November Issue 1999
Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem Offers New Exhibits
The Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery, located in the Scales Fine Arts Center, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, is offering several exhibits.
Fusion: Art and Science, an exhibition of seven artists who use science in
the creation of their work, will be on view through Dec. 10, 1999.
The exhibit displayed in the Centers downstairs gallery will feature
works by: Norman Tuck, Alyce Simon, Michael Rudnick, Ned Kahn,
John Pakosta, Jeff Wyckoff and M.C. Escher.
Oleg Vassiliev: On Black Paper, 1994-1997, will be on view
through Nov. 14, 1999 in the Center's upstairs gallery. This exhibit,
featuring 85 drawings, was curated by Neil Rector. Starting Nov.
18 and continuing through Jan. 16, 2000, the exhibit, Greg
Murr: Paintings, will be on view in the upstairs gallery.
Curated by Gallery Director Victor Faccinto and Wake Forest Professor
of Biology William Conner, Fusion: Art and Science is part
of Science and Technology: The Next Millennium, a yearlong
series of university events focusing on science and technology
topics including cloning, computer security issues and the state
of the environment.
John Pakosta and Jeff Wyckoff, who both have science backgrounds, "use the tools and methods of science as metaphor for examining the importance of image, meaning, context and the line between reflecting upon and doing science," said Peter Richards in the introduction to the show's catalog. Richards is the director of the Tryon Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC.
Norman Tuck's Oscylinder Scope is an interactive artwork that explores the nature of sound by directly translating the vibration of musical strings into visible waves. His other installation, Alchemy, incorporates seawater, copper and a magnet.
"The look of the corroded elements, the presence of water drawn directly from the sea, and of course, the magical movement of the pendulum without an external energy source, combine to speak of alchemy, an art that led to science," says Tuck of his piece. Tuck was the gallery director at Wake Forest from 1982-83 and taught sculpture at the university from 1987-88.
Alyce Simon of New Mexico uses a particle accelerator to create patterns in blocks of acrylic. Her atomic energy sculpture was exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in 1969.
Ecology, a 3-D motion picture installation by Michael Rudnick, features lights flashed on a revolving wire structure. Rudnick is currently an artist in residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
Ned Kahn is known for works that harness nature's
forces. In Intrusion, Kahn captures the geological processes
that take place within the earth's outer layers. Three of his
sculptures are on permanent display at the NC Museum of Life and
Sciences in Durham.
The show also includes several prints by M.C. Escher, on loan
from Winston-Salem's Dr. Stephen R. Turner. Much of Escher's work
explores themes common to mathematics and the physical sciences.
In the catalog, Wake Forest Associate Professor of Psychology
Terry Blumenthal, explains how he uses Escher's print, Regular
Division of the Plane V in psychophysiological research.
Oleg Vassiliev is an artist obsessed with memory. His obsession
has less to do with the content of any particular remembered event
than with how memory is constructed and how remembered facts present
themselves to the mind. No one has perfect recall of even
the most significant facts of a given event. It is a well
established psychological premise that what we think of as our
memory of a past event is instead a fictional narrative created
by the mind as it weaves together and tries to make sense of a
handful of actually remembered details. In his masterwork,
On Black Paper, 1994-1997, Vassiliev seeks to depict in
graphic form this process by which memories form and dissolve
and mingle with present information to arrive at the mind's perception
of what is real.
Born in Moscow in 1931, Vassiliev was one of the leading figures
in the Russian unofficial" art movement. Vassiliev has described
his work as an attempt to " combine the energetic space of
the painting ... with the depiction (as realistic as possible)
of the subjective world."
Although Vassiliev's desire to realistically depict subjective experience is not new, his exploration of memory took on a new focus and intensity following his immigration to New York in 1990. While in Moscow, Vassiliev was part of the close knit, supportive group of unofficial artists who were joined together by their common desire to create artwork that did not conform to the state-mandated "Socialist Realist" style. Following the collapse of the USSR, however, this group fragmented, and many of the leading artists left Russia to settle and work in Europe and the United States.
Ripped from this group of supportive friends
and separated from his homeland, Vassiliev became intrigued by
the randomness with which memories would appear and mingle with
his thoughts about his new life in New York to constantly change
his understanding of the world around him and his place in it. In
On Black Paper, Vassiliev sought to create, in pictorial
form, an analogy for the very process by which memories become
assimilated into the mind's consciousness.
Although the individual drawings that collectively comprise On
Black Paper are exquisitely rendered and at times hauntingly
beautiful, the ultimate meaning and power of the work as a whole
is in its ability to capture and depict the process of memory
as it is actually experienced by the human mind. As such,
On Black Paper is a monumental work of art that expands
the artistic tradition of depicting time and change and a work
that helps us better understand what it means to be human.
The next exhibit in the upstairs gallery is Greg Murr: Paintings. The exhibit is part of an ongoing series of alumni exhibitions.
Murr received his BA in studio art at Wake Forest University in 1993. He received his MFA in printmaking from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, in 1997. The artists also did studies abroad at Camberwell School of Art, London, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy. Murr has also done independent study and travel to Portugal and Spain.
Murr has had solo exhibits and work included
in group exhibitions throughout the US and Europe. His works are
included in numerous private, institutional, and corporate collections.
Here is what Murr says about his work, "Making paintings
is about the exhilaration of being creator. It is about bringing
something to life through careful guidance and then loosening
the reins enough to feel that I have lost control and set into
motion a thing of unimaginable weight and force."
"I am drawn to the sensuality of certain forms taken from our everyday world. Each painting becomes a kind of puzzle that, instead of begging a solution, offers a sensory experience undermining my desire or need to resolve."
"The forms that I paint are objects and
diagrams to record the sensual nature of the surrounding world. Their
allusions to botany, microbiology or to the human figure refer
to living growth and change. It is important that I understand
them to be in a state of metamorphosis. Edges breathe, generating
an energy that endures my scrutiny. The forms are visceral;
they confront me with both the elegance and the banality of their
being. They are complex devices of attraction and repulsion. I
accept them for their sheer materiality, a rich sequence of paint,
stains and pencil trails."
"Lines that compose the forms are brands, scars and shadows,
each in some way a heavy, blackened trace of something else--an
action or an object--a thing that used to be present and may still
be. Darkness evokes ambiguity and apprehension, force and
weight. Its intoxication seduces me and in the same breath
admonishes, threatening with a sensation of doubt. Their
darkness is paradoxic: beautiful and strong but uncomfortable
and malleable. It is both dormant and active, hovering in
anticipation, provocative."
Murr now lives and works out of Granville, OH. He has worked as an art instructor, in galleries, and as an illustrator.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the gallery at 336/759-5795 or on the web at (http://www.wfu.edu/art).
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 1999 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 1999 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.