By Lisa Y. Garibay
UTEP News Service
A four-decade tradition returns to the UTEP campus when the Department of Art Biennial Faculty Exhibition opens at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts on Thursday, Jan. 30.
An opening reception from 5-7:30 p.m. Thursday will give visitors the opportunity to see cutting-edge artwork spanning ceramics, metals, sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing, graphic design and video. The event is free and open to the public.
The exhibition provides both the UTEP and larger El Paso communities a chance to take in the important work being created by the talented artists teaching at the University. They are among the most accomplished in the region, regularly completing work in a wide range of media that is exhibited around the United States and internationally.
“It’s a special opportunity to see world-class art from artists who are living and working in our community,” said Rubin Center director Kerry Doyle, who noted the 2014 exhibition marks the fifth time the center has hosted the faculty exhibit.
Participating UTEP Department of Art professors include Sarelah Aguilar, Kim Bauer, Therese Bauer, Vincent Burke, Antonio Castro H., Derek Caulfield, Clive Cochran, Suzi Davidoff, Francisco Delgado, John Dunn, Adrian Esparza, Christine Foerster, Samuel Garcia, Anne Giangiulio, Davina Gomez-Miraval, Manuel Guerra, Anna Jaquez, Suzanne Kane, Roya Mansourkhani, Jacob Muñoz, Alexandra McGovern, Dave McIntyre, Jessica Pizaña Roberts, Hector Romero, Daniel Szwackowski, Rachelle Thiewes and Albert Wong.
Associate Professor of Printmaking Kim Bauer is enthusiastic about the opportunity to show the fruit of his work after having been infused with the uniqueness of his adopted hometown.
“Little did I realize how enamored I would become with the desert and with consistently the kindest people I had ever met,” he said. “My students and colleagues have afforded me opportunities and given me inspiration about art and life beyond belief.”
The tradition of a presenting a major art show every two years was formalized by Italy’s Venice Biennale, which treated art buyers and appreciators to one of the world’s most comprehensive international exhibitions of contemporary art in 1895. There are now hundreds of institutions that host biennials in cities around the globe, from Beijing to Bucharest and, closer to home, the Whitney Museum of American Art, which hosts one of the art world’s most respected events.
“The UTEP faculty show has been a regular part of our tradition as a department, dating back as far as 40 years ago,” said Burke, who serves as Department of Art chair in addition to teaching as an associate professor of ceramics.
All faculty and lecturers teaching in the UTEP Department of Art were invited to participate and show work that had been produced since the last faculty biennial in 2012. The final selection for display was chosen in conversation with the artists and gallery staff, particularly Doyle and Rubin Center assistant director Melissa Barba.
A special addition to this year’s biennial is the concurrent exhibition “Studio Lab: Research Practices in the Visual Arts,” which helps to celebrate UTEP’s Centennial by focusing on its work as a 21st century research institution, not just in STEM fields, but also in the arts.
Doyle explained that today’s artists engage in a multidisciplinary and diverse range of practices to research and produce their work, often knitting together history, literature, anthropology and the natural sciences to create a finished work. Certain practices unique to the visual arts field involve long-term research of the visual and material properties of a particular media, resulting in works that are investigations of light, color, scale and form. “Studio Lab” will give visitors a glimpse of this usually off-limits research process by putting the methods of UTEP’s art faculty on display.
“It gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the process behind the art,” Doyle said. “It also reflects the Rubin Center’s commitment to helping people understand the full range of practices that are connected with contemporary art – the research, conversations, subjects, processes and relationships.”
UTEP’s Department of Art Faculty Biennial and “Studio Lab: Research Practices in the Visual Arts” both run through March 8. The Rubin Center is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.