October 8 - December 10, 1999
Downstairs Gallery
Fusion: Art and Science
An Exhibition of seven artists who utilize scientific principles in the creation of their work. Exhibiting artists include Norman Tuck, Alyce Simon, Michael Rudnick, Ned Kahn, John Pakosta, Jeff Wyckoff and M.C. Escher
Curated by Wake Forest University Biology Professor William
Conner
and Gallery Director Victor Faccinto.
Catalogue essay by Peter Richards, Director of Tryon Center for Visual Art, Charlotte
Opening Reception: Friday, October 8, 7 - 9 pm.
Norman Tuck and John Pakosta will be attending the opening
reception
Visiting Artist Slide Lecture by John Pakosta on Wednesday,
October 6th, 3 pm in room 102 SFAC.
Pakosta will be instlaling a large scale piece in the
gallery during the week.
| Norman Tuck
OscylinderScope |
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Web Links:
Downloadable Exhibition Catalogue in Adobe Acrobat format
Year of Science and Technology at Wake Forest University
Ned Kahn
--www.sculpture.org
--www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech/papers/TurbLand.html
Norman Tuck
--www.normantuck.com
| Alyce Simon
Peacock Atomic energy sculpture 1981 |
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Upstairs
Gallery
October 8 - November 14, 1999
Oleg Vassiliev: "Drawings on Black Paper"
Curated by Neil Rector.
Oleg Vassiliev is an artist obsessed with memory. His obsession has less to do with the content of any particular remembered event than with how memory is constructed and how remembered facts present themselves to the mind. No one has perfect recall of even the most significant facts of a given event. It is a well established psychological premise that what we think of as our memory of a past event is instead a fictional narrative created by the mind as it weaves together and tries to make sense of a handful of actually remembered details. In his masterwork, On Black Paper, 1994-1997, Vassiliev seeks to depict in graphic form this process by which memories form and dissolve and mingle with present information to arrive at the mind’s perception of what is real.
Born in Moscow in 1931, Vassiliev was one of the leading figures in the Russian “unofficial” art movement. Vassiliev has described his work as an attempt to “combine the energetic space of the painting ... with the depiction (as realistic as possible) of the subjective world.”
Although Vassiliev’s desire to realistically depict subjective experience is not new, his exploration of memory took on a new focus and intensity following his immigration to New York in 1990. While in Moscow, Vassiliev was part of the close knit, supportive group of unofficial artists who were joined together by their common desire to create artwork that did not conform to the state-mandated “Socialist Realist” style. Following the collapse of the USSR, however, this group fragmented, and many of the leading artists left Russia to settle and work in Europe and the United States.
Ripped from this group of supportive friends and separated from his homeland, Vassiliev became intrigued by the randomness with which memories would appear and mingle with his thoughts about his new life in New York to constantly change his understanding of the world around him and his place in it. In On Black Paper, Vassiliev sought to create, in pictorial form, an analogy for the very process by which memories become assimilated into the mind’s consciousness.
Although the individual drawings that collectively comprise
On Black Paper are exquisitely rendered and at times hauntingly beautiful,
the ultimate meaning and power of the work as a whole is in its ability
to capture and depict the process of memory as it is actually experienced
by the human mind. As such, On Black Paper is a monumental work of
art that expands the artistic tradition of depicting time and change and
a work that helps us better understand what it means to be human.
| #16
Oleg Vissiliev mixed media on paper 12 3/4" x 10" |
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