Photo Credit: Linda Johnston

Virginia Commonwealth University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, conducted by Dr. Terry Austin, was one of only two university ensembles in the nation invited to perform a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 2006.  The performance was part of the World Projects Wind Band Festival hosted by the Kennedy Center.  VCU professor of clarinet, Dr. Charles West, was a featured soloist in the concert performing a virtuoso bass clarinet solo from “The Light Fantastic” by Andrew Rindfleish. The program also included Pulitzer Prize-winner Karel Husa's masterpiece "Music for Prague, 1968" in honor of the composer's 85th birthday.

World Projects was founded in 1984 to facilitate international performance and cultural exchange by school performing groups. In recent years, World Projects has established a series of band and choral festivals to make it possible for students to perform in some of the great concert venues throughout the world including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, and other such prestigious locations. Each festival invites two university ensembles and selects a prescribed number of high school ensembles through an audition process. The university ensembles are chosen based on the recommendation of the Artistic Director of the festival. VCU's Symphonic Wind Ensemble is known for its performance excellence and extensive experience performing in major conferences. 

Communication Arts students Duc Neguyen and Sara Fariswere have both been accepted into The Johns Hopkins University Master of Arts in Medical and Biological Illustration graduate program. This is a very competitive and prestigious program, and only four to six applicants are accepted per year.

The Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University was endowed in 1911 and is the first and longest running program of its kind in the world.  There are only five graduate programs in Medical and Biological Illustration in the United States. The Medical Illustration profession is a highly selective and elite group of people whose work now employs advanced drawing, modeling and animation programs.

Sanford Biggers, internationally known sculptor, writer and presenter, has joined the Department of Sculpture as Assistant Professor.  He received a BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta, attended Syracuse University Department of International Programs Abroad in Florence, attended Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, received a fellowship at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A native of Los Angeles, California, and a resident of New York since 1999, Sanford Biggers has been exhibiting his work since the mid 1990’s. Influenced by his two-year tenure in Nagoya, Japan, Mr. Biggers borrows from the study of ethnological objects, popular icons, and the Dadaist tradition to deal with cultural and creative syncretism, art history, and politics. Also an accomplished musician, Mr. Biggers often incorporates performative elements into his sculptures and installations; the end results are multi-layered works that act as anecdotal vignettes, at once full of wit and clear formal intent.

He has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Budapest, among others. His work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and numerous national and international exhibitions.

Sanford Biggers states, “For several years a major portion of my work has dealt with the syncretism of seemingly disparate concepts and cultures. I address these issues through sculpture, installation, performance and video, creating artworks for which I borrow the ethnographic label power objects to describe. This methodology and process are mostly concerned with, yet not limited to, the sociological impact of art as experience, where the object becomes either a catalyst for audience involvement, or a remnant of that interaction.”

For more information on Sanford Biggers, visit his web site at www.sanfordbiggers.com

Danspace Project will present VCU Dance: Traffic @ St. Mark's as part of the Academy Dances series, which showcases the next generation of dance makers emerging from renowned university and college dance departments. This spring, VCU Dance has been invited by Danspace Project to make its New York debut with the wide-ranging work of current students and alumni, including Christina Briggs/Edward Winslow, Leigh Brinson, Patti Gilstrap, Jason Somma, Samantha Speis, and Donna Vaughn. A community of highly motivated, disciplined and creative dancers who are interested in shaping the future of the field, VCU Dance is a vital and young department with an established reputation, strong guest artist program, and professionally active faculty dedicated to working with students.

“The students and faculty at VCU Dance constitute a robust community of artist/scholars. The appetite for learning, the commitment, the vicissitude, and the accomplishment of the students are most impressive. The exhilarating atmosphere within the Dance Center is saturated with joy and rigor, ” states choreographer and visiting artist Donald McKayle.

VCU Dance alumnus Jason Somma will offer one short film: Waltzing Jessica , which explores a strange, romantic duet—floating in the air—through tweaked movement and editing. Alumna Samantha Speis extracts movement based on personal experiences creating an environment that penetrates space with a ferocious intensity, physical strength, and agility in On the Verge.   Student choreographer Leigh Brinson has created Held On, a duet in which the dancers demonstrate a preoccupation with past events that prevents them from recognizing the present. Thus they miss potential connections and pivotal moments, failing to relate to one another despite their shared plight.

VCU Dance alumna Christina Briggs, with Edward Winslow of Incidents Physical Theater, will present Blueprints, an exploration of interior habitats and the struggle to co-exist within the confines of a limited amount of space. To an original score by Michael Wall, the two dancers weave in and around each other, playing out a scenario of conflict over personal space as they move from room to room.

In the Moment, choreographed by Donna Vaughn, investigates the notion of living in the present. Nine dancers communicate soulful movement through undulation, with a dynamic, syncopated vocabulary, that exemplifies the potential of human spirit.

Flipped is a solo in which VCU Dance alumna Patti Gilstrap is harnessed in a free-standing frame. This topsy-turvy world pokes fun at split personalities, shallow appearances, and dirty little secrets, complimented by Seryn Potter’s silent film style score. There are two contrasting characters: one when she is standing up and the other when she is upside down. Eventually they become aware of each other’s presence and a chase ensues, like a dog trying to catch his own tail.

