Subject: Art Exhibit

Description: Featuring RETROSPECT: An exhibition of works from contemporary photographers and the University of Louisville Photographic Archives.

Subject: Performance

Description: "2012 U.S. Cities Contemporary Art Rankings: A New Hierarchical Approach" was first performed in 2011 with a crowd of thirty-five artists and creative workers in a Minneapolis gallery. Creating a second edition – this time, in a university setting, with a different group (many of whom have had careers elsewhere following their graduations from UofL), in an entirely different geographic and cultural part of the country – would yield an entirely different set of results. Many of the questions are the same, regardless of setting: is New York really America’s only truly world-class art center, or has L.A. become its peer? Does the influence of Harrell Fletcher in Portland and current widespread interest in social practice make that city a bona fide contemporary art capital? Is the relative lack of a traditional arts infrastructure in a city like Detroit offset by the influx of young artists that have moved there in the past ten years? Is Miami national grade all year-round, or just when Art Basel is going on? Using faux-sociological language, the project aims to crudely (and humorously) replicate the sort of Richard Florida-styled list-crafting that dominates much national discussion of contemporary art and placemaking. Located in that gray area between satire and earnest inquiry, the project draws on its audience's collective knowledge and investment in their own individual regional identities, as well as demonstrating the inherent limitations in reducing complex cultural and sociological factors into easily digestible charts, maps, and lists.

Subject: Art Exhibit

Description: This exhibition is composed of fifty-four alumni who received arts degrees from either a BA in Fine Arts, BFA In Studio Arts, BFA in Communication Arts and Design, BFA in Interior Architecture, MA in Studio Arts or MAT at the University of Louisville since 2000. They are currently working as artists, arts educators, designers, illustrators, curators, gallery directors and arts activists. They also may be running their own business and/or continuing their education (two are currently in PhD programs). Of the alumni in “Making it: Now”, twenty-seven have gone on to earn higher degrees at other institutions including Tyler School of Art, Yale University, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, New York Academy of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Rhode Island School of Art, University of Pennsylvania, Pratt, University of Cincinnati and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some have stayed in Louisville or this region while others have moved to New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, San Francisco and all points between.

Subject: Other

Description: A panel discussion by University of Louisville Fine Arts Department alumni from the "Making it: Now" exhibition. Alumni will focus on their strategies for a career in the arts.

Subject: Lecture

Description: Amanda Briede graduated Summa cum Laude with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in glass and sculpture and a minor in Forensic Anthropology from the University of Louisville in 2009. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Craft/ Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011. Amanda received the Allen R. Hite Scholarship and the Winthrop Allen Memorial Award from the Allen R. Hite Institute at the University of Louisville in 2008 and 2009 and the Graduate Thesis Grant from the Graduate School at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011.She has attended and participated in demonstrations and lectures in four Glass Art Society Conferences and has shown work in galleries in Covington, Lexington, and Louisville, Kentucky and in Richmond, Virginia. After completing the Master of Fine Arts Program in Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, Amanda moved back to Louisville, where she has been making and exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions.

Subject: Other

Description: In conjunction with Campus Preview Day.

Subject: Lecture

Description: An original and overdue exploration of the representation of masculinity in British academic art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Painted Men in Britain, 1868–1918 analyzes transgressions of gender and sexuality as represented in paintings by Leighton, Sargent, Tuke, and their contemporaries in the Royal Academy. This volume treats paintings as eloquent objects, no narratives of which are too elusive to be traced, and challenges conventional binaries of masculine versus feminine or heterosexual versus homosexual. Consulting not only the paintings themselves but also newspapers, journals, criticism, novels, and poetry of the day, Painted Men argues against the misconception of British academic art as merely reactionary and even blind to the dynamism of its own time. Instead, this art is shown to engage with broader social attitudes and contemporary sexual debates. As the book reveals the complexities of specific paintings, it illuminates different and competing attitudes toward masculinity and modernity in British art of the period.

Subject: Conference

Description: "Madalena Schwartz and Documentary Photography in Brazil" by David William Foster (Ph.D., University of Washington, 1964). Dr. Foster is Regents Professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. His research interests focus on urban culture in Latin America, with emphasis on issues of gender construction and sexual identity. He has written extensively on Argentine narrative and theater, and has held Fulbright teaching appointments in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Subject: Art Exhibit

Description: BOB THOMPSON, (1937-1966) - In 1957, the same year that Federal troops were called in to escort black students in Little Rock, Bob Thompson, an African American artist, was granted an Allen R. Hite Art Scholarship to study at the University of Louisville. In 1959 he left Louisville for New York where he quickly and steadily gained success. In his brief life, Thompson produced well over 1,000 works, many of them monumental in scale and ambition. Although Thompson has been the subject of many exhibitions across the country, including a major retrospective at the Whitney in 1998, he is still not well-known in his hometown of Louisville. Seeking Bob Thompson will reintroduce the city of Louisville to one of its brightest talents. This exhibition is presented as part of the University of Louisville Fine Arts Department 75th Anniversary Celebration.