Studio Arts

Join us for a screening of the documentary, Still Life in Lodz (Poland, 2019; 75 minutes), followed by an online discussion with its co-creators Lilka Elbaum and Paul Celler, and a slide presentation by HGMS graduate and artist Tamar Segev. The film tells the story of the vibrant life of Lodz Jewish community before the war, its destruction during the holocaust, and its post-war halting rebirth. All told through the history of ownership of one painting, a still life, that hung in the same apartment for over 70 years. Tamar's paintings explore the connections between familial memory, historical narratives, and contemporary culture, as they are embedded in the architectural surfaces of the former Lodz ghetto.   Register in advance: https://illinois.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvf--rpzopGdImzk563yJUZPNVsYJQ2JFr   Hosted by the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies, University of Illinois

Spring 2022 Re-Fashioned Fashion Show May 7, 2022 6:00 p.m. (immediately following the BFA Exhibition Opening/Reception at Link Gallery & Krannert Art Museum) Siebel Center for Design, 1208 S. 4th Street, Champaign

David Reisman (MFA 1982 Painting) will have his video Office Window Au Revoir screened at the Millennium Film Workshop: "Nighttime" NYC at MOMA on Thursday, February 17, 2022. MoMA https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/7534 Thu, Feb 17, 7:00 p.m. MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 2 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

Robert Cumming, MFA 1967, passed away December 16, 2021. Desert Hot Springs, CA — Robert Cumming, an artist of exceptional versatility who could work in several media simultaneously and was a leading proponent of conceptual photography in the 1970s, has died at age 78. The cause of death reported by his partner of 33 years Margaret Irwin-Brandon was complications of Parkinson's disease. Cumming left his mark on modern art as a multidisciplined contrarian, who viewed life with an eye for the quixotic, absurd, mind-expanding, and amusing, translating his observations through painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography into engaging visual essays touched with Surrealism and always tugging at the boundaries of what is real and what is artifice. A brilliant draftsman, he started making art at age 5 with small, precise renderings of different scenes that sometimes won prizes awarded by his local newspaper-- precision and clarity of line remained a hallmark of his graphic work for the rest of his life. His paintings, always representational and often large in scale, probed the perplexities of life and art and such complex themes as the interweaving of vision and imagination. It is Cumming's photography from the 1970s and 80s, however, that constitutes his greatest legacy. Black and white prints distinguished by acute detail made possible by large negatives were his stock in trade, and he was at his best as a provocateur in scenes he constructed himself with an intention to tease, trick, or stimulate the mind. Crazy quilts of patterns, a slice of bread embedded in a watermelon, movie sets as uncanny stand-ins for reality, and plays on negative and positive relationships are just some of the head-scratching tableaux that populate his work with both wit and philosophy. Robert Cumming was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1943. Always interested in art and especially draftsmanship, he earned his BA in 1965 at the Massachusetts College of Art and his MFA in 1967 at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, with a concentration on painting, drawing, and printmaking. After graduation he taught studio art at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where he began working with conceptual art of different forms including mail art, illogical sculptures, and performance skits. In 1970 Cumming took a teaching position at California State University, Fullerton, and occasionally taught at other colleges around Los Angeles. Surrounded by a creative arts community in Southern California with a trend toward conceptual work, and influenced by Hollywood set photography, he developed his own strain of conceptual photography, with a sensibility reminiscent of the satire, irony, and linguistic play of Marcel Duchamp. He first exhibited his photography in 1973 at California State College, Long Beach, and group shows followed at such prestigious institutions as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. By the end of the 1970s, Cumming's interests began to shift again toward painting and drawing, and while he continued his photography, it was mostly of a documentary nature. In 1978 he moved back to New England with a teaching job at the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, and he later established a studio in Whately, Massachusetts. In the later 1980s he met Irwin- Brandon, who was teaching at Mount Holyoke College in the music department, and they became life partners. Her specialty is Baroque music, and after having founded Arcadia Players, a period instrument orchestra based in Northampton, Mass., she decided to move back to her home state of California in 2013, where she purchased a house in Desert Hot Springs, California, near Palm Springs. Before long, Cumming joined her, and he happily lived out his life with her in that desert community in pleasant seclusion. Cumming's work is included in many art museum collections across the country, and it appeared in numerous group exhibitions as well as solo shows, both in the United States and abroad. He was the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts grants (1972,1975,1979) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1981). He is survived by his sister, Virginia, and brother, Edward, both of Southborough, Mass., nephews Andrew and Christopher Cumming, and extended family. Published by Daily Hampshire Gazette on Jan. 7, 2022.   https://www.palmspringslife.com/robert-cumming-artist/ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-12-21/robert-cumming-photographer-obituary      

