SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 ISSUE
ASU Launches Visiting Artists Series
“Vandalised Tree Reoriented” by Daniel Eatock. Eatock is one of eight artists to come to the ASU campus as part of the new Visiting Artists Series.Beginning this month, the ASU Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs will bring renowned artists to campus for extended stays through the new Visiting Artists Series. Akin to the popular and successful Visiting Writers Series at the university, the program will provide opportunities for artist residencies, student instruction and public lectures.
The 2009-10 Visiting Artists Series will bring eight artists to ASU in coordination with the Department of Art, Department of Theatre and Dance, Hayes School of Music, Department of Biology and the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts.
“We were interested in trying to work with some of the academic units to provide more meaningful interaction between students and artists,” said Hank Foreman, assistant vice chancellor for arts and cultural affairs at ASU.
While ASU brings many artists to campus each year for performances and exhibitions, they’re usually in and out pretty quickly, Foreman said.
The Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs has allocated funding in its budget specifically for the program and accepts proposals for visiting artists from the Department of Art, Department of Theatre and Dance and Hayes School of Music.
“We were so thrilled to have nationally recognized visiting artists in our midst,” said Marianne Adams, chair of the Theatre and Dance Department. When the department has attempted to bring in artists of similar caliber in the past, she said, it had to seek funding from as many as 10 different sources.
“To have that level of underpinning and support to invite artists, it’s just phenomenal,” Adams said. “We don’t take the gift for granted. It will really elevate our programs, and our students will be enriched by it.”
Not all dates for artists’ residencies have been finalized.
The Turchin Center will sponsor a residency program for sculpture artist Steven Siegel Monday through Friday, September 21 to 25, in partnership with the Department of Art and Department of Biology. Siegel’s exhibition Wonderful Life is on display in the Turchin Center’s Mezzanine and Main galleries through Saturday, October 3. Siegel, who lives and works in New York, was the 1998 Rosen Outdoor Sculpture winner at ASU. During the residency, Siegel will present a free public lecture at the Turchin Center lecture hall on Wednesday, September 23, at 7:00 p.m.
The Department of Theatre and Dance will welcome visiting artists Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild and Christal Brown. Dixon-Gottschild is a dance and theatre performer and artist who has broken new ground in dance research, taught and written cross-culturally and explored the African American perspective in dance and other arts.
Dixon-Gottschild will present a public lecture on Tuesday, September 22, at 7:00 p.m. in Belk Library room 114. On Wednesday, September 23, she will participate in a reading and signing of her book The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool at 2:00 p.m. at the University Bookstore in the student union.
Brown is a choreographer, educator, performer, writer and activist. Brown is the founding artistic director of INSPIRIT, a performance ensemble and educational conglomerate dedicated to bringing female choreographers together to collaborate and show new work. Brown will visit ASU in early March 2010.
The Department of Art will feature four artists’ residencies. Featured artists include Cristina Córdova, a ceramic and sculpture artist based in Penland; Tara Wilson, a studio potter living in Montana; and Bill Daley, who is internationally acclaimed for his massive and visually complex slab-built vessels.
Daniel Eatock is a British artist and graphic designer whose site-specific exhibition will be featured at the Catherine J. Smith Gallery at Farthing Auditorium. Daniel Eatock: Extra Medium will be on display from Thursday, September 17, through Monday, November 16. Eatock presented a public lecture on September 8. Curator of the exhibition Richard Torchia will give a lecture this Thursday, September 10, at 6:00 p.m. in room 208 at Wey Hall. The opening reception takes place on Wednesday, September 16, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the Catherine J. Smith Gallery.
The visiting artist to the Hayes School of Music will be Welson Tremura, a musician and ethnomusicologist well versed in Brazilian jazz, classical and vocal music as well as traditional European classical forms.
All lectures and book signings are free and open to the community. For more information, call 828-262-6084 or contact the various departments. A website — www.oca.appstate.edu/visitingartists — will soon be available.
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