The Art + Art History would like to announce Alison Starr + Courtney Brown in an upcoming performance entitled, No Name (7/19/13), at the Dallas Museum of Art on July 19th, 2013 from 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. Subsequently the duo will run PSWxEdu, a four-week performance art education series from July 25 - August 15, 2013.

PerformanceSW (PSW) is a project in support of the proliferation of performance art outside of the mainstream American discourse. PSW’s mission is to educate audiences through collaboration in practice, scholarship, and curatorial development.

Kimbell Art Museum Lecture on Peru

Dr. Alexander lectured at the Kimbell Art Museum for the Summer Institute for Teachers in conjunction with their summer exhibition: Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes. The focus of the lecture was to provide, educators who viewed the summer exhibition, a sense of the cultural and artistic changes in Peru from past to present. This was intertwined with Dr. Alexander's research in Peru, different artistic traditions that continue in Peru today, and how individuals/groups work to preserve and promote Peruvian art practices. She also explored how these artworks and traditions connect with art education studies and the classroom. 

Dr. Alexander Presents Research at the International Society for Education through the Arts (InSEA) Conference In Canterbury, UK

Dr. Alexander presented two research projects from this past year. One was a collaborative project with Professor Tuan Ho, which involved analyzing the summer SEED program from 2012: Gaming Worlds. The other was from a service-learning fellowship with the Center for Community Service-Learning at UTA entitled: Pre-Service Art Teachers and Service-Learning with a Special Needs Community.

*This article was Originally published in D Magazine*

In Deep Ellum, Dallas' Hottest Art Scene

How a developer embraced the avant-garde as part of a real-estate play.

For much of the spring, the block of Main Street in Deep Ellum between Good-Latimer Expressway and North Crowdus Street, the part of the neighborhood some might call the heart of Deep Ellum, sat as it has for much of the past few decades: mostly empty and abandoned, save for a hydroponics supply, a head shop, a tattoo parlor, and a little store selling antique bric-a-brac. And yet, on several weekends from February through May, if you drove down the 2000 block of Main Street, you might have seen Deep Ellum suddenly looking the part of the knockabout center of Dallas’ avant-garde. College-age students and bearded twentysomethings, girls with thick-rimmed glasses, others clutching cans of beer or poking cigarettes into their mouths, spilled out of the normally empty storefronts. Inside, the walls and floors were adorned with a variety of curious objects.
In one space, hundreds of tiny, golf ball-size plaster houses sat on the floor in spiraling geometric patterns. In another space, walls were hung with photographs of crusted oil paint squares and bright pink rectangles draped with pink vellum. A video projector shot bright white light onto a blanched wall of a former office, white on white except for a smudge of a fingerprint on the lens that registered blue when projected. In a darkened storefront, a wall was cluttered with a quilt of projected GIFs, looping animated fragments only seconds long, with images ranging from flailing professional wrestlers and dancing Japanese girls to bawdy cartoons and colorful abstracts.

In nearly all these cases, by the next morning, the art—and the people—had vanished. The installations were part of an ephemeral series of pop-up art shows called Deep Ellum Windows. And despite what you might assume about artistic bohemia and the transgressing avant-garde, the entire thing was the product of a shrewd real estate play.
Over the past few years, much of the real estate in Deep Ellum has been gobbled up by a developer, Scott Rohrman, who believes Deep Ellum is ready for one of its perennially promised renaissances. Rohrman and his company, Deep Ellum 42, had purchased 30 properties in the area by late last year, and he continues to add to the portfolio. The vision is what all Dallas developers seem to dream of now, something akin to the Bishop Arts District: contiguous historic storefronts populated with upscale boutiques and popular restaurants. And while the vision of local developers has evolved from the reliable land-scrape, strip-center model of the 1980s, so has their strategy for stirring on profitable development.

