New Art and Ecology program at the University of New Mexico

"As a new area in the Department of Art and Art History, Art and Ecology creates a signature discipline for the University of New Mexico. Building from the successful Land Arts of the American West program, Art and Ecology provides a full curriculum based on the environments and communities of the southwest. Courses are designed to further students' understanding of representation, land use, ecology, and classic Land Art in the Southwest. Art and Ecology engages ecological scholars, artists, and activists both within and outside of academia to support its curriculum. Students will learn to research, write, and speak effectively. Coursework will familiarize them with major ecological systems and the processes involved in creating two-, three- and four-dimensional events. Courses will also include a focus on understanding and controlling the ecological impacts of art materials and practices. The curriculum guides students through collaborations (both interdisciplinary and cross-cultural) and the mechanisms of public process." -read and learn more about the program site

Or contact:
Bill Gilbert
Lannan Chair,
Land Arts of the American West
Art & Ecology
billgilbert@cybermesa.com

Catherine Page Harris
Assistant Professor
Art and Ecology
cph@catherinepageharris.org

SPIRAL JETTY IN NEW YORK TIMES

Eppich, Esmay and Tang: Collection of Dia Art Foundation, reproduced in NY TIMES

RANDY KENNEDY authored an article in the NY Times this week discussing the challenges of conserving Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Read the full article here.

Ryder Jon Piotrs at Ira M. Taylor Memorial Art Gallery

Ryder Jon Piotrs

Ryder Jon Piotrs "Mercurial Imagination" Oct. 23- Nov 13, 2009 Closing Reception and Artist Talk Nov. 13, 2009, 5:00 p.m. Ira M. Taylor Memorial Art Gallery Hardin Simmons University, Abilene, Texas, 79698. (325) 670-1000

HSU's Ira M. Taylor Memorial Gallery Gallery presents "Mercurial Imagination," featuring the work of Ryder Jon Piotrs members Piotr Chizinski, Ryder Richards, Sue Anne Rische and Jonathan Whitfill. The work ranges from altered books and shredded text to gunpowder drawings and cast bomb forms. The work questions social class systems, the intangible form of knowledge, and violence in a modern world. The exhibition will take place from Oct 26-Nov 13, 2009. The gallery will host a closing reception featuring an artist talk and question/answer session on November 13, 5:00-6:30.

UPDATES FROM LAND/ART 2009

UPCOMING LAND/ART Speakers Thursday, November 12, 6pm De/Briefing: Land Art, Public Art & Planning for the Future of Albuquerque Lecture by joni m. palmer at the Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain Rd NW, Albuquerque, 505-243-7255 www.cabq.gov/museum This event is a presentation by joni m palmer to explore the future of land art projects through the City of Albuquerque's Percent for Art Program and other collaborative approaches. Current discussions about public art and land art tend to suggest either an all inclusive or oppositional attitude. This talk is intended to provoke a deeper conversation between the two, exploring the gray areas, questioning intentionality, audience, and collaboration as they are relevant to the future efforts of the city's Public Art Program. Presented by the City of Albuquerque Public Art Program Friday, November 13, 2pm Dwelling Lecture by Ann Reynolds at the Center for the Arts on the UNM campus, room 2018, 505-277-2868, www.unm.edu/~artmuse Ann Reynolds is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History and the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research, publications, and teaching focus on U.S. and European art, architecture, and visual culture after 1930; feminist theory, gender, and sexuality studies; the historiography of exhibition practice; and film. She is the author of Robert Smithson: Learning From New Jersy and Elsewhere (MIT Press, 2003) and is currently working on a new book Home Movies: Creativity, Community, and Publics in New York, 1940-1970. More details Presented by the Department of Art & Art History at the University of New Mexico Monday, November 16, 5:30pm Re-Cognising the Land – ILIRI, the Creative Laboratory and the Sacred Tree Lecture by Louise Fowler-Smith at Dane Smith Hall, room 127 (on the UNM campus, map) for more info contact the UNM Art Museum, 505-277-2868, www.unm.edu/~artmuse Louise Fowler-Smith is an artist and Senior Lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW in Sydney, Australia. She is also the Director of the Imaging the Land International Research Initiative (ILIRI), which aims to promote new ways of perceiving the land in the 21st century and which offers residencies for artists in the Australian desert. Louise has recently established the ILIRI 'Creative Laboratory', a large area of land where artists, architects, scientists – people concerned with the environment– can collaborate on projects that explore new ways of perceiving, interacting and living in a land starved of water. More details Presented by the Department of Art & Art History at the University of New Mexico Tuesday, November 17, 6pm Politics: Peter Fend / Ocean Earth Development Corporation and Center for Land Use Interpretation Lecture by Janet Dees at SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe for ticket info: 505-989-1199, www.sitesantafe.org This is the third in a series of lectures titled The Three P's of Land Art: Principles, Poetics and Politics, as part of SITE Santa Fe's Contemporary Art in Context program aimed at grounding the art of today in art history. Janet Dees is currently the Thaw Curatorial Fellow at SITE Santa Fe. A Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Delaware, she received her BA in Art History and African/African American Studies from Fordham University and her MA in Art History from the University of Delaware. Before pursuing graduate work, Dees worked as a museum educator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York African Burial Ground Project and as assistant director for a contemporary art gallery in New York. Presented by SITE Santa Fe

