The Claire Trevor School of the Arts recently celebrated the ribbon and official grand opening celebratration of this  59,000-sq.-ft. LEED-certified, technologically advanced building that is destined to become the hub of student and School activity.

 

Inside the CAC, a variety of new spaces beckon, from the CAC Gallery to the Experimental Media Performance Lab, a 2,000-sq.-ft. Performance Capture Studio, and a fully equipped recording studio, to an enormous costume design studio, computer labs, meeting spaces, offices, artists' studios, and more!

The building was designed to meet the needs of the School and the environment - the four-story eco-friendly building was constructed primarily using locally sourced materials to reduce the School's carbon footprint. In addition, the building's land orientation provides a natural ventilation system by taking  advantage of the wind patterns that occur on site. Against the West-facing exterior of the building are fixed, perforated panels that block out the summer sun while still allowing a breeze to flow through the hallways. Press | View Images

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine presents the 2012 Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art thesis exhibitions. The two-part series features individual projects culminating from three years of formal and theoretical study at the university.

 

PART I, Opening Reception on Saturday April 28, 2-6pm, with a screening of a film by Paul Pescador at 5pm.

April 27, 2012 – May 11, 2012

Featured artists: Nick Aguayo, James Anderson, Sarah Beadle, Maya Gurantz, and Paul Pescador

 

PART II, Opening Reception on Saturday May 19, 2-6pm
May 18, 2012 - June 1, 2012

 

Featured artists: Flora Kao, Scott Klinger, Lauren Merage, and Aaron Valenzuela

The eighth annual juried undergraduate exhibition,Sevenfold, and the annual undergraduate solo project, As Removed, showcase the richly varied subject matter of UCI's student artists.  Using various visual media, the artists explore and question topics such as global politics, popular culture, and art historical movements.  Curated by Juli Carson.

Featured artists: Cristina Cary, Corinne Chan, Marisa Colcord, Daniel Kim, Maivy Xuan Nguyen, Varduhi Simonyan, Rosalie Armida Torres, and Juan Luis Ulloa

The UAG is proud to present the US premiere of Yael Bartana’s ... and Europe will be stunned.   This exhibition was the official Polish participation at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice. It is also the inaugural event to be held in the Contemporary Arts Center Gallery at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts.  Bartana’s trilogy aesthetically references propaganda films of the 1930s, which, when presented as a gallery installation, collectively deconstruct a group of ideological positions that contributed to the founding of Israel – European anti-Semitism, Colonialism, Socialism, and Zionism.  In so doing, the historical origin and development of Zionism, vis-à-vis Israel’s contemporary political stance toward the Palestinians, is scrutinized.  Key to the installation is the viewer’s geographical transportation from Israel/Palestine to Poland, which is enacted in Bartana’s films through a fictional political movement, “The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland,” that advocates the return of 3 million Jews back to Poland.  At once ironic and serious, the work urges the viewer to consider the social mandate of a Jewish Homeland from contradictory perspectives.  Curated by Juli Carson this exhibition continues the UAG’s Critical Aesthetics Program, featuring internationally renowned artworks by mid-career artists.

Cook Book | Press | Review | View Images | Art It Interview | JRMiP

 

This exhibition is made possible by generous support from Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, and the Mondriaan Foundation.

Mary Koszmary (Nightmares), 2007, video still, courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery (Amsterdam) and Foksal Gallery Foundation (Warsaw)
Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower), 2009, video still, courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery (Amsterdam) and Sommer Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv)
Zamach (Assassination), 2011, video still, courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery (Amsterdam) and Sommer Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv)

A one-day conference
Saturday, February 4, 2012
UCIrvine, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Contemporary Arts Center
Colloquium Room (room 3201 third floor)

RSVP to gallery@uci.edu

Key Note Speaker: Galit Eilat
Moderator: Nizan Shaked
Speakers: Yael Bartana, Gil Hochberg, Yuval Kremnitzer, and Sławomir Sierakowski
Respondent: Juli Carson

Description:

In tandem with the UAG's U.S. premiere of Yael Bartana's ... and Europe will be stunned, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts will host a one-day conference for which the artist, along with her collaborators on the JRMiP, have been invited to speak. ...and Europe will be stunned was the official Polish participation at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice. It is also the inaugural event to be held in the Contemporary Arts Center Gallery at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Bartana's trilogy aesthetically references propaganda films of the 1930s, which, when presented as a gallery installation, collectively deconstruct a group of ideological positions that contributed to the founding of Israel - European anti-Semitism, Colonialism, Socialism, and Zionism. In so doing, the historical origin and development of Zionism, vis-a-vis Israel's contemporary political stance toward the Palestinians, is scrutinized. Key to the installation is the viewer's geographical transportation from Israel/Palestine to Poland, which is enacted in Bartana's films through a fictional political movement, "The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland," that advocates the return of 3 million Jews back to Poland. At once ironic and serious, the work urges the viewer to consider the social mandate of a Jewish Homeland from contradictory perspectives.

