Last Week to View Silver & Metalwork of the 20th Century

Contemporary UK, Christopher Lawrence’s 

House of Lawrian, Coffee Service (pot only),

1974, London, England, sterling silver, 

8 x 7 ½ inches, lent by Margo Grant Walsh

Silver & Metalwork of the 20th Century: The Margo Grant Walsh Collection closes on Saturday, November 12.  The exhibition features over 185 items of silver and metalwork from this unparalleled private collection.  Works from eight countries span the Arts and Crafts Movement to Scandinavian and contemporary UK designs. 

Walsh began collecting silver on a whim and considers herself a self-educated collector. Today, her collection consists of over 2,000 objects, all of which she collected based on their beauty, functionality, and good design.  With a background in architecture and interior design, she has amassed a globally significant collection.

The Art Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm.  Hours on Monday are extended to 9 pm through November.   The Art Museum is housed in the Centennial Complex on the campus of the University of Wyoming at 2111 Willett Ave.  Admission is free to all.

Drury Completes Carbon Sink

Chris Drury, Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around

UW Art Museum Photo

Today, British artist Chris Drury and crew completed his extraordinary new work on the campus of the University of Wyoming.  Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around, places beetle-kill pine and coal--both natural resources in Wyoming--in a formal structure derived from a mushroom spore, twisting into a vortex to suggest the natural process of decay, decomposition, and transformation.  Typical of the artist's work, who routinely connects natural phenomena from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, the whirling deep, dark, and beautiful reflective properties of the coal play off the raw wood that has been charred so the materials merge at the center.

The work is the next in an evolving public art exhibition that launched in 2008, Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational.  Additional works are planned this year both on and off campus.

20th Century Silver Collection to Open July 23

Collector Margo Grant Walsh (r) is assisted by Art Museum

assistant curator Rachel Miller (l) during the installation

of Silver & Metalwork of the 20th Century

Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum

Margo Grant Walsh was on site earlier this week for the installation of an exhibition drawn from her 20th century silver and metal collection.  With a passion for silver, Grant Walsh, a retired interior designer, has amassed one of the most important privately held collections.  Her guiding principle for acquisitions has been first and foremost design, craftsmanship, and functionality.   The exhibition opens to the public on July 23.  Grant Walsh will return to Laramie to present a talk on her collection on Thurs., Sept. 8 (7 pm) and a Gallery Walk Through on Fri., Sept. 9 (4:30 pm).

Art Museum Closed on Memorial Day

Along with most of the University of Wyoming offices and departments, the Art Museum will be closed on Monday, May 30th for Memorial Day.

We will be open for our usual hours on Saturday, from 10 am to 5 pm, and we will reopen on Tuesday, May 31st.

Willett Drive is unfortunately still closed to through traffic for utility work to the east of the parking lot. You can access the Art Museum from the west on Willett Drive (just go past the sign that says closed to through traffic). If you are on the north side of the building, or driving north on 22nd Street, you can go around the back of the building on Harney and cut across to Willett on 19th Street.

For more information about museum hours or to help plan a visit to the museum, please call 307.766.6622. Have a happy and safe Memorial Day!

The Installation of Etsuko Ichikawa's NACHI Begins

Etsuko Ichikawa lays out the template for the installation of 

NACHI - between the eternal and the ephemeral - in the Art Museum's galleries.

Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum

Last week, Etsuko Ichikawa arrived in Laramie from Seattle to spend two weeks working with drawing and dance students in the Art Department and Theater and Dance Department and to install a major new work that she has created for the University of Wyoming.  For the next week, she will be in the museum installing NACHI - between the eternal and the ephemeral -, a massive work that is comprised of 6 14-ft tall pyrographs (drawings created with molten glass), 11 miles of suspended twine, and video and audio components.  The work was inspired by the Japanese waterfall, Nachi, after Ichikawa's visit there a few years ago.