Kammer 2.1: New Mexico Central Edition

Kammer 2.1: New Mexico Central Edition
- Santa Fe premiere -

Sunday, November 15, 2009
3:30–4:30PM
New Mexico Film Museum
418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe

This event is free and open to the public

Kammer 2.1 is an experimental video series that explores intangible elements--preconceived notions, personal experience, nostalgia--that influence perceptions of central New Mexico. This vast collection of ultrashort vids stems from extensive field recordings conducted by Stephen Ausherman throughout the region's parks and public lands. Ausherman arranged his material to establish connections between otherwise incongruent reference points, and let emotional attachments play into his interpretations of the land and its cultures. He also invited a diverse array of local collaboration throughout the creative process.

K2.1 scored a New Visions Award in experimental film from the New Mexico Film Office in 2008. The project debuted in May 2009 as an interactive display at the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center, and ran through August 2009 as part of the LAND/ART exhibitions.

Noted works from the K2.1 series include _Bovine Saga_, winner at the Leopold Legacy Film Series in Albuquerque; and _La 2e Peste_, finalist, WPA Experimental Media Series in Washington, DC.

Stephen Ausherman is the author of _60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Albuquerque_ (Menasha Ridge Press, 2008). He was an Artist-in-Residence for Blue Sky Project in Woodstock, Illinois, in 2008; and for Cornucopia Art Center in Lanesboro, Minnesota, in 2007. He also served as the 2005 Writer-in-Residence for Bernheim Forest in Kentucky, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, and Buffalo National River in Arkansas.

Get more info at www.restlesstribes.com
http://www.restlesstribes.com/kammerfaq

URBAN CRUDE: NEW CLUI EXHIBITION

New exhibit open at the Center for Land Use Interpretation's Los Angeles location:

URBAN CRUDE:
The Oil Fields of the Los Angeles Basin
Open to the public starting October 30th, 2009

"The fabric of Los Angeles, a continuous cloth of development, draped on the surface of the land, is shallow, but its roots, thousands of meandering straws of oil, dig deep into the soil. Like tree roots, these veins extract the living essence of the ground, fueling this city of the car. Like historical roots, these oil fields are the progenerative substrate, the resource pool, where the economy of Los Angeles originated, driving the development and culture of the city. Today, it continues. Los Angeles is the most urban oil field, where the industry operates in cracks, corners, and edges, hidden behind fences, and camouflaged into architecture, pulling oil out from under our feet." - from the CLUI site, read more here.

Lecture and Book Signing by Bill Gilbert

The UNM Art Museum proudly presents a Lecture and Book Signing by Bill Gilbert, Lannan Chair and Senior Associate Dean of the UNM College of Fine Arts on Tuesday, November 10 at 5:30PM at the UNM Art Museum.

Following the lecture, Bill Gilbert will sign copies of his new book Land Arts of the American West, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009) co-authored with Chris Taylor. This event is FREE and open to the public. Please join us! Bill Gilbert began teaching sculpture at UNM in the Dept. of Art and Art History in 1987. The Land Arts of the American West Program, an interdisciplinary, field based studio curriculum was conceived by Gilbert in his interest to redefine the very nature of how students are educated in the visual arts. In 2000 along with Professor Emeritus John Wenger and a dozen eager students, Gilbert initiated the first Land Arts trip which covered five states and some 8,000 miles. He later collaborated with Chris Taylor from The University of Texas at Austin. Professor Gilbert will discuss this "experiment" in pedagogy, as he calls it, and how this has both affected and intersected with his work as an artist and a teacher. Image Right | Bill Gilbert, "For John Wesley Powell, Attempts to Walk the Grid, September 7, 2006," digital print, 2009

Time Is Like The East River: William Lamson at Artspace

William Lamson, Time is Like The East River

"In his new video, Time is Like the East River, Lamson takes New York’s East River as his subject matter, addressing the transitions that occur with the crossing of thresholds and boundaries. The video opens with Lamson and a friend paddling two small boats toward each other from opposite sides of a broad body of water. Upon meeting in the middle, the boats link together, revealing that each boat was in fact half of a seventeen-foot canoe. As the two paddle into the distance, the camera (located on the Manhattan Bridge) slowly zooms out, revealing a radiant Manhattan skyline. Shot at slack tide, the moments between the change in direction of tidal currents, the normally turbulent river appears as calm a lake. Only in this transitional state, when the river changes directions and time is seemingly arrested, is Lamson’s passage possible. The artist’s homemade props and artifacts from the performance will also be on view in the gallery." from Artspace. Read more.