Founded by artists in 1974 at the historic landmark St. Mark's Church, Danspace Project is an international leader in the commissioning and presentation of contemporary dance. The mission of the Danspace Project is to stimulate, promote and present challenging new work in dance from a broad range of artistic voices within a distinguished and nurturing environment.  VCU Dance is committed to building and enlightening dance audiences in the university and Richmond community while providing opportunities for artists to present and create work. Recognized by professional dancers and choreographers as “a place where things are happening,” VCU Dance offers a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for careers in dance.

Students from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts will be displaying their finest work in a series of exhibitions at VCUarts Anderson Gallery.  The Gallery will exhibit the annual Student Design Exhibition concurrently with the Juried Student Fine Arts Exhibition from March 31 to April 15. The two-part Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition will run April 21 toMay 30 (Round I) and May 5 to 14 (Round II), with opening receptions scheduled for 5:00 p.m. the first day of each round.

The Student Design Exhibition features student work selected by the faculty members from the Communication Arts (Illustration, Drawing and Visual Studies), Graphic Design, Fashion Design and Interior Design departments. The annual Juried Student Fine Arts Exhibition, now in its 35th year, features paintings, prints, sculptures, site-specific installations, drawings, crafts, photography and video. Undergraduate students currently enrolled in studio classes in the School of the Arts are eligible to enter up to three pieces of work. Each year the Anderson Gallery brings to Virginia Commonwealth University a noted expert to judge the student entries. The result is a stimulating exhibition, chosen from the most interesting and challenging student work to be found anywhere in the country.

This year the juror for the Student Fine Arts Exhibition is Heide Trepanier. Ms. Trepanier, who is currently represented by Stux Gallery in New York, has shown extensively in New York, throughout Virginia and in Washington, DC- area. Her most recent solo exhibitions include Amnesia at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Alterd Interiors at the 2nd Street Gallery in Charlottesville, and Gula at 1708 Gallery in Richmond. Her work is also frequently exhibited at Stux Gallery in New York. Her resume includes an impressive list of group exhibitions, including the 2004 Armory Show in New York, an exhibition at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and ARCO at the Pilar Parra Galeria in Madrid, Spain. Ms. Trepanier has received numerous prestigious awards and grants, including a 2002 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, a 2001 Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship Award and a 2000 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant Award. She also received the Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts, Emerging Artist, from Richmond Magazine in 2004. She received her MFA from VCUarts Department of Painting & Printmaking in 2000.

Due to the unique nature of the work from VCUarts Department of Kinetic Imaging and the time demands required to view this work, the department has opted to have a separate juror for their portion of the exhibition. This year’s juror is Kathleen Forde, curator at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (empac) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.  Ms. Forde curates and writes on a freelance basis, most recently for the Rotterdam Film Festival, VideoZone Tel Aviv, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Düsseldorf and Cologne Kunstverein, and the Transmediale Festival, Berlin.

Also this spring, the Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition will run April 21 to May 30 (Round I) and May 5 to 14 (Round II).  This is the final requirement for students earning a master’s degree in the fine arts and design departments from VCU. The exhibitions provide a forum for emerging artists to display their work and give viewers a “preview” of new directions in the visual arts. Each of the participating artists will exhibit work that represents the culmination of their 2 year masters program in one of the following areas: painting, printmaking, sculpture, communication arts and design, crafts, photography, and interior design. “These exhibitions provide an excellent opportunity for viewers to invest in up-and-coming artists, as many of the pieces on view will be for sale,” said Amy Moorefield, assistant director and curator of collections for the Anderson Gallery.

This is a small sampling of current exhibitions that feature the work of VCU artists. 
For more listings like these, please consult the VCUarts web page at http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb and follow the links for “Events” and “News”

David Herbert (Sculpture graduate student)
The Seventh Side of the Die
March 8- April 29, 2006

featuring Colleen Asper, Hans Bellmer, Andre Breton, Alejandro Cardenas, Douglas Coupland, Jen DeNike, Marcel Duchamp, David Guinan, David Herbert, Timothy Hull, Jill Magid, Cheri Nevers, Jacob Rhodes, Mariah Robertson, Loul Samatar, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol. Curated by Anat Engi and Tom Brauer

Alona Kagan Gallery
540 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 560-0670
www.alonakagangallery.com
                                                                       
Tara Donovan, solo exhibition (Sculpture alumna)
New Work
March 11 - April 22, 2006
PaceWildenstein
545 W. 22nd St
New York, NY
212.421.3292
http://www.pacewildenstein.com/Exhibitions/ViewExhibition.aspx?guid=d047796a-b6bb-4b44-93f5-aad021f7b959
                                               
James Busby, solo exhibition (Painting & Printmaking alumnus)
White Paintings
March 30-April 22, 2006

Stux Gallery
New York, NY                                                
www.stuxgallery.com
Exhibition review at www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/living/14290792.htm

Lydia Thompson, solo exhibition (Crafts faculty)
Pulleys, Carts and Lessons
April 2-30, 2006

Tim DeVoe, solo exhibition (Sculpture alumnus)
Reclaim
April 2-30, 2006
                                               
art6 Gallery
6 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA
www.art6gallery.org