The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has purchased a drawing, Nemesis, by ’97 MFA alumna Marie Sivak. The drawing is pencil and mixed media on paper, size 8.25" x 5.75."
Nemesis is part of a series called Entanglements, an exploration of images of mythical female figures ensnared in a fantastical state of transcendence.

Sivak was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has recently been shown at A.I.R. Gallery, New York; Art London with Panter & Hall Gallery; The Drawing Gallery, London; Kunstihoone, Tallinn Estonia; and Palazzo Pretorio, Volterra, Italy. She was the 2005 winner of the Yeck National Young Sculptor’s Award, a recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship and a grant from the Ruth Chenven Foundation. Ms. Sivak’s work has been collected internationally and is included in the collections of Miami University in Oxford, OH and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as numerous private collections.

Her work will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Laura Russo Gallery (Portland, Oregon) this November. In January 2008, her drawings will be included in a special group exhibition of works on paper Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York and she will have a solo exhibition at A.I.R. gallery in April 2008.

For more information on Sivak and her work, please visit:
www.airnyc.org
www.zen54559.zen.co.uk/marie_sivak_001.htm
www.fna.muohio.edu/sculpcomp/history05.html

Information on the Victoria and Albert Museum can be found at http://www.vam.ac.uk/

For the first occasion in a decade, Documenta, Sculpture Projects Münster, and the Venice Biennale coincide, providing an unusually comprehensive assessment of contemporary art at the beginning of the 21st century. VCUarts is pleased to present a symposium and visual tour: Art, Attitudes & Trends in the 2007 editions of these three giants in the world of contemporary art exhibition.

Presenters include Richard Toscan, Dean, School of the Arts as moderator and panelists Amy Hauft, Chair, Department of Sculpture + Extended Media; Richard Roth, Chair, Department of Painting & Printmaking; and Gregory Volk, Critic and Joint Professor of Painting & Printmaking and Sculpture + Extended Media.  The symposium will take place Tuesday, October 8, from 5 to 7p.m. at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street.  Admission is free.  For more information call 828-2787.

Related links:    www.documenta.de | www.skulptur-projekte.de/aktuell/?lang=en | www.labiennale.org/en/

The VCUarts Anderson Gallery is pleased to present Ixchel’s Thread: Maya Weavings from the Bowdler Collection. This exhibition will open on Friday, September 28 with a public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. and will be on view until December 9, 2007.

At 4 p.m. on Friday, September 28, keynote speaker Ann Pollard Rowe will present a lecture at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street.  Entitled “Weaving Lives and Destinies: Women’s Costumes from Chimaltenango, Guatemala,” this presentation traces the changes in indigenous women’s costumes, primarily the traditional huipil, over the last century. Ms. Rowe is the Curator of Western Hemisphere Collections at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC.  Both the lecture and opening reception are free and open to the public.

Named for Ixchel, the Mayan patron goddess of weaving, healing, and childbirth, Ixchel’s Thread showcases selections from the Bowdler Textile Collection of Maya weavings from Guatemala. William Bowdler and his wife, Peggy donated the collection to the Anderson Gallery in 2000. The exhibition presents the still-practiced ancient art of weaving in the region. The historic and contemporary role women play in the Mayan culture is interwoven with the production and perpetuation of this complex tradition, encompassing region-specific mythology, societal and gender roles, and centuries-old customs.

Benefactor William Bowdler, was born in Argentina in 1924.  In 1945, he sought American citizenship and soon entered a career as a United States Foreign Service officer. Bowdler served several posts as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Guatemala, and South Africa.  During his tenure as Ambassador to Guatemala, Mr. Bowdler amassed an impressive collection of Mayan textiles ranging in size from belts and sashes to complete outfits. The pieces combine techniques and designs from traditional Mayan, Spanish colonial, and modern Latin American cultures. The collection includes nearly 250 works as well as print and historical research documents.