In December 2012, the artist Justin Ginsberg was speaking to a group from TREC Associate Leadership Council, an organization that grooms young professionals in the real estate industry for leadership roles. Ginsberg is a clean-cut 31-year-old with short brown hair, a stubble beard, and a cheeky smile. Out of the studio, he cleans up well, and it isn’t hard to imagine him losing the t-shirts and hoodie for a polo shirt and khakis. In other words, he is an artist who looks like the kind of guy a businessman can trust. After his talk, Ginsberg was approached by Joe Berry, a real estate broker working for Rohrman’s investment team. Berry told Ginsberg that they wanted to bring artists into Deep Ellum ahead of any leasing or development to help create life in the abandoned area.
It has become something of an established economic development fact that creative people drive investment in undervalued neighborhoods. Beginning with New York’s SoHo in the 1970s and continuing through London’s Hoxton in the 1990s, developers’ bedtime dreams read like a blur of paint-smeared studio space and white-walled condominiums. Deep Ellum 42 saw an opportunity with all its new brick-faced space. Let the artists come in, and their activity and enthusiasm will rebrand the neighborhood as hip and funky, instead of the loud, tattooed rocker vibe that flourishes a few blocks away on Elm Street.

But merely handing over the keys to someone who identifies himself as an artist won’t generate compelling creative activity. Deep Ellum 42 got lucky. For the past couple of years, the Dallas art scene has evolved rapidly. Younger artists and curators, tired of the consumer orientation of the more established galleries, have begun to stage their own shows in earnest, showing local artists whose work is either noncommercial, uncommodifiable, or in progress. Spaces like the tiny, ramshackle Oliver Francis Gallery regularly show work by Dallas artists, as well as artists from New York, Berlin, and elsewhere. When Joe Berry approached Justin Ginsberg, he happened to tap someone who was tied into this activity. Ginsberg reached out to his friend Jeff Gibbons, who shows with Oliver Francis Gallery, and the two hatched an exhibition strategy.
There was no thematic coherence or organizing structure to what happened in Deep Ellum this spring, just a ring of associated artists and curators given license to the space they hungered for. As a result, Deep Ellum flashed momentarily as a kind of creative laboratory, gathering together work from around the globe, sometimes exploring the very themes implicit in the Deep Ellum project: ephemerality, commerce, and production. Taken together, there was an oddly utopian subtext that ran through the exhibitions. For once, Dallas’ ballyhooed business community and its ostracized artistic community had found common ground. Artists had space; the developers had new life in their investment properties.

But was the exchange a fair one? The free space was a gesture that showed new appreciation for an economic value associated with artistic activity, but the shows were still all funded by the artists and curators who staged them. Were artists providing an investor with a service of greater value than what they got in return, a few hours of access to an empty space? Perhaps it’s too early to press the point. Dallas’ business leaders are still riding the learning curve, and Ginsberg says Deep Ellum 42’s willingness to let in the artists without worrying about programming content, insurance, or other practicalities was a welcome change of pace.
“I’m a bit of a space junkie, so anytime I see buildings that have been vacant for a while, I reach out to the landowners,” Ginsberg says. “There’s usually no call back. I’ve gotten laughs, been ignored, or been told flat out no. But there’s definitely a growing interest that artists can deal with any scenario—dirty, clean, no electricity. I think it works really well in this circumstance. I think, for them, they gain quite a bit. For us, we’re always making, working, and thinking.”

Maybe the biggest gain for Dallas artists would be other developers taking note of the strategy.

“There are plenty of people with vacant buildings,” Ginsberg says.

Ten UTA photography students were in residence at the Santa Reparata International School of Art for the month of June with Professor Kenda North.  The course included a range of museum visits in Florence as well as a three-day trip to see the Venice Biennale.   Additional day trips were made to Siena, Lucca, and Cinque Terre; several small groups went to Rome.  Participating students have edited their work to produce a print-on-demand book of their photographs.  An exhibition of prints will take place during fall semester. 