Full Description

 

This conference is made possible by generous support from Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Mondriaan Foundation, and UC Irvine's Jewish Studies Program

Koki Tanaka's A Piano Played by Five Pianists at Once (First Attempt), continues Room Gallery's Emerging Artist Series.  Tanaka's interdisciplinary art practice - combining painting, video, photography and sculpture - captures the ordinary, everyday event or object in its most poetic transformation.  The artist's task of discovery entails carefully documenting what he has accidentally encountered - things we ordinarily overlook.  Along the way, Tanaka gives himself over to a place in the legacy of Andre Breton's surrealist encounters, David Hammon's fluxus performances, Bruce Nauman's paradoxical propositions and Douglas Hueblers durational pieces.  Specifically, Tanaka's art derives from an action that he instigates in a given site: selling old palm fronds as a vendor in local flea market; showing sculptures to a friend's dog; or orchestrating a haircut simultaneously performed by a team of hairdressers.  Derived in post-recession Japan - and continued in the current US recession - Tanaka's ongoing project springs from an economy of means and the absurdity of chance.  In the end, he provides an unexpected, sublime experience of our quotidian lives.  Tanaka's newest project - A Piano Played by Five Pianists at Once (First Attempt) for Room Gallery - will be the latest stop in the artist's global journey.  Curated by Juli Carson. | Read Brochure | View Video | View Images

Image courtesy of the artist, Aoyama Meguro, Tokyo, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou

"...Political art does not constitute itself by blurring the borders between the registers of the aesthetic and the political, but, conversely it can only communicate itself meaningfully by crossing these borders."

- Helmut Draxler

 

Continuing the UAG's Critical Curatorial Exhibition Series, Chiasmus brings together eleven international artists working in such diverse mediums and strategies as: theatrical intervention, installation art and video, lyrical minimalism, sculptural systems, serial abstraction and gestural painting. In the exhibition, the viewer is invited to cross the borders between aesthetic and political concerns.  This crossing occurs in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the viewer and the artwork - which continues between the artworks themselves - an operation traced by the discerning viewer.  In the context of the current political landscape - from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision to the Global Financial Crisis - Chiasmus stresses the importance of a rhizomatic conversation between fields of practice in order to imagine different productive relationships between them.  This is the zone of political and aesthetic imagination.

Featured artists:  Sayre Gomez, Julia Haft-Candell, John Husley, Alexandre Joly, Liz Magic Laser, Ragen Moss, Nikki Pressley, Meghan Petras, Tom Pnini, Hong-An Truong & Dwayne Dixon, John Williams

Curators:  Andy Brown, Todd Bura, Yaron Hakim , Kellie Lanham, Manjulika O'Rourke, Alexandra Pacheco Garcia, Martabel Wasserman

 

This exhibition is made possible by generous support from Tinnie and Shiv Grewal and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetica.

 

 

An Underdetermination (made necessary by the commonness of the debate), 2009, courtesy of the artist, Ragen Moss, acrylic, mylar, seven inkjet prints, six unique audio recordings, seven boxes, 16" x 19" x 20" each

The Radicalization of a 50s Housewife revisits Barbara T. Smith's transgressive artwork Birthdaze, produced in 1980 and later performed on the occasion of the artist's 50th Birthday. Combining elements of Catholic hagiography with Eastern Tantric ritual, the performance symbolized Smith's journey away from 50s society life towards 60s feminism, avant-garde culture and beyond.  In addition to the original artwork, this exhibition features archival material documenting Birthdaze's making, illuminating Smith's political and aesthetic intentionality for the first time.   The Radicalization of a 50s Housewife further positions Birthdaze as the result of Smith's life's work – both as a feminist and an artist – beginning in the conservative post-war period of the 50s, through the cultural revolution of the 60s/70s and culminating in the nascent moment of the Reagan era, when the culture wars were looming on the horizon. Curated by Juli Carson, this exhibition is part of the UAG's Major Work of Art Series, which features first generation conceptual and performance artists whose work is in dialogue with contemporary art practice. Read Brochure | Press | View Images

The UAG is proud to be participating in Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980 a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together for the first time to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene.

Photos courtesy of Daniel J. Martinez

 

Images of landscapes in film and video never truly seem to represent the wilderness that they portray. Sometimes the landscape is a pause in the narrative - a moment of reflection or a meditation on what is not overtly part of the "story."  There are other instances when landscape, or an image of the natural world, functions as an allegory or metaphor not really intended to replace meaning, but to relay an understanding to the viewer (or to the character in proxy of the viewer).  However, it seems that in all cases the role of landscape in experimental and traditional film has functioned as a means to reflect what we are not: we are not the wild, we are not free from context, and we are not always part of the landscape on screen. Consequently, the camera and artist/director is placed in control of this temporal construction of reality. Curated by David Burns

Artists include: James Benning, Stan Brakhage, Brian Bress, Peter Greenaway, Julie Orser, Semiconductor, Michael Snow, and Andy Warhol.

 

Photo courtesy of Brian Bress and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles Support for this series comes from Video Data Bank Screening Schedule