Time is Like the East River is on view November 12, 2009 – December 19, 2009
The public opening is scheduled for Thursday, November 12th, 6-8PM
ARTSPACE is a non-profit organization presenting local and national visual art, provides access, excellence and education for the benefit of the public and the arts community

CALL FOR ENTRIES: WATER MORE OR LESS

Regional Juried Exhibition, "WATER: More or Less"

Brazos Gallery, Richland College, Dallas TX
Opening reception: Sat, Jan. 30, 5-7 PM, 2010
Entry Deadline: Sat. Dec. 5, 2009
Juror Talk & Awards Presentation: Jan. 30, 5:30 PM
Prospectus

Water: More or Less was developed in conjunction with the Art, Science and Sustainable Community Symposium hosted by Richland College. The juried exhibition focuses on the role of water and sustainability within the environment.

Learn more on the project site.

EDIBLE CITY SCREENING

Edible City fim still

EDIBLE CITY FILM SCREENINGThursday, November 5th 7:00 pm LOCATION Studio for Urban Projects 3579 17th Street San Francisco, CA 94110 RSVP Space is limited. Please RSVP torsvp@studioforurbanprojects.org Suggested donation $5-$15

Please join us this Thursday for a screening of Edible City, the second in a series of events at the Studio for Urban Projects entitled Planting the City. The a series includes panel discussions, film screenings, and printed collections exploring how the groundswell of interest in sidewalk planting, urban farming and community gardening is reshaping the city. Edible City is a film-in-progress documenting the stories of a wide range of Bay Area visionaries that are engaged with the local food movement as a response to industrialized agriculture. Directors Andrew Hasse and Adam Goldstein will discuss their forthcoming film and preview a selection of compelling clips. For more information visit: www.studioforurbanprojects.org.

Wang Bing, Matthew Coolidge and Lucy Raven at Light Industry

Triple Canopy and Light Industry present the East Coast premiere of Wang Bing’s Crude Oil, a fourteen-hour film installation tracking a fourteen-hour workday of crude-oil extraction in northwest China. Wang’s film will be on view from 9am until 11pm each day, running five times in its entirety.



Accompanying Crude Oil in an adjacent room will be a film program by Matthew Coolidge of the Center for Land Use Interpretation and Lucy Raven (7:30pm, Wednesday, November 4) as well as screenings of Wang Bing’s Coal Money (4pm, Saturday, November 7) and West of the Tracks (12pm, Sunday, November 8). A curated DVD library of related films will be available for viewing throughout the week. Read more on the Light Industry Website

Michael Light: Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack

"Located at 8,000 feet in the Oquirrh Mountains — 20 miles southwest of Salt Lake City —the Bingham Canyon copper mine is the largest man-made excavation on the planet. Its hole reaches more than half a mile deep and its rim is nearly three miles in width. It has produced more copper than any mine in history. The mine’s Garfield smelter stack, situated at the edge of the Great Salt Lake about 10 miles away, is the tallest free-standing structure west of the Mississippi River, and is only 35 feet shorter than the Empire State Building.

For the last fifteen years, Light has aerially photographed over settled and unsettled areas of American space, pursuing themes of mapping, vertigo, human impact on the land, and various aspects of geologic time and the sublime. A private pilot, he is currently working on an extended aerial photographic survey of the inter-mountain states, Some Dry Space: An Inhabited West. Light won a 2007 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Photography to pursue this project.

For the last several years, Light has been producing mammoth-scaled, very limited edition book-objects from his series of aerial photographs. These books have been widely exhibited to critical acclaim, and the series now extends to roughly eight such realizations, including books on Los Angeles (Day and Night), Phoenix, Sun City, Rancho San Pedro, and Mono Lake. Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack, which is an amazing series of black-and-white images taken of the Bingham Mine and Garfield Stack over the course of a single afternoon, is the first in a series from Radius Books that will translate Light’s impressive and ambitious projects into the trade book format." -from Radius Books, read more here