New Faculty Show at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts
Harvard University
Details:
THE CARPENTER CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS OPENS THE 2008-2009 SEASON WITH FIVE ARTISTS NEW TO BOSTON
Exhibition showcases the work of five new faculty members in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University
The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University presents the New Faculty Show, with work by Sanford Biggers, Taylor Davis, Greg Halpern, David Lobser, and Catherine Lord, on view from September 15-October 23, 2008 in the Main Gallery, with a reception September 25, from 5:30-6:30pm. (High resolution images for print available upon request: tblanch@fas.harvard.edu.)
The five artists in the opening show of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Art's 2008-09 season represent the growing multiplicity of disciplines taught in Harvard University's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. From film and video to mixed media sculpture to animation and photography, the work in this show highlights the intersections between contemporary art and contemporary technologies to address contemporary concerns.
Born on the West Coast and living on the East, Sanford Biggers creates multidisciplinary artworks integrating film/video installation, sculpture, music, and performance. Inþuenced by his experiences living throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and by Buddhism, hip-hop and urban culture, Biggers's work is known for its combination of meditative rigor and improvisatory edge. His work has appeared in venues worldwide including the Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Studio Museum, Harlem, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, as well as institutions in China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland, and Russia.
Taylor Davis's sculpture and installations are a study in contradiction. Her everyday materials referencing rural structures-from loading pallets and tables to barns and troughs-belie the meticulous craftwork and construction usually reserved for precious materials or decorative objects. Recent exhibitions have been installed at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Museum 52, New York, and the Whitney Biennial. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, where she was the recipient of the ICA Boston Artist Prize.
Greg Halpern's work is influenced by the documentary tradition, though his work reveals more riddles and metaphors than answers. His photographs detail the socio-economic decline of his hometown of Buffalo, describing the sense of resistance, strength, and pride, as well as the rituals that persist. Using Buffalo as a microcosm, Halpern reflects life in all its misery, mystery, and greatness. Halpern's work has shown across the country, including the Oakland Museum of California, Momenta Art in Brooklyn, the Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and SF CameraWork and Southern Exposure in San Francisco. He has been an Aaron Siskind Foundations Individual Photographer's Fellow, and a John Gutmann Photography Fellow, and is the author/photographer of Harvard Works Because We Do (Quantuck Lane Press) chronicling the Living Wage Campaign at that university. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, and guest artist at Risley Residential College for the Creative and Performing Arts at Cornell University.
David Lobser works in the postproduction and animation industry in New York, using mainly 3D software that he treats as a mixed-media tool, bringing in elements from the real world. He has worked for companies including The Mill, Radical Media, Psyop, Framestore, and Curious Pictures, among others and briefly in film on such movies as The Matrix III, Lord of the Rings III, I-Robot, and King Kong. In addition to production, he designs and directs animation for Blacklist, FFake, Z-Animation, and Little Sister. His short Þlms tend to be surreal, juxtaposing themes cute and scary. His work has screened at Platform International Animation Festival, Anima Mundi, Seattle International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Los Angeles Film Festival, Annecy, and more, as well as on PBS, the Sci-Fi Channel, and MTV.
Catherine Lord is professor of studio art and women's studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is a writer, artist, and curator whose work addresses issues of cultural politics, including gardening, feminism, colonialism, and queer visualities. Before joining UCI, she was associate editor of Afterimage and dean of the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts. She has an extensive body of written work and her pieces as a visual artist were included in the 1995 exhibition Longing and Belonging at Site Santa Fe. Her book The Summer of Her Baldness: A Cancer Improvisation (University of Texas Press) records the involuntary cyber performance occasioned by a diagnosis of breast cancer. She is currently working on a text/image book titled The Effect of Tropical Light on White Men and, with Richard Meyer, Art and Queer Culture, 1885 to the Present (Phaidon Press, forthcoming).
This exhibition is free and open to the public. For further details, the public may call 617.495.3251 or visit our website at www.ves.fas.harvard.edu.
Press contact for interviews, or hi-resolution images:
Tracy Blanchard
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
T: 617-496-6617; E: tblanch@fas.harvard.edu
THE CARPENTER CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS
The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is the home of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies for undergraduate study in the visual arts and a graduate program in film studies, as well as to the Harvard Film Archive and two public art galleries. It is the architect Le Corbusier's only building in North America.
Directions
The Carpenter Center is at 24 Quincy Street in Cambridge, on the eastern edge of the Harvard University campus, one block north of Massachusetts Avenue between Broadway and Harvard Streets. Metered parking is limited and free after 6:00 pm. Take the Redline to the Harvard Square T stop and walk east through Harvard Yard to Quincy Street. The Carpenter Center is next door to the Fogg Art Museum.
Gallery Hours
Main Gallery: Monday-Saturday, 9am-11:00pm; Sunday, noon-11:00pm
Sert Gallery: Tuesday-Sunday, 1:00-5:00pm