Art event at UB Gallery

Here's some information from three press releases I received recently from the UB Gallery

UB Anderson Gallery Arts presents Harvey Breverman, Bruce Jackson and Terri Katz-Kasimov
October 18, 2008 through January 18, 2009


Buffalo, N.Y.— The UB Anderson Gallery is pleased to present Harvey Breverman, Bruce Jackson, Terri Katz-Kasimov in a group exhibition featuring paintings, drawings, collages, prints & photographs inspired by the life and works of Raymond Federman.

Federman@80, the special exhibition which opened at UB Anderson Gallery in conjunction with the day-long critical symposium and celebration, Federman@80: From Surfiction to Critifiction (which took place at UB and Medaille College on October 18, 2008) continues through January 18, 2009, concurrent with the main gallery exhibition Ode to Michael Goldberg (1924–2007): Selective Thievery & The Practice of Looking.

Federman@80, which takes up the Anderson Gallery’s entire second floor, including the atrium, features a large selection of large paintings and drawings, small prints, and sketchbook reproductions by Harvey Breverman portraying Federman (alone and with other international literary figures who have passed through Buffalo); a selection of Bruce Jackson’s photographs of Federman (also, in some cases, with other literary figures, such as Michel Foucault and Leslie Fiedler), taken between 1971–1997; and the entire Federman Series created by Terri Katz-Kasimov in collaboration with the author and first exhibited at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University in 2000.

Both Breverman (a SUNY Distinguished Professor, now retired from teaching but still active as an exhibiting artist) and Jackson (SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Chair in American Culture) were long-time colleagues of Federman’s on the faculty of UB, where Federman (b. 1928) was himself a Distinguished Professor and held the Melodia E. Jones Chair of Romance Languages.

Several of Breverman’s works now on view in Federman@80 were first exhibited at the UB Anderson Gallery as part of the artist’s major 2004 retrospective Harvey Breverman: Humanist Impulses. Jackson (an author, filmmaker, and scholar, as well as photographer) contributed an essay to the extensive catalogue for that exhibition entitled “Breverman as Impresario, Breverman as Jew.”

Katz-Kasimov’s Federman Series is based on Federman’s 1979 The Voice in the Closet that tells his personal story of escaping the French militia and the German Gestapo at age 14, when he was shoved into a closet by his mother. When he came out, his family was gone, and he was left on his own to survive. According the artist’s statement from her web site (terrikatzkasimov.com), “The mixed media collages of this series are based on the writings of Raymond Federman…a Holocaust survivor whose family was exterminated at Auschwitz. His numerous post-modernist novels and poems, published in fourteen languages, are inspired by his life. We have collaborated closely and I [was] privileged to have access to Federman’s manuscripts as well as precious French and German documents and memorabilia pertaining to the fate of his family. Copies of this material are incorporated in my artwork. The paintings are an attempt to interpret one person's story of an incredibly horrific time that is impossible to comprehend.”

Now retired from teaching but writing and publishing prolifically in San Diego, California, Raymond Federman lived in Buffalo for thirty years, where he taught creative writing, comparative literature, and English (especially the oeuvre of his special subject and personal friend Samuel Beckett) at UB. He is the author of numerous novels, books of poetry and short prose, and critical studies, many of which have been widely translated and published in Europe as well as North America. His novels include Double or Nothing (1971), Amer Eldorado (1974), Take It or Leave It (1976), The Voice in the Closet (1979), The Twofold Vibration (1982), the American Book Award-winning Smiles on Washington Square (A Love Story of Sorts) (1985), To Whom It May Concern (1990), La Fourrure de ma Tante Rachel (novel in French, 1996), Aunt Rachel’s Furs (in English, 2001), My Body in Nine Parts (2005), and Return to Manure (2006).

This exhibition was organized by the UB Anderson Gallery, in collaboration with Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.

UB Anderson Gallery is supported with funds from the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Anderson Gallery Program Fund, and UB Collection Care and Management Endowment Fund.