Professor Kenda North exhibited her photographs at the Santa Reparata International School of Art this June.  Two other visiting faculty were also in the exhibit-  Kevin Wixted of Alfred University and Susan Moore of University of Indiana South Bend.  SRISA is hosting many programs this summer with over 180 students and faculty from US universities.  The exhibit was on view from June 10 to 30th, 2013.

UTA MFA program alumna, Hannah Hudson, had her first show in New York this July, 4th weekend.  The show is presented by ‘A Slender Gamut‘ and is titled “NONSPACE”. Her work mainly utilizes sculpture, printmaking, photography, text, and installation. She has been shown in numerous galleries and experimental spaces in the Dallas area.

Artist Statement:

I am interested in exploring interior and exterior spaces along with the changing perceptions of actuality through viewing boxes with peepholes.

The idea of existing in a specific moment in a place and then existing again in the same place becomes very important – also examining the relationships created between seeing and reading when text is introduced to a space. The interaction involves both the commonalities and contrasts between seeing and reading that occur when a viewer experiences the text. The space dictates how the text changes depending on how the viewer might move through it.

Janet Morrow, UTA MFA program alumna and lecturer, was awarded First Place by juror William Campbell of William Campbell Contemporary Art in the "897 Square" exhibition currently on display at Gallery 76102.

897 Square at Gallery 76102 is a juried competition, featuring 25 artists who live and/or work in Tarrant County. Charles Wylie, who is the Dallas Museum of Art’s Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art and has been at the DMA for fifteen years, selected the artists.

As the winner, she will receive a solo exhibition. That exhibition, entitled "Sweetie Pie," will open September 12, with opening reception from 6p-8p and run through the end of November. The show will consist primarily of works created from cast granulated sugar. 

The title, 897 Square, refers to the U.S. Census Bureau’s calculation that Tarrant County has a total area of 897 square miles. Gallery 76102 is the UT Arlington's Center Gallery. The mission of Gallery 76102 is to engage and support art community stakeholders in the City of Fort Worth and Tarrant County through multiple community focused initiatives, such as the presentation of community artists who live and work in Tarrant County.

*Pictured is a detail from "Going, Going, Gone," made out of cast granulated sugar and a found cast iron piece.  Created in 2013. It is 14" x 14" x 30".*

The following article was printed in the Dallas Observer.

Legally Blind Artist Stephen Lapthisophon Challenges Students and Viewers to Open Their Eyes Wide

Stephen Lapthisophon's studio is a mess. It's not disordered, really; the rooms of the converted apartment and garage are organized enough. But they're filled with so much stuff: paint, hardware, wood, Italian dictionaries, anthologies of world literature and in-progress artwork, including some made of maps or series of numbers.

You could have predicted this -- should have, really -- from an artist who last year had two works in the Dallas Museum of Art comprising bacon, eggshells and coffee grounds, and whose recent show featured a projector looping political text and a room influenced by the writing of a Russian formalist. Lapthisophon's work looks at big issues and makes broad connections, and does it through a lot of different materials. Things get cluttered. But that's the way he sees his art, and the rest of the world.

"The things I can't see now aren't the things I was never interested in," says the Oak Cliff artist, who lost his sight to nerve damage in 1994. It's those fine details, things that require narrow focus, that Lapthisophon, who's 57, has never had time for. The technical details of a piece never appealed to him as much as the big ideas. Not being able to see the minutiae only made him more strident in those beliefs.

Formerly the artist in residence at the University of Texas at Dallas, Lapthisophon has been at UT Arlington for the last few years, teaching both art history and studio classes. He's one of those rare art professors who don't feel that teaching disrupts his own time in the studio. He's even taught kindergarten in Chicago and works with high schoolers in the summer. "I'm enlivened by interaction with students and rewarded by their successes," he says.

A goal of his work is to force people to examine the way they see and connect things, and he uses as his aide his unique ability to understand how humans rely on all of their senses. Lapthisophon lost his sense of smell from sinus problems once. For people with sight, who don't realize all the olfactory cues they get when they walk into a room, it wouldn't have made much difference. But without scents, everything was disorienting. Most people, he says, "aren't alert enough viewers" -- or smellers -- "to pick up on things."

