Art

The movie “Monuments Men,” which opens in theaters across the country Thursday, February 6, has a direct connection to the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. The movie tells the story of nearly 350 architects, artists, art historians, curators, and museum directors who joined the U.S. military specifically to save cultural treasures from destruction by the Third Reich in the waning days of World War II. Two of these “art heroes” spent significant time in A&AA: Gordon Gilkey, MFA ’36, and Mark Sponenburgh, who taught art at A&AA from 1946-1957.

MFA candidate Stephen Nachtigall is Canadian. He’s also a proficient sculptor. These two concurrent realities meant he could be invited to exhibit his art in Glasgow, Scotland, this winter as part of an exchange between Canadian and Scottish artists. His work was accepted, and in late January Nachtigall was on a flight to Glasgow, his work safely tucked in the overhead bin.

Nachtigall is one of twelve artists participating in a Canadian-Scottish cross-cultural exchange that began in summer 2013.

Four University of Oregon faculty members were selected from a pool of more than 190 applicants from thirty-five Oregon cities for the Oregon Arts Commission’s 2014 Individual Artist Fellowships. They include Surabhi Ghosh, Allison Hyde, Anya Kivarkis, and Terri Warpinski.

The White Box at the University of Oregon in Portland will present “Picturing Global China,” an exhibition of contemporary photography and video art from the People’s Republic of China. The show opens Thursday, February 6.

The energetic artists of Springfield’s Ditch Projects are exhibiting a collaborative ensemble work called Fontana Mix: Loop at the Portland State University Autzen Gallery, Feb. 6–28. An artists’ talk entitled “The Artist Ran Collaborative…” will take place on Thursday, Feb. 6, at 4 p.m. prior to the opening reception from 5-6 pm. Exhibiting artists include Mike Bray, Isami Ching, Surabhi Ghosh, Donald Morgan, Jack Ryan, Rick Silva, Brandon Siscoe, and Jessie Vala.

Robert Storr—critic, curator, painter, and current dean of the Yale University School of Art—will present the Fowler Lecture at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at 6 p.m., March 6, in Room 177 of Lawrence Hall at the University of Oregon. The lecture will be live-streamed at aaa.uoregon.edu.

Storr’s lecture, “Kara Walker: Shadow Caster,” is in conjunction with “Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker’s Tales of Slavery and Power,” an exhibition at The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) on the UO campus through April 6.

The UO’s Arts and Administration is presenting the third annual (sub)Urban Projections presentation of digital arts, electronic music, modern dance, and installation art this Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Hult Center lobby in downtown Eugene. Experience art and performance that reimagines the main lobby, staircases, hallways, walls, ceilings, and spaces-in-between with presentations of thirteen works by artists and performers.  The two-hour event will lead the audience through space and change the way that they think of the lobby spaces.

Robert Gamblin, artist and business owner of Gamblin Artist Colors, Co., will receive the school’s highest honor, the 2014 Ellis F. Lawrence Medal, at the A&AA commencement ceremony this spring. He is a 1970 graduate of the UO’s Department of Art.

“It was a wonderful phone call to get. I am truly honored, and a bit stunned,” Gamblin said after receiving a call from Frances Bronet, dean of the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts, to inform him he was selected to receive the Lawrence Medal.

Art professor Sylvan Lionni found inspiration for one of his more recent paintings in the unlikely source of a computer database programming language called Structured Query Language.

Lionni’s work “SQL2” was named after the language. It was created as a part of a larger series; each work in the set is designated with a different number.

Nic Adenau was a junior at the University of Oregon when the independent company behind Macklemore & Ryan Lewis approached him for freelance work. Impressed by his skills in the digital arts, they hired Adenau to work on their music videos and tour visuals.