Rain or shine, see the hidden gems of sustainable contemporary architecture in the Pioneer Valley between Springfield and Brattleboro. In conjunction with the exhibition Greening the Valley: Sustainable Architecture in the Pioneer Valley, the University Gallery is offering a free tour of the most extraordinary energy efficient contemporary houses in the Pioneer Valley. The tour spans a geographical area from East Longmeadow to Brattleboro, VT. It also spans a variety of buildings from apartments to residences, and a range of building types, from communal villages to state-of-the-art private homes. Special sites include the Beaver Lodge in Ashfield, a LEED Platinum certified educational center, and BluHomes, a first-of-a-kind manufacturing company of Green Houses, which just moved its operation to East Longmeadow. This tour demonstrates the vitality of sustainable practices in the Pioneer Valley and the commitment of our communities toward environmental, social, and economic sustainability in the region.

is the topic of this important lecture. Artist Michael Singer, most noted for transforming public art, architecture, landscape and planning projects into successful models for urban and ecological renewal is holding a lecture in partnership with The Environmental Institute (TEI). This event is free and is open to the public.

In conjunction with the project Greening the Valley: Sustainable Architecture in the Pioneer Valley’, the University Gallery is offering an all day guided tour of select outdoor spaces that address sustainable practices, such as rain gardens, micro farms, and land conservation areas in the Amherst/Northampton area. This tour is free and bike friendly. Car pooling is also available through RideBuzz.org For more information and a map of the tour visit www.umass.edu/fac/universitygallery

Living walls (or green walls) can be used in New England to enhance building facades, adding color, texture and habitat. Many of the environmental benefits of vertical gardening will be explored in her presentation, as well as cost factors, suitable plant palette, and organic vegetable growing. This workshop will also explore the technology, grid system, and water distribution techniques for vertical gardening.

Ali Osborn, Teddy O' Connor, Raphy Griswold
color lead on paper
Photo by Ali Osborn

Local artists, Ali Osborn, Raphy Griswold (skyped in fromSpain!), and Teddy O'Connor talk about their art and the art they chose to exhibit from the Permanent Collection in the gallery's current exhibition, I'am a dream: A (Collective) Dialogue with a Collection.

Can suburbia be green? Panelists will discuss these and other issues surrounding the landscapes in our built environment. List of panelists speaking: Kim Erslev, Faculty, Conway School of Landscape Architecture; Patricia McGirr, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, UMass Amherst; and Erica Rioux Gees, AIA, Kuhn Riddle Architects.

Sol LeWitt
Bars of Color within Squares
MIT
Photo by George Bouret

Located at 227 Herter Hall on the UMass Amherst campus. For the past four years the University Gallery and the Department of Art, Architechture and Art History have offered a spring workshop to undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing a museum career. These Roundtables have focused on different aspects of museum work including curatorial practice, conversation and education. They have provided an important overview of career options, training and the challenges of museum and gallery work. A key feature of the Roundtables is the participation of experts from the museum world who come to UMass to participate in a panel discussion, giving immediate hands-on information on the specific nature of their jobs and to offer real life experiences. The Roundtable series represents a vanguard trend in universities and colleges offering insider professional information to students. Distinguished panelists this year will be Jonathan Greenberg, and Trevor Smith. They will discuss one of the most critical issues affecting the art world today – the building of collections at public institutions. With prices at astronomical levels, the atmosphere has never been more heated and challenging. A myriad of questions and issues will weave into their conversation: How will museums compete with collectors for the great works of art? What strategies are institutions using to survive and thrive? From the perspective of the museum, the private collector, and the corporate/business world, is there a symbiotic relationship between these sectors of the art world? And finally how have boundary shifts in museum and private collecting changed the role and practices of the auction house?

Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture and Engineering PC
Kendade Hall, Mount Holyoke College
Photo by Photo by Michael Moran

How do institutions of higher education reflect current thought, environmental and social responsibility in their architecture? Architects, designers and engineers discuss walking the talk.

Sustainability is not a prerogative of the well to do. There are many ways to change, build, or live in a home that reflects green practices. Leading regional architects and experts of the building industry address issues, practices and resources that are accessible to everyone.

Joseph Krupczynski, Associate Professor, Department of Art, Architecture, and Art History, UMass, Amherst; Rudy Perkins, Project Manager and Staff Attorney, HAP Housing; Catherine Ratté, Principal Planner – Sustainability, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission; and Daniel Ross, Executive Director, Nuestras Raices come together to discuss regional planning and grassroots efforts that are making a difference in our community.

Ali Osborn
Scissors, 2009
Graphite on paper, 27 x 19 inches
Photo by Courtesy of the artist

Works by Ali Osborn, Raphy Griswold, and Teddy O’Connor.