Ichikawa's residency and exhibition has been funded in part by an anonymous donor, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum Endowment, the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum, Wyoming Public Radio, and the Wyoming Arts Council through the Wyoming State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The exhibition opens on Friday, Feb. 25 at 6 pm.  An improvisational dance will be performed by UW dance students.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and UW Days of Dialogue

The University, including the Art Museum offices, will be closed on Monday, January 17 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Equality Day. Although the University will be closed, the annual Days of Dialogue will kick off events on Monday. This annual series of events, "serves as a renewal of UW's commitment to making campus a more welcoming and empowering place for people from different backgrounds, heritages, orientations, or abilities."

Please visit the UW Days of Dialogue webpage for a complete schedule of events and for information on how you can participate.

River High Coming Down

Deinstalling River High

The monumental red steel sculpture, River High, is being deinstalled this afternoon and relocated to its new home in northern Wyoming.  The work created by Tennessee artist John Henry has been on view at the Laramie Rec Center for two years and was the anchor work for the exhibition, Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational, on the University of Wyoming campus and in its surrounding city of Laramie.

River High Scheduled to Depart Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational

John Henry, River High

photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum

John Henry's River High, the massive, red sculpture at the Laramie Recreation Center, has been sold and will be removed from the exhibition Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational in September.  Plans are to de-install the work on Thursday, September 16.  If you haven't seen the work, now is the time to do so and if you have, now is the time to visit again!

This will be the fifth work to disappear from the original exhibition.  Previous works in Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational that have been removed are Deborah Butterfield, Billings; Steven Siegel, It Goes Under; James Surls, In Circle; and Charmaine Locke, Open Book.  Last year, Charles Long's Untitled work was added.  In the coming year, several new works are being planned to add to the exhibition.

Patrick Dougherty's Short Cut Removed from Prexy's Pasture

Patrick Dougherty, Short Cut, 2008

Many folks are wondering what happened to Short Cut, one of the most talked about and enjoyed sculptures in the Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational exhibition.  Earlier this spring, UW's ground crews removed the work which was reaching the end of its life.  Artist Patrick Dougherty said that his outdoor creations made from locally harvested saplings usually have about a two-year lifespan. 

Dougherty, an artist from North Carolina, has created works around the world.  His inspiration for his sculptural forms comes from the specific location of the work.  For Short Cut, the Veedawoo boulders that now grace Prexy's Pasture and other locations on campus became a reference for the four, large boulder-like structures which were placed strategically on an unpaved pathway on the north east corner of the quad that is the heart of UW's campus.  Without impacting the ability to still traverse the "short cut," the sculpture offered the ability to get lost in the work through a myriad of doorways.  Once inside the structures, the open forms offered views to the sky.

Short Cut was one of eighteen sculptures installed on campus and in Laramie that comprised the original exhibition.  It was the third work to be removed.  It was preceded by Deborah Butterfield's Billings (which was on view in the Art Museum lobby) and Steven Siegel's It Goes Under (which was located along the Laramie Greenbelt in West Laramie).  

Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational opened in 2008 as a temporary exhibition.  All of the works are on loan and are on view on a temporary basis.  

New Video on YouTube

The University of Wyoming Art Museum has added a new video to its uwartmuseum channel on YouTube.  Dufy on Design is a walk through the exhibition, Dufy on Design: The Fabric Designs of Raoul Dufy.

Raoul Dufy (French, 1877-1953) has been recognized for his work as a Fauvist painter, known for bold color and strong lines. Dufy was also one of the great innovators of twentieth century textile design, an aspect of his work that has been relatively unknown. Dufy by Design: The Fabric Designs of Raoul Dufy, at the University of Wyoming Art Museum through August 21, 2010, explores Dufy’s collaborations with Parisian couture fashion designer Paul Poiret and the leading French silk manufacturer Bianchini-Frier.  100 original silk fabrics and fabric designs and thirteen dresses designed by Mongi Guibane and Christian LaCroix using Dufy fabric designs are included in the exhibit.

Mohamed Shata Lecture Time Set

Egyptologist Mohamed Shata will present his lecture, Art in Ancient Egypt, on Tuesday, February 9, at 7 pm at the Art Museum. 