The work of VCU fashion design and merchandising students from a service-learning course in Guatemala will also be featured along with a documentary of their experience.  The exhibit is accompanied by a lecture series featuring experts on Mayan weaving and culture, and live demonstrations of contemporary weaving techniques by native Mayan weavers.  In October, the Gallery will host Domitila Curuchich, a master weaver from Guatemala who will demonstrate ancestral weaving techniques, and will produce a garment on site with traditional designs still used in modern fashion design. 

Ixchel’s Thread is co-curated by James Farmer, Ph.D, Chair of the Department of Art History, Linda Lee, Assistant Professor in the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising, and R. McKenna Brown, PhD, Professor and Director of the VCU School of World Studies. The exhibit has received funding from VCUarts Dean’s Office and additional support from VCU’s School of World Studies, VCUarts Departments of Fashion Design and Merchandising, Art History, and Craft / Material Studies.

Gallery hours are Mondays through Fridays 10am until 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 1pm until 5 pm.  For more information, call the Gallery at 828-1522 or visit our website at http://www.vcu.edu/arts/gallery.

Weaving together this tragic and theatrical narrative of more than twenty survivors of the Great Richmond Theatre Fire of December 26, 1811, Clay McLeod Chapman gives voice to compelling stories of love, loss, and history that offer surprising insight into our own times. Directed by the author, this wry and emotional work grips the audience with a series of blisteringly honest accounts of not only the before and after of the fire, but the immediate panic of the evening itself. Based on eyewitness accounts of this historic tragedy that inspired a nation-wide religious revival, volume of smoke is a beautiful, moving and surprisingly funny journey into the heart of disaster and our responses to it.

The show runs September 28 & 29, and October 4 - 6 at 7:30 pm; September 30 & October 7 at 3:00 pm. at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, Raymond Hodges Theatre, 922 Park Avenue.  General Admission is $18.00; Seniors, VCU Faculty & Staff $15.00and VCU Students $7.00 For ticket availability, please contact the Box Office at 828-6026.

Writer/Director Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. In its ten years of existence, the Pumpkin Pie Show has traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ('98), the New York International Fringe Festival ('97, '99. '01), the Romanian Theatre Festival of Sibiu ('97, '01), and has been performed at colleges, theatres, and theme parks in and around the country. The Pumpkin Pie Show continues to perform within New York City—including PS 122, the Red Room, the Kraine, St. Marks Theatre, the CSV, the Zipper, the Belt, the Culture Project, and Coney Island, USA, just to name a few.

Chapman is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel—both published by Hyperion books. miss corpus was recognized in part of The New Yorker's "Reading Glasses" series in 2003. His short story "late bloomer" was recently made into a film by director Craig Macneill, winning the audience award for best short at the Lake Placid Film Festival—as well as an official selection at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, "late bloomer" was the recipient of the Brown Jenkins Award at the 12th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

VCUarts & VCU School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUQ) will host the Second Biennial Symposium on Islamic Art.

Rivers of Paradise:  Water in Islamic Art and Culture will take place November 4–6, 2007 in Doha, Qatar.  Thirteen international speakers will explore the theme of water in Islamic lands from southern Europe to South Asia. Topics will range from water supply and distribution to its role in religion and popular culture.

For more information, visit http://islamicartdoha.org/index.html

VCUarts is pleased to introduce Ester, a new interactive website featuring awards, shows, guests and other VCUarts news.  Please visit http://esterknows.com/ and stay in touch with the dynamic VCUarts community.

Some highlights include:

• VCU Dance welcomes national and international dance professional Heidi Weiss (Berlin, Germany), who will be teaching a community Master's Class in addition to her work with VCU dance majors in fall 2007.
• The Department of Photography and Film presents Kate Gilmore on Tuesday, October 16 and Wednesday, October 17.
• Charles Brownell, VCUarts Art History professor, is awarded Excellence in Architecture Award from ACORN.
• Derek Coté, 2007 MFA graduate of VCU's Sculpture program, has two new exhibitions.

Explore Ester to learn more!