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has announced University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumnus John Hrehov (BFA 1985 Painting) as the 2021 recipient of its Recharge New Surrealist Prize. The $7,000 award was created for painters living in the U.S. and U.S. Territories who are working in the New Surrealist Style. Hrehov, who lives in Fort Wayne, IN, portrays objects and scenes from his home and neighborhood in paintings and drawings that underscore the miraculous in the everyday. The Recharge New Surrealist Prize is supported by funding granted to NYFA by the Gu Family of The Recharge Foundation, a private non-profit organization that aims to promote cross-cultural craftsmanship preservation and create dialogues between antiques, high jewelry, fine arts, and technology. For more information: https://www.nyfa.org/blog/introducing-john-hrehov-receives-2021-recharge-new-surrealist-prize/ https://johnhrehov.com/  

Leah Guadagnoli ( BFA 2012 Painting) is featured in “Leah Guadagnoli’s Joyous Kitsch” by Alex Wexelman in the latest edition of Hyperallergic. Please visit: https://hyperallergic.com/690050/leah-guadagnolis-joyous-kitsch/  

Ryan Griffis Documentary feature "Fighting Indians" is an official section of the 46th American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco) and the 26th Red National International Film Festival (Los Angeles). Assoc. Prof. Ryan Griffis worked on the film as an editor, scriptwriter, and art director alongside directors Mark Cooley and Derek Ellis. https://watch.eventive.org/aiff46 https://www.rednationff.com/home/

The Joan Mitchell Foundation announced the inaugural recipients of its new Joan Mitchell Fellowship, which annually awards 15 artists working in the evolving fields of painting and sculpture with $60,000 each in unrestricted funds, distributed over a five-year period. Announced in February 2021, the Foundation’s new Fellowship program re-envisions and enhances the impact of its earlier Painters & Sculptors Grants by significantly increasing the financial award and expanding the professional development offerings that are a hallmark of the Foundation’s approach to supporting working artists. The 15 artists receiving Fellowships range in age from 35 to 71; 80% are artists of color—and 40% identify as Hispanic, Latinx, or Chicanx—while 47% identify as female and 13% as gender non-conforming. The artists were selected in a multi-phase, juried process from 166 applicants who were identified by a diverse pool of nominators from across the country and who reflect a wide range of backgrounds in the arts. The 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellows are: María Berrío, Brooklyn, NY Margaret Curtis, Tryon, NC Adam de Boer, Los Angeles, CA Raúl de Nieves, Brooklyn, NY Justin Favela, Las Vegas, NV Chie Fueki, Beacon, NY Emily Gherard, Seattle, WA Angela Hennessy, Oakland, CA Mie Kongo, Evanston, IL Guadalupe Maravilla, Brooklyn, NY Kambui Olujimi, Queens, NY Ronny Quevedo, Bronx, NY Rose B. Simpson, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM Liza Sylvestre, Champaign, IL Luis Tapia, Santa Fe, NM The selection of the 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellows was initiated by 88 nominators, 44% of whom are themselves artists, and nearly a quarter of whom were participating in the process for the first time. The nominators reflect broad geographic diversity—representing 47 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico—as well ethnic, gender, and age diversity, and they work as curators, educators, and arts administrators, in addition to those who identify as artists. They identified the 166 artists who were then invited to apply for Fellowships. A group of five jurors subsequently evaluated the submissions with an eye to artistic achievement, the relationship between the artists’ stated goals and their work, and the financial impact of the award, to arrive at a final group of 15 awardees. The Joan Mitchell Fellowship maintains the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to recognize and support US-based artists working in the fields of painting and sculpture, whose work has contributed to important artistic and cultural discourse and is deserving of greater recognition on a national level. The emphasis on painters and sculptors is in accordance with artist Joan Mitchell’s specified focus for the Foundation’s support and also recognizes studio-based and process-driven creative practices that may not align well with prevailing models of annual, project-based visual arts support. About the Joan Mitchell Foundation The Joan Mitchell Foundation cultivates the study and appreciation of artist Joan Mitchell’s life and work, while fulfilling her wish to provide resources and opportunities for visual artists. As the chief steward of Joan Mitchell’s legacy, the Foundation manages a collection of Mitchell’s artwork and archives containing her personal papers, photographs, sketchbooks, and other historical materials. Fulfilling Mitchell’s mandate to “aid and assist” living artists, over the past 28 years the Foundation has evolved a range of initiatives that have directly supported more than 1,000 visual artists at varying stages of their careers. The Joan Mitchell Fellowship gives annual unrestricted awards of $60,000 directly to artists, with funds distributed over a five-year period alongside dedicated and flexible professional development. The New Orleans-based Joan Mitchell Center traditionally hosts residencies for national and local artists, as well as artist talks, open studio events, and other public programs that encourage dialogue and exchange with the local community; due to COVID-19, the program is focused on local artists for 2021. The Creating a Living Legacy (CALL) initiative provides free and essential resources to help artists of all ages organize, document, and manage their artworks and careers. Together, these programs actively engage with working artists as they develop and expand their practices. For more information, visit joanmitchellfoundation.org.