Egyptologist to Lecture on Art in Ancient Egypt

Art in Ancient Egypt

Images of Life in the Afterlife

Lecture by Mohamed A. Shata

Tuesday, February 9, 2010; University of Wyoming Art Museum

The art and history of Ancient Egypt spanned nearly 3 millennia, starting around 3100 BC. Major accomplishments were achieved during 3 periods: the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms which lasted roughly 500 years (2700-2200 BC), 200 years (2000-1800 BC), and 500 years (1600-1100 BC). The ancient Egyptian civilization changed dramatically over these 1600 years, and many of these changes are reflected in the art depicted in wall reliefs found on tomb and temple walls.

The lecture will explore the process, technique and images of the tombs built and decorated for the kings and queens and the nobles of ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom saw perhaps the most glorious tombs. The walls of these tombs, which were very elaborate, deep underground tunnels cut into bedrock, were decorated with scenes of the journey that the king (or queen) would take as they moved from this life to the afterlife. The scenes were highly colored and drawn from vignettes from the book of the dead and depicted the pharaoh in the presence of major deities, making offerings to them.

The tombs of the New Kingdom's noblemen were beautifully decorated with scenes which depicted their daily activities as well as scenes with strong religious overtones. Common people believed the gods would judge them favorably and help them make it safely through the arduous voyage in the nether word to emerge in paradise, where they would enjoy eternal life. These private tombs' decorations were artistically freer, unlike the royal tombs, which were confined to specific norms.

Mohamed A. Shata is an Archaeologist and licensed Egyptologist for the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. Educated at Cairo University with a degree in Archeology, Shata is a former Inspector of Antiquities at Giza where he worked extensively with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Vice-Minster of Culture and Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in excavating sites in the vicinity of the Pyramids. He participated for two years in the re-assembly of the Solar Boat, worked on the restoration of the Sphinx, was a member of the excavation team of the worker’s village, and  discovered many tombs of Old Kingdom royal family members at Giza. Shata is in demand as a guest lecturer at many museums and universities in North America and Europe, and was a presenter at the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists: Damietta as a Gateway to Egypt in Ancient and Modern Times.

Art Museum Store to Reopen

Store manager Rosie Chapp (r) and sales attendant Jennifer

Benkman (l) receive new inventory and prepare for

The Museum Store's reopening next week

With inventory nearing completion and new inventory being received every day, The Museum Store will re-open on Friday, January 29, 2010 to coincide with the opening reception for new exhibitions in the Art Museum. Drop in and see what's new!

James Surls at the University of Wyoming

Now available on the University of Wyoming webpage! Listen to James Surls discussing his new permanent installation in Coe Library.

Click here. Click on refresh to cycle through to the video clip.

James Surls Installation in Coe Library Underway

Jonathon Hickerson, Paul Tholl,
and Anthony Teneralli assemble Rolling Flower
under the new skylight in Coe Library.

James Surls is in Laramie today to install his commissioned work for Coe Library, Rolling Flower. He is assisted by volunteers Jonahon Hickerson, Paul Tholl, Anthony Teneralli, and Frederick Schmechel. Rolling Flower is a 12-ft diameter work consists of a center stem with 12 floral elements. It was created in Surls' Colorado studio and transported to Laramie by the artist.

Surls will discuss the work tomorrow, Saturday, in Coe Library on the 5th floor of the new expansion at 1 pm. His talk is free and open to the public.

James Surls to Present Public Talk at Coe Library

James Surls, Rolling Flower

Courtesy of the artist

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

James Surls, nationally known artist, will give an Art Talk on Saturday, October 24 at 1 p.m. in William Robertson Coe Library. The public Art Talk is free and will be followed by a reception to celebrate the installation of Surls’ newest piece, Rolling Flower, in William Robertson Coe Library.

Surls is best known for his sculpture work. He is noted as being “one of America’s most important living sculptors and one of the most distinctive creative forces on the international art scene in the last several decades.” Time Magazine announces that “Surls sculpture is infused, at the start, with a real sense of fright: the noonday demon lurking in the woodpile.”

