UNews - Robert Rauschenberg

Culture Vulture

trevor.kenney — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:20:22 +0000

Culture Vulture Saturdays continue into May this spring with one of the most popular activities of the year-long enterprise on the schedule.

"We had so much fun, and this activity was so popular last year, we decided to bring back Portrait Pillows for another year," says Rosalind Jeffrey, program co-ordinator for Culture Vulture at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Art Gallery.

On Saturday, May 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., visitors to the gallery have a perfect opportunity to view the latest gallery installation and finish a project of their own to take home.

"The exhibition, In The Stillness, is on display in the U of L Art Gallery from May 7 through Sept. 10," says Jeffrey.

The exhibit explores rarely displayed sculptural work from the U of L Art Collection and features works by Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Wyse, Alan Reynolds and Gordon Ferguson.

After checking out the exhibition, everyone is invited to create their own piece of art.

"Culture Vulture participants can draw portraits of themselves on broadcloth fabric using an assortment of colours and media. We sew the pieces together and stuff it to create a pillow with the artist's design," says Jeffrey.

Culture Vulture Saturdays are winding down with the final activity of the season to be held June 12.

In The Stillness exhibition opens

trevor.kenney — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:46:32 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge showcases the exhibition, In The Stillness, in the Main Art Gallery beginning Friday, May 7.

Examining the environment that exists between sculpture and viewer, this exhibition features rarely exhibited sculptural work from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection.

Though the works span over 25 years of artistic production, similarities can be drawn in the quiet complexity present in the conception and construction of each object.

Artists include Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Wyse, Alan Reynolds and Gordon Ferguson.

The opening reception for In The Stillness runs from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Main Gallery.

For more information on this exhibition, click on this link.

Featured artist: Carl Beam (1943-2005)

trevor.kenney — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:22:11 +0000

Carl Beam was an internationally acclaimed contemporary Canadian artist of Ojibway descent, whose work will survive as a milestone in the development of the Canadian Aboriginal voice on the international art scene.

Beam was born in 1943 at M'Chigeeng (West Bay) on Manitoulin Island. As a child he was sent to the Garnier Residential School in Spanish, an awful experience that would influence some of the powerful imagery used in his later work.

Beam studied at the Kootenay School of Art, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria (where he earned a BFA in 1974) and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. In 1986, the National Gallery of Canada was the first of the major Canadian galleries to recognize Beam's work with the purchase of The North American Iceberg. From 1983–1992 his work was included in all the landmark exhibitions that altered the segregation of aboriginal art in Canada.

Beam's works can be read as juxtapositions between long held perceptions and challenging alternatives. Early influences during his formal studies included Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. His well known, appropriated images (a pieta, an embryo, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting Bull, a crow, the Pinta and Maria, and Einstein, among others) were cross-cultural symbols that he utilized to convey a universal message about the environment and the relationship between man, nature and the passage of time.

With a linear pattern or formal grid, he tried to visually create the fourth dimension in his work, a spiritual space inhabited by a quiet intellect. That he was an artist of native and white heritage added to the scope of the complex subjects he chose.

Beam's work, executed in diverse media such as drawing, watercolour, etching, non-silver photography, photo transfer, collage, installation and ceramics, has been exhibited throughout North America as well as in Italy, Denmark, Germany and China. It is found in major Canadian and international collections including
the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Gallery and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y.

In 2000, Beam was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, and in 2005 he received the Governor General's Award in Visual Art and Media. He died July 30, 2005, of complications arising from diabetes.

UNews - Robert Rauschenberg

Culture Vulture

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In The Stillness exhibition opens

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Featured artist: Carl Beam (1943-2005)

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