This is the third annual exhibition in which artists are invited to curate a show of their own work, integrated with pieces they’ve selected from the University Gallery’s works-on-paper collection which includes over 2600 contemporary prints, drawings, and photographs. The project offers the rare opportunity to showcase artworks owned by UMass, and a platform for outstanding local artists to present their work. Artists position their work alongside works they select from the permanent collection and place them in direct dialogue with one another. In addition to working directly with physical objects, the three artists have created an exhibition that is in itself a work of art. I’am a dream explores the act of curating and collaborating, generating conversation and juxtaposition among disparate objects. Ali, Raphy, and Teddy plumbed the depths of the University Gallery’s permanent collection, unearthing works by dozens of artists—including Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, Cole Weston, Eve Sonneman, Sandy Skoglund, Stephen Antonakas, and Nam June Paik—several of whom have rarely or never been exhibited at the University Gallery. Ali Osborn, Raphy Griswold, and Teddy O’Connor are emerging artists who burst onto the local art scene in 2007 with their exuberant works—prints, drawings, mixed media installations, video, books—that have been seen in exhibitions at A.P.E. Gallery, wünderarts, and other galleries in the region. For these three artists, banding together not only entails artistic collaboration, but also helps address a broad range of practical concerns, including access to materials, living and work space, exhibition opportunities and funding.

Architect: Sigrid Miller Pollin
Residence, Amherst, MA
CHAO designs
Photo by Jeff Yardis

Works by Michael Singer, Sigrid Miller Pollin, Charles Rose, and various other local artists.

For the first time in our region, a landmark exhibition on sustainable, contemporary architecture and environmentally-sensitive building practices will take place at The University Gallery, Fine Arts Center, UMass Amherst. This three-month long project will run from February 10 through May 9, 2010. The exhibition, its related lecture series, and the Green Lounge* are designed to deepen the public’s understanding and use of 'green' design, while demonstrating that the key elements of sustainability can be accessible to all. Sustainability has become an accepted concept that applies to people from a wide range of social and economic backgrounds. It requires broad systemic thinking around critical economic, social, as well as environmental issues. The exhibition will address these issues, while providing a springboard for thought-provoking questions, discussions, and commentaries. The specific focus on the Pioneer Valley will highlight our region and its forward looking communities. The Pioneer Valley is rich in sustainable buildings that mirror national green trends in architecture and design. Through models, photographs and virtual tours, the exhibition unites diverse works from large scale science buildings to private residences, low-income housing, and intimate gardens of natural inspiration—all of which illustrates the many ways that green design can help solve our environmental crisis. Greening the Valley includes works by nationally and internationally renowned figures as well as prominent architects from our region. The goal of the exhibition is to bring together examples of green design, highlight their aesthetic and sustainable attributes, and impress upon our audience the visual and material accessibility of those features. This exhibition is guest-curated by architectural historian Margaret Birney Vickery, Ph.D. *The Green Lounge is a meeting space, designed by local interior designers, within the University Gallery. It is furnished with eco-friendly furniture and offers a comprehensive interactive database as well as a display of locally available green resources and materials from architects, builders and suppliers. Visitors are invited to actively use this space to plan changes in their own built environment.

The University Gallery is honored to host a guest lecture by artist Tom Friedman, whose work is currently on display at the Gallery as part of the exhibition Connecting the Dots. . . . The Warhol Legacy. Friedman will be addressing his recent works, particularly those that are on display in the exhibition, and their relationship with Andy Warhol, among a variety of other subjects, and concluding with a question-and-answer session. Friedman’s style, which often involves incredibly meticulous, thoughtful deconstruction and reconstruction of common consumer goods, owes much to Warhol’s work. Friedman’s Untitled (Dollar Bill) is a clever, visually stimulating update of Warhol’s 200 Dollar Bills. This lecture is an exciting opportunity to enter the mind of one of today’s most fascinating and creative artists, a place where humor, philosophy and wonder coalesce. The talk begins at 5:30pm in the University Gallery. A discussion will follow. Light refreshments will be available.

