tauch // Natasja Brezenski // Nathaniel Quinn // Paget Fink // Paul Deblinger // Peg Bachenheimer // Rachel Moon // River Cortes // Rusty Shackleford // Serena Fenton // Shelley Smith // Sterling Bowen // Tama Hochbaum // Toni Hartley // Tricia Russ // Gadisse Lee // Jiahn Kang // Lindsay Metivier

Turner Carroll Gallery
Lien Truong: From the Earth Rise Radiant Beings
August 26 – September 25, 2022
Opening Reception, August 26, 5-7 pm

In her first solo exhibition at Turner Carroll Gallery Lien Truong exhibits works from her series From the Earth Rise Radiant Beings. The series consists of bold explorations of color and form, and staunch repudiation of Orientalist stereotypes. Taking female figures from 18th- and 19th-century paintings she transforms them into silhouettes painted in the palest yellow hues and reappropriates the figures’ sexualized and submissive gestures into a kind of Asian futurism. Through otherworldly landscapes and anamorphic silk shapes, Truong creates narratives of love transcending generations to create messages of resistance, autonomy, and beauty.

View work in the exhibition.

Patricia Sweetow Gallery Los Angeles
Linda Sormin | Luis A. Sahagun | Lien Truong
September 3 – October 15, 2022
Artist Reception, September 10, 2022, 2-8 pm

PATRICIA SWEETOW GALLERY is excited to announce our Inaugural Exhibition in Los Angeles at 1700 South Santa Fe Avenue, 3^rd Floor, with artists Lien Truong, North Carolina; Linda Sormin, New York and Luis A. Sahagun, California. The three artists in this exhibition offer practices immersed in complex visual and political American histories. They share personal, spiritual, and cultural stories of migration during war, economic collapse, and sovereign colonization. Their journeys come alive through a mélange of performative sculpture and painting, amplified by their respective interrogations of ancestral, racial, gender, and ritual erasure. The rich, profound impact of their ideas finds life in unexpected iterations of nontraditional and historical materials. The three artists offer compelling and imaginative cultural forms that examine deeply personal histories that have endured within and alongside dominant culture under extraordinary circumstances.