Imagining Otherwise: Speculation in the Americas was recently chosen by the selection committee for funding through the HRI Mellon-funded Interseminars Initiative, which supports innovative interdisciplinary graduate education in the arts and humanities. This award provides the opportunity to help design and participate in an Interseminars methods seminar in Fall 2022, to design and co-teach an Interseminars theme-based course in Spring 2023, to organize and run summer intensive workshops in 2022 and 2023, and to host a culminating event (such as an exhibition, performance, conference, or other community- or public-facing activity) in Fall 2023. “The course introduces speculation as a method and as a practice for social transformation. How have artists, writers, activists, and scholars throughout the Americas used speculation as a means of troubling the world as it is and imagining it otherwise? How does speculation provide us a method for critiquing the world that is and helping to bring into being another, more just world? This course considers how speculation has been used in tandem with social movements, focusing on three main areas: racial justice, immigration, and environmentalism. Through these main lenses, we will explore how speculation operates across different experiential scales (body, territory, nation) as well as temporal registers (projecting to the far future but also capable of imagining alternate pasts) in order to problematize the delimited and totalizing imaginary of colonial-capitalism and white supremacy, and to bring into being new ways of being and relating. Course materials and activities will prioritize Black, brown, Indigenous thinkers from throughout the Americas, in order to foreground how speculation has been engaged by anti-racist projects of decolonization. Student work will adopt different speculative modalities, including community based, experiential, scholarly, and creative components. In the spirit of imagining other forms of pedagogy and radical study, students will play an integral role in developing the course syllabus, objectives, and documentation.”  

BFA 1966 Painting alumna, Marsha Glaziere was recently interviewed for Voyage Jacksonville magazine at https://voyagejacksonville.com/interview/check-out-marsha-glaziere-s-story/.    

“Foreward" Crooked Tree Arts Center, 322 Sixth Street, Traverse City, MI September 27 - November 13 Reception: Thursday, September 30, 5:30-7 p.m. Foreward centers a Black family's intergenerational acts of survival, rebellion, and hope. These experiences are too often buried behind leading news stories not typically curated by, or considerate of, Black people's needs and knowledge. “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth" The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E Warren Ave, Detroit, Michigan October 9, 2021 - January 2, 2022 This ten-city national touring exhibition tells a narrative of America through the profiles of 25 African-American men who are icons in the country’s historical and cultural landscape, including: Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Kendrick Lamar. I contributed a commissioned portrait of Romare Bearden (1911-1988): a visual artist, activist, and author known for his oil paintings and collages focused on black community, identity, and narrative. “I Am...Legend.” Freeport Art Museum, 121 North Harlem Avenue, Freeport, Illinois October 23, 2021 - February 12, 2022 Reception: Saturday, October 23 I Am... Legend is a collection of drawings that study and acknowledge centuries of racialized angst and terrorism, visualizes how far both powerful and marginalized people go to alleviate fear, and considers the legacies of survival. I am informed by the television program Soul Train and widely distributed 19th- and early 20th-century lynching photographs. This collection taps into the fear of the Other through an ethno-Gothic lens to question the lynch mob’s self-heroization, disrupt a nostalgic gaze upon Soul Train and historic vigilantism, and propose that our personal connection to collective experience allows fresh space for empathy and action.

Professor Laurie Hogin’s solo exhibition, “HAZE” opens at Koplin Del Rio Gallery, 1056 S. Fairfax Ave at Pico & Olympic. Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, October 12 and runs through Saturday, October 16, 2021. Gallery Hours: 11-5 daily. http://koplindelrio.com/events/ Opening Reception: Tuesday October 12, 2021 | 5-7 Conversation with Laurie Hogin, LA-based artist Monica Nouwens and CA Senator Sydney Kamlager on the intersection of art and politics on Thursday, October 14 | 6:30pm  

The School of Art + Design is saddened by the passing of Peter Bodnar on August 10, 2021. Professor Peter Bodnar taught in the Painting program from 1962 until he retired in 1992. Melissa Merli interviewed him in her Studio Visit series in 2014 – it can be found here. His obituary may be found here.   On behalf of the Peter Bodnar family, June and Jerry Savage are hosting a memorial gathering, remembering Peter Bodnar, who passed away last year. A selection of Peter’s paintings which show his artistic journey will be on display. Peter taught painting and drawing at the University of Illinois for 35 years and was instrumental in the founding of the recruiting program of Native American Indians. Norman Akers , Olin Perkins, Louie Ballard, and Char Teeters were some of the programs recruits. The School of Art and Design’s recruitment program was a significant element in the University building a Native American Unit. The impact of the School of Art and Design’s efforts helped change the Nation’s cultural understanding of Native American issues which is still felt today. The memorial took place on Sunday May 29, 2022 from 2-5pm at 2137 CR 1100 N, Sidney, IL.