UB Anderson Gallery, located at One Martha Jackson Place near Englewood and Kenmore, is open Wednesday through Saturday 11am-5pm and Sunday 1-5pm. For more information, please call (716) 829-3754 or contact: Sandra Q. Firmin, Curator, 716-645-0570, sfirmin@buffalo.edu


MicroCosmic
November 13, 2008 through February 7, 2009


Buffalo, N.Y.—The UB Art Gallery is proud to present MicroCosmic, an exploration of the permanent collection of the UB Art Galleries. MicroCosmic opens with a public reception in the First Floor Gallery on Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 5 to 7pm. The exhibition is co-curated by Sandra Q. Firmin and Robert Scalise.

UB Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 AM to 5 PM with extended hours on Thursday until 7 PM. For information, please call 716-645-6912. The installation, which is free and open to the public, will be on view in the First Floor Gallery through February 7, 2009. The UB Art Gallery will be closed for winter session, December 9, 2008 through January 10, 2009 and will reopen on Tuesday January 13, 2009.

MicroCosmic is a metaphysical journey, transporting viewers into fantastic realms. Shadowy landscapes, tumultuous and serene waters, a freefall tumble towards earth, and the threshold between microscopic scrutiny of organic matter and the long distance views inherent in cosmic wonder can be experienced in this group exhibition. Albert Pinkham Ryder once asked: “Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or a twig, and then, clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something, to reach something? That's like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have footing.” The paintings, sculpture, prints and photography in this exhibition espouse this tenuous, yet adventuresome, point of view, beginning with a shadowy landscape by Ryder from 1881 that borders on atmospheric abstraction. Abstract paintings and prints by Mark Tobey are grounded in the ecological world while Charlie Clough’s relate more to the nebulae of outer space. In representational artworks by Roy De Forest and Salvador Dali mountains and clouds shape shift into animal forms. Elsewhere, Allan D’Arcangelo’s softly drawn road barriers are elevated into pulsating star-like constellations and Lita Albuquerque’s cast shadows on the Mojave Desert become performative gestures that produce what she refers to as terrestrial paintings.

Featured artists: Lita Albuquerque, Elaine Breiger, Charles Clough, Robert Winthrop Chanler, Salvador Dali, Elisha Davis, Roy De Forest, Allan D’Arcangelo, Thomas Eakins, Harold Eugene Edgerton, Phillip Elliott, Sam Francis, Dennis Oppenheim, Sam Richardson, James Rosenquist, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Tom Parish, Josep Guinovart, Gary Nickard, Clayton Pond, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Roth, Tatino (Joaquin Ribes), Mark Tobey, Martha Visser't Hooft and Tino Zago.

The UB Art Gallery is located in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus just north of the I290 on Millersport Highway. Traveling east or west on the I-290 takeexit 5B to Millersport Highway North. Turn onto the campus at the Coventry entrance. As you enter the campus, the Center for the Arts is a high gabled white building directly ahead of you.
After 3 PM and on weekends, parking is free and a permit is not required. During all other times, guests must park in metered spaces, visitor parking lots, or obtain a parking permit from UB Art Gallery staff. In order to obtain a parking permit, temporarily park in the circle in front of the Center for the Arts and see a gallery attendant inside.

The UB Art Gallery is funded by the UB College of Arts Sciences, the Visual Arts Building Fund, the Seymour H. Knox Foundation Fine Arts Fund, and the Fine Arts Center Endowment.



UB ART GALLERY, Center for the Arts presents:
Noncommittal: A Prospective Glance
(Selections from Department of Visual Studies' Senior Thesis 2008)
November 13, 2008 through February 7, 2009


Buffalo, N.Y.—The UB Art Gallery is proud to present Noncommittal: A Prospective Glance, a group exhibition featuring three recent graduates from the Department of Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo: Chris Bettencourt, Christine Goerss and Colin Griffin. This exhibition, an inaugural collaboration between the UB Art Gallery and the Department of Visual Studies, opens with a public reception in the Second Floor Gallery on Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 5 to 7pm. Formal remarks by Bruce D. McCombe, Dean of UB College of Arts and Sciences at 5:30 pm. The artists will be in attendance.