Even before he lost his vision, Lapthisophon was fascinated by broad and interconnected ideas. Since then, the nature of his work hasn't changed. Only his drive to produce has intensified. "It gives you the energy to not be defeated by something," he says.

Ya’ke Smith is a name worthy of the respect from cinephiles whose addiction includes John Singleton’s Boyz N The Hood and Fernando Meirelles’ City of God. 

Since 2003, Smith has created a body of films whose strength lies in the moral and ethical struggle of flawed, broken characters portrayed without judgment or condescension. His view of an America cast to sea has stung audiences without riding the metaphorical high horse, garnering awards and acclaim from the Austin Film Festival, the Dallas International Film Festival and Cannes.

His previous film, Wolf, clutched the spine of North American festivals during its 2012 run, catapulted by a landmark showing at South by South West. The psychological drama concerns the taboo of sexual abuse in the Church and its effects on an estranged family while questioning the definition of ‘Predator’ and ‘Prey’. The film never points fingers at its character’s choices or motives. Instead it presents a gut punch of humanity that combats any notion of spectacle towards the content.

Smith’s next project, Heaven, is scheduled to commence production this fall. Standing strong in harsh reality, Heaven follows the mental dissipation of a teenage ballet dancer sold into sex trafficking. 

Two teaser trailers have been released via Facebook and continue to amass excitement from followers across the web. 

Running forward, Smith is eager to expand on his vision of a ‘Cinematic Activism’.

(For the full article and interview please go to indiewire.com)

Artspace111 announces The Abstract Show, a group show featuring the work of Art + Art History Lecturer Matt Clark. The exhibit will be on show beginning Friday, June 21, 2013 from 6 - 8 p.m. and will run through August 3, 2013. Enjoy beer and wine by Ben E Keith. Artspace111 is free and open to the public.

Matt Clark's paintings are created by layering oil, acrylic and enamel on panel, canvas, or paper. Each painting by the Fort Worth native is a snapshot in time, shaped through experimenting on the substrate. Matt Clark earned his MFA in 2002 from Cranbrook University in Michigan.

Artspace111 is dedicated to its vital role in the city of Fort Worth, and to making contemporary art approachable to individuals of all ages. With its sculpture and distinctive architectural character, the gallery offers a striking setting to host corporate and private events, and is also available for tours and other social gatherings. Artspace111 is located east of Downtown Fort Worth at Hampton Street and Weatherford. The gallery is open Tuesday to Friday, 10 - 5 pm and Saturday by appointment.

The University of Texas at Arlington has invited high school art programs from around the area to participate in the eighth annual SEED event , a program for high school students in the region interested in art and design.  Strategies, Events, Episodes + Devices or SEED is a two-week program that will be taught by distinguished members of the faculty and will stress active learning and the development of creativity through the exploration of a variety of art and design media and methods.

In SEED 8, students will work collaboratively in multiple groups creating an animated storyboard called an Animatic using the workflow and theories of video game design. Video games are simulated narratives that borrow existing methodologies from multiple art forms such as illustration, painting, sculpting, and film. Students will design characters and worlds that exist in a narrative space. Students will learn to navigate 2D space with illustration, composition, color, and design through the use of physical and digital tools. Students will understand the art pipeline used to create interactive games while producing a finished piece of artistic narrative work. It will occur Tuesday, June 11th through Friday, June 21st 2013, 9am-­‐3:30pm. The program will meet Tuesday through Friday of week one and Monday thru Friday of week two with a public exhibition of the work of participants on the last day.

The Studio, Media Arts + Art History Department is among the most distinguished on the UT Arlington campus, with superb facilities and faculty, and is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). In the past seven years, the Studio, Media Arts + Art History Department has doubled in size, and the faculty and students have received national and international recognition for their creative research.