Artist Rob Pruitt, whose work is currently on exhibition at the University Gallery, proposed the idea of hosting an exhibition in response to The Minox & the Big Shot: Andy Warhol’s Photography (1972-1986) that would allow MFA students the opportunity to engage in an artistic dialogue with Warhol’s art. Entitled Shameless Self-Promotion, this exhibition connects the University Gallery, the MFA program, and the arts community together to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Andy Warhol Foundation. Fifteen participating UMass Amherst MFA candidates have each created a work of art on the Polaroid-sized dimension that Warhol was so personally fond of. Appropriating the Polaroid’s dimensions, the project/exhibition has a new platform that is not just echoing Warhol’s Polaroids, but also updating the format. Featured artist Chun-Tso Lin remarks about the concept, “We might not become one of the objects in Warhol’s Polaroids; we might not be seen from Warhol’s eyes; we might not be rich and famous; but what we can be are artists that enjoy Warhol’s legacy.” Each participating artist will be their own star in the condensed format of the Polaroid’s dimensions, and the University Gallery will also serve as a platform for the artists and their work. Shameless Self-Promotion is not just a response exhibition, but a conceptual art project that will be “performed” by the Gallery, artists, and the viewer. It might be seen as a reiteration of the traditional gallery format, but, similar to what each participating artist has done with Warhol’s vision in his or her use of the Polaroid’s dimensions, there is an important conceptual twist to it. As participant Chun-Tso Lin puts it, “Art needs an artist, a gallery, and a viewer in order to be ‘art.’ You as the viewer are invited to come and be part of the ‘art making.’ Let us be known; let us be seen, and let us shine.” After all, it is Shameless Self-Promotion. Participating Artists: Karla Baker, Courtney Cullen, Michelle Dickson, Ryan Feeney, Joshua Field, Kerry O’Grady, Michele Lauriat, Chun-Tso Lin, Camila Molestina, Sarah Purnell, Hannah Richards, Chad Seelig, Jieun Shin, and Steve Snell.

Andy Warhol
Edward Kennedy
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Photo by Andy Warhol

See the master of pop art in a never-before-seen light!

This exhibition of Andy Warhol’s photographs is culled from over 100 Polaroids and black and white silver gelatin prints granted to the University Gallery by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Program aims to provide greater access to Warhol’s creative process and to enable a wide range of people to view the important yet relatively unknown body of Warhol’s photography. The Minox & the Big Shot explores the significance of Warhol's photography in relation to his larger artistic practice. The works on view in this exhibition provide a counterpoint to the artist's better known Pop paintings and films from the 1960's in their diminutive size and non-iconic quality. Numerous Polaroids of unknown sitters and candid black and white shots of friends are mixed with photos of the famous company Warhol kept. Together, they offer the opportunity to see through Warhol's eyes, the individuals and objects which fascinated him, and they become icons in their own right, of the quest for fame with which Warhol was always preoccupied. As the University Gallery’s first Curatorial Fellow, Kathleen Banach (M.A. candidate in Art History ’09) will work in consultation with the staff of the University Gallery and art history professor Mario Ontiveros to focus her research on these photographs. She will be the first to study this body of Warhol’s work, culminating in an exhibition and curatorial essay which will provide a wealth of information about the artist’s process and interaction with his subjects. Related programming will include panel discussions, guest speakers, and film screenings.

Tom Friedman
Care Package (Manipulated)
Inkjet Photographs
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Photo by Emily Ward

Works by Tom Friedman, Ellen Gallagher, Vik Muniz & Rob Pruitt

An exhibition of work by four acclaimed contemporary artists who explore themes and ideas central to Andy Warhol’s artistic practice, demonstrating how Warhol’s legacy continues to influence and shape the content of the work of a new generation of artists. Rather than look strictly at artists who have been stylistically influenced by Warhol, this exhibition focuses on the work of four leading artists where the Warholian impulse is more conceptual and subtle. Tom Friedman transforms mundane consumer products into playful yet meticulously crafted artworks of almost obsessive intricacy. Friedman’s art is characterized by its attention to process and use of modest, ephemeral materials. Friedman also displays a sly, almost scientific interest in systems of representation. Works in the exhibition will include the serial sculpture 9 Lives and two digital prints, Dollar Bill (2000) and Mandala (2008), commissioned by University Gallery and UMass Art Dept. Repetition and revision are central to Ellen Gallagher’s treatment of advertisements that she appropriates from popular magazines such as Ebony, Our World, and Sepia. Her medium of printmaking, immersed in ideas about process and the mechanics of transformation, echoes some of Warhol’s themes. However her aesthetic strategy differs from her predecessor in its autobiographical dimension and focus on the issue of racial identity, while at the same time suggesting a more formal reading with respect to materials, processes, and altered states. Vik Muniz defies traditional concerns over appropriation and authorship to reveal the power of images in our collective memory. Creating images made of dust, chocolate sauce, sugar, or thread, his work is informed by media and popular culture. This exhibition will include The Best of Life (1989 – 2000), a portfolio of ten Memory Renderings, which are photographs of drawings he drew from his recollection of photographs from Life magazine between 1936 and 1972. Rob Pruitt’s work is rooted in a pop sensibility and a playful critique of art world structures. His conceptual projects have encompassed sensational staged events as well as simple gestures that promote possibilities for creativity in everyday life. Pruitt’s work is always characterized by an incisive humor and exuberant visual flair. This exhibition will focus on iPruitt (2008), snapshots taken with his mobile camera.