RICHARDSON, Texas (July 9, 2004) — The School of Arts & Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) today announced its 2004–2005 season of visual arts exhibitions. The exhibitions and opening receptions are free and open to the public and will run from Aug. 19 to April 16, 2005; all will be held in the Main Gallery of the UTD Visual Arts Building
A reception will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on the opening night of each of the exhibitions except Gaza Zoo, which opens on Aug. 19 but will have its reception on Aug. 27, and the Texas Visual Arts Association (TVAA) High School Art Competition, which features a closing ceremony and reception. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays. The gallery is closed Sundays and on university holidays.
About the Exhibitions
Gaza Zoo , an exhibition of 150 digital prints running in linear sequence, will run from Aug. 19 until Sept. 25. Gaza Zoo is an adaptation of a recently completed book of the same title by artist and former UTD and Northlake College faculty member Laray Polk. According to Polk, this exhibition is “based on the politics of domination inherent in a phonetic alphabet and Western forms of communication and acculturation, becoming a rapidly moving analogue system that challenges viewers as passive recipients of sensate image and cerebrational readers of text.” This original work of art and scholarship draws from major thinkers of our time in the fields of linguistics, communication theory and political scholarship, including Marshall McLuhan, Noam Chomsky and Edward Said.
X-cessive , curated by artist and UTD Assistant Professor John Pomara, will present the work of six national artists — Paul Booker, Gina Dawson, Robert Terry, Gene Besualdo, Betsy Odom and Bill Davenport — working in painting, photography and various other materials such as thread, mylar and pins.
According to Pomara, “the artists deal with personal obsessions of excess producing compelling images in serial fashion in a labor-intensive way. This repeated cycle of variation leaves behind artifacts for us to witness as observers, deciphering changes in visual images for clues of meaning and intent.” The exhibition will run from Oct. 1 to Nov. 13.
Urbanisms of Risk: Economies of Technology, War and World in Art, Architecture and The City, curated by Charissa N. Terranova, will run from Jan 14 to Feb. 12. The exhibition will utilize multimedia elements in the form of painting, photography, video, architecture and urban schemas to embody what Terranova refers to as the current condition of risk in “a world of greater connection and less security, more players and fewer safety nets.”
The Texas Visual Arts Association (TVAA) High School Art Competition, which will run from Feb. 24 to March 13, is an annual competition and exhibition to promote excellence in the visual arts among high school students. S cholarships and prizes will be presented at an awards ceremony and closing reception on March 13 at 2 p.m.
Subrealities and Distributed.Nerves, jointly curated by UTD Assistant Professor Dean Terry and Associate Professor Marilyn Waligore, will run from March 18 to April 16. Subrealities , a national invitational net.art exhibition, and Distributed.Nerves, a student digital art exhibition, will be presented concurrently as an alternative to existing museum structures as well as a counterpoint to the dominant commercial voices of corporate media.
In addition to the professional exhibitions in the Main Gallery, UTD will host a student festival at the end of the fall and spring semesters that highlights the work of visual arts students from all areas of the graduate and undergraduate programs. The Fall Arts Festival will run Nov. 19 and 20, and The Spring Arts Festival, a juried exhibition with an awards ceremony, will be held April 20 to 30.
Also during the 2004-05 school year, the Mezzanine Gallery will be used for student exhibitions by graduate students in partial fulfillment of their Master’s theses and Doctorial theses, for undergraduate students for Senior Honors Projects and for advanced class exhibitions. These student exhibitions will be announced at a later date. All programs are subject to change.
Additional information on each event is available on the UTD Arts & Humanities website: http://ah.utdallas.edu/.
For information about the many musical, arts, theatre, dance and other performances and exhibitions held throughout the year at UTD, please call 972-UTD-ARTS (972-883-2787), e-mail utdarts@utdallas.edu or visit the School of Arts and Humanities’ web site at http://ah.utdallas.edu/.
Persons with disabilities needing special accommodations may call 972-883-2982, Texas Relay Operator: 1-800-RELAYVV.
About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 13,700 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university’s Web site at www.utdallas.edu.