Art, Culture, Life at St. Lawrence University
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Our exhibition of Inuit prints will be on view at the Canadian Embassy in DC through December 30, 2010, and will come home for display at the Gallery next spring. St. Lawrence worked with Embassy staff to host a private reception on September 15. SLU trustees, alums, and friends met with President Bill Fox and Ambassador Gary Doer, and as Bill said later, “Raves everywhere.” By all accounts, it was quite a success. A set of pics from the reception is linked here.
Carole and I always say that the fall semesters begin binding journals with students from the ADK program. These folks will be living in yurts until Thanksgiving, offline, in the wilderness on property at Massawepie about 50-60 miles south of SLU. From Cathy Shrady:
Louise Bourgeois passed away this week on May 31 at age 98. From The New York Times, “’The subject of pain is the business I am in,’ she said. ‘To give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering.’ She added: ‘The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses.’ Yet it was her gift for universalizing her interior life as a complex spectrum of sensations that made her art so affecting.”
Sarah Lott has a new Web site that includes her work as a photographer, jewelry maker, and mosaic artist. After graduating from SLU and the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, Sarah now lives in Idaho, where she gains “inspiration for all her crafts from the mountains, valleys, rivers, skies, creatures and people of the greater Teton area.” Hi Sarah!
I just heard from Alexey Bulakhov on FB today, with a link to his new bilingual blog Alexey Timbul: artist-activist-pilgrim. Alexey graduated in 200? (need to check!) and has since worked in Europe and Russia. Click on the blog link to see his new poem on health care that will be performed in DC this week. Alexey has adopted a new last name, a combination derived from his mother’s and father’s name.
At an African Studies meeting this afternoon, I’ll be presenting information about the Nsukka artists and contemporary Nigerian art digital collection project that the Gallery is working on this year. Here are some of the artists in the project and a few blog resources.
ARTSPEAKAFRICA, Bisi Silva’s blog of Nigerian art and artists.
African Artists on Nsukka artists.
Victor Ekpuk, Ekpuk’s drawing performance, Amsterdam, 2008, and Prisoner of Conscience painting.
embedded by Embedded Video
Victor Ekpuk’s drawing performance
Ulli Beier (Wikipedia); Mbari houses; exhibition at SLU.
Ofodunka, blog of Chika Okeke-Agulu.
Clip de 70 Million, chanson du groupe franco-americain Hold Your Horses ! produit par L’Ogre, mettant en scène les membres du groupe dans un voyage à travers l’histoire de l’art.
An entertaining and cheeky music video for “70 Million”, hit song by Franco-American band, Hold Your Horses!, offers a wink at art history as band members playfully reconstruct famous paintings in an off the wall lyrical interpretation all their own.
We’re pleased to have Lauri Lyons here today to speak in conjunction with the exhibition of her photographs on display at the Brush Art Gallery. She will be speaking about two related projects, one called “Flag: An American Story” and the other “Flag International.”
From 1995-2000, Lauri traveled across the United States to interview people about what they thought was America. Each person would reflect upon this and write their comments in one of her journals. Afterwards, she would photograph them with an American flag.
Later, in 2007, she went to Europe to investigate how the international community views the United States in the 21st century. Similarly, each subject was approached on the street and handed a sketchbook to write his or her views of America. Each was given an American flag, and people posed however they felt comfortable.
Works from both projects are presented in the exhibition here at St. Lawrence.
Lauri has produced and photographed essays in Brazil, Mexico, West Africa, and the United States, which have appeared in such publications as Stern, Trace, Vibe, and The London Observer. In 2003, Lauri Lyons became the first black woman to shoot the cover of Fortune magazine and in 2006, the first black female photographer signed to Getty Images.
Lauri has shown her work The International Center of Photography, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Civil Rights Museum. Her advertising clients include Pepsi and McDonald’s.
From 2000 to present, Lauri Lyons has served as a faculty member for the International Center of Photography, Rhode Island School of Design, and as the Director of Photography for the Leave Out Violence youth program.
Lauri has also contributed to The Huffington Post on a wide variety of topics including Afro-Brazilian history, beats, and culture; art and activism by homeless teens in Minneapolis; women in hip-hop: the B-Girl Be festival; and Harlem memorializing Michael Jackson at the Apollo Theater.
I’m having a Spencer Homick moment of nostalgia. Three of us SLU-sters (Spencer, Sasha Tedeschi, and I) were lucky enough to be together in Berlin on November 9, 2009, for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Luv ya, Spenc! (P.S. Lorie MacKenzie says hi, too!)
The Gallery will begin the spring 2010 semester with an exhibition entitled Flag International of photographs by Lauri Lyons. Lauri interviewed and photographed people from around the world, asking each person to comment upon his/her feelings about the United States and the American flag. After each person wrote in one of her journals, she would photograph them in any way they felt comfortable. The photographs arrived yesterday, all the same size and all beautifully framed in similar black wooden frames. Yet, when you look closer, you see that each photograph within tells a moving personal story. Tomorrow, we’ll sequence the show, arranging the photographs in such a way as to let each one tell its own story, but also to let the photographs share stories with one another. That’s the creative part from our end!
Lauri will be coming to campus in February to give a lecture and meet with students. Keep an eye out for more info on the Gallery‘s Web site.