UB Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 AM to 5 PM with extended hours on Thursday until 7 PM. For information, please call 716-645-6912. The installation, which is free and open to the public, will be on view in the Second Floor Gallery through February 7, 2009.



Baby Books: Chris Bettencourt received her BFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2008 with a concentration in Emerging Practices. Her work utilizes a variety of media, and through the frequent use of satire concentrates on personal aspects of wider social issues. As Bettencourt anticipates the birth of her first child, she finds herself overcome with fears. Some of them are rational, some of them are not. For Baby Books, she categorized her fears, keeping only the ones she felt were widely experienced by expectant parents such as abnormalities that are undetectable by prenatal scans and the hazards of a un-baby-proofed house.



Neoplasticisms: Christine Goerss was born and raised in Buffalo, New York where she completed double degrees at the State University of New York at Buffalo in May 2008, receiving a BFA in Visual Studies and a BA in Art History. Goerss's interest in art history is visible in her artwork as she clashes concepts from the past with new materials and meaning. Neoplasticisms refers back to the art movement of the same name while looking ahead to suggest that there is a new plasticity that underlies the structure of our material world. The different types of assemblages Goerss arranges examine the way color and shape as previous essential forms have been trumped by byproducts of consumption. Central to her work is the collection and manipulation of material waste as it represents consequences of the existence that we have built up around us. The artist uses littered boxes, bags, and junk mail to reflect the imaginary concepts of branding, corporate identity, and credit, while her unsecured modular sculptures serve as a reminder that what is built up must eventually come down.



A real if fleeting instance of rapport: Colin Griffin bought his first camera the day after he first set foot in a darkroom, so beguiled was he. It was all so perfect, and so obviously suited to his quiet demeanor and romantic inclinations, that he never looked back. After a while he began experimenting with combining this newfound love with his other passions: storytelling, singing, and playing instruments. He found that he could create moving pictures to tell his stories, and use his own songs to set the mood. This ability to shape an entire world, no matter how brief and idealized it may be, is a powerful one. Griffith is beginning to realize this, is wary of it, but embraces it doggedly. For A real if fleeting instance of rapport, Griffin purchased a Super-8 movie camera. He goes on: “Two, actually. Why not?? I bought the necessary stock and a dozen batteries. I found a lab in Kansas that still processes the type of film I chose. I’ve also written a journal entry that is fictional, though parts of it bear a not insubstantial likeness to journal entries that are nonfictional. I began recording myself playing borrowed instruments with a borrowed microphone, and drew many little drawings that look perhaps like the second of a ten step “how to draw” lesson. I’ve talked to a number of people about this project, without ever really telling them very much about it at all. Each time I do, however, I learn a little bit more about why I do what I do. I’m just not going to tell you….”



The UB Art Gallery is located in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus just north of the I290 on Millersport Highway. Traveling east or west on the I-290 takeexit 5B to Millersport Highway North. Turn onto the campus at the Coventry entrance. As you enter the campus, the Center for the Arts is a high gabled white building directly ahead of you.



After 3 PM and on weekends, parking is free and a permit is not required. During all other times, guests must park in metered spaces, visitor parking lots, or obtain a parking permit from UB Art Gallery staff. In order to obtain a parking permit, temporarily park in the circle in front of the Center for the Arts and see a gallery attendant inside.



Organized by the UB Art Galleries with generous support form the Department of Visual Studies. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring essays by Jennifer Griffith, Anna Kuehl and Megan Leight, graduate students in the Department of Visual Studies with art history concentrations.



The UB Art Gallery is funded by the UB College of Arts Sciences, the Visual Arts Building Fund, the Seymour H. Knox Foundation Fine Arts Fund, and the Fine Arts Center Endowment.