Surls is also known for his work with non-profit organizations and emerging artists. He has worked as an arts administrator and arts educator alongside his wife and fellow artist Charmaine Locke. Both Surls and Locke have large-scale sculptures in the exhibition Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational.

University of Wyoming Libraries

Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun at the Art Museum Next Week

Kwang-Young Chun, Aggregations08-AU022, 2008,

mixed media, 14 ft x 8 ft diameter

Photo courtesy of the Aldrich Museum of Art

Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun uses recycled mulberry paper pages from Korean book and medicine wrappers to wrap and hand-tie around small styrofoam forms and construct into large-scale scultpure and wall reliefs. The series called Aggregations began in the 1990s. Initially two-dimensional, he has more recently explored floor-based sculptural constructions. The largest of these to date is Aggregations08-AU022. It was created for the Aldrich Museum of Art in Ridgefield, CT and comes to the University of Wyoming as the centerpiece of Chun's solo exhibition, Aggregations, new work.

Chun will visit the museum next week to assist with the exhibition installation and to present two public programs:

Art Talk, Thurs, Sept 10, 6:30 pm

Gallery Walk Through, Fri, Sept 11, 10:30 am

He will also attend the opening reception for this and other new exhibitions at the University of Wyoming Art Museum on Fri, Sept 11, from 6 - 8 pm. All events are free and open to the public.

For more information, visit the Art Museum webpage.

Preparations for Japanese Netsuke Exhibition Underway

Sarah Gadd, museum registrar (l), and Rachel Miller,
assistant curator (r), place more than 100 Japanese netsuke in casework.
Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum.

Comprised of the entire Huey G. and Phyllis T. Shelton Collection of Inada Ichiro Netsuke, Ichiro: Netsuke, A Life's Work opens to the public on Sept. 5. The special collection was gifted to the Art Museum earlier this year and is accompanied by the recently published catalog, Ichiro: Master Netsuke Carver (Paragon Books, 2009; Norman Sandfield and Huey Shelton).

Netsuke scholar Norman Sandfield will conduct a Gallery Walk Through followed by a book signing on Fri., Sept. 11, at 4 pm. The opening reception for this and other new exhibitions is from 6 - 8 pm that evening.

For more information, visit the Art Museum webpage.

Sculpture Exhibition to Continue

Linda Fleming's Refugium on the plaza west of the

Classroom Building will remain in the exhibition.

Photo courtesy of the UW Art Museum.

With the ongoing positive response from the community and the university campus, the Art Museum has extended the loans on many of the sculptures in the outdoor exhibition, Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational. Over the coming years, some works will be removed from the exhibition and new works will be added, creating an evolving program that offers changing configurations of artwork and opportunities to bring new artists into the program.

The first sculpture to be returned to the artist was Deborah Butterfield's Billings which has been on view in the Art Museum's lobby. The second work to be removed will be Steven Siegel's it goes under, the 125-ft long earthworm-like work along the Laramie Greenbelt. Removal is scheduled for mid-September.

For information on the exhibition and links to download the audio tour (use your cell phone to listen to information about each of the works in the exhibition!) and the locator maps of the sculpture in the exhibition and works permanently on view at UW and in Laramie, visit the museum's webpage.

Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational Continues

A coordinated effort is required to make Jesus Moroles' 

Granite Windows on Prexy's Pasture turn

Photo courtesy of A. Trent

Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational, the major exhibition of public art installed across Laramie and the University of Wyoming last year, has been extended for an indefinite period of time.  The exhibition, originally planned to end in August 2009, has been positively received, encouraging the University of Wyoming Art Museum, which originated the exhibition, to request loan extensions from many of the artists represented.  

Several works are scheduled to be removed from the exhibition: Deborah Butterfield's Billings, a welded metal, larger than life work in the museum's rotunda will be returned to the artist after August 15.  Steven Siegel's long, linear construction, It Goes Under, installed along the Laramie Greenbelt, is planned for removal the middle of September.

For information on sculpture locations, a Walking/Driving Tour Guide is available on the Art Museum webpage.