Olivia DrakeApril 17, 20122min
Phillip Wagoner, professor of art history and chair of the archaeology program, spoke on "Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600," at Penn State University Park campus April 5. Wagoner discussed his upcoming book of the same title, which focuses on the cultural history of the Deccan region of South India (1200-1600), primarily in the historical interactions between the region’s established Indic culture and the Persianate culture that arrived in the early 14th century. Since 1987, Wagoner has been associated with the Vijayanagara Research Project, an international team of scholars in different disciplines dedicated to documentation and…

Olivia DrakeMarch 6, 20121min
In this video, Artist-in-Residence Keiji Shinohara introduces "A Late Christmas Gift: Contemporary Prints from Japan" at the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies on Feb. 1. The 46 prints in this exhibition represent a wide range of contemporary Japanese printmakers, from established artists to graduate students and includes works in all print media. Shinohara is an internationally known woodblock printer who has been at Wesleyan for almost 20 years. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9W9uZzKYg&list=UUxYjyka74gKQqR_tJz8jB-A&index=28&feature=plcp[/youtube]

Bill HolderFebruary 13, 20123min
The former Squash Courts Building located at 41 Wyllys Ave. on Wesleyan’s historic College Row has opened as the renovated home for Art History, the College of Letters and the Career Center. Notably, several College of Letters and Art History alumni have provided gifts for the project to honor faculty members from their undergraduate days. David Resnick ’81, P’13, joined by his wife Cathy Klema P’13, contributed the lead gift to name the Art History Wing in honor of John Paoletti, the William R. Kenan Professor Emeritus of the Humanities and Art History. Resnick, now chairman of global financing advisory…

Lauren RubensteinFebruary 13, 20123min
Professor of Art Tula Telfair’s latest exhibition, Out of Sight: Imaginary Landscapes, opened at the Forum Gallery in New York, N.Y. on Jan. 5 to a packed crowd. The 15 large panoptic paintings shown in the exhibition, which ran through Feb. 11, depict majestic mountainous landscapes dominated by dramatic skies that reflect a broad range of locations and weather patterns. As with Telfair’s past work, her landscapes are derived from memory and imagination. Telfair, director of Wesleyan’s Arts Studio Program, finds it fascinating when people tell her they can identify a particular location, since none actually exist. “Since I have…

David LowJanuary 23, 20122min
The most recent work by Professor of Art David Schorr will be shown in February and March 2012 in the exhibition APOTHECARY (storehouse) at Davison Art Center. The show features more than 75 paintings of antique apothecary bottles that have been meticulously executed by Schorr in gouache and silverpoint on luxurious, colored Fabriano Roma papers. The exhibit opens at noon, Feb. 3. Schorr will speak at 5:30 p.m. and the gallery will be open until 7 p.m. that day. Schorr also will speak at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Center for the Arts Hall. A 160-page full-color catalog accompanies…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20124min
This issue, we ask 5 Questions of Joseph Siry, chair and professor of art and art history. Professor Siry teaches classes about modern and American architectural and urban history. His book, Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture, was published by the University of Chicago Press in December 2011. Q: In your newly-published book, you provide an in-depth look at architect/designer Frank Lloyd Wright's Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Penn., which was constructed in 1959 and is considered one of his greatest masterpieces. What prompted you to write a book about this structure in particular? A:…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20126min
Wesleyan contractors put the finishing touches on the remodeled squash building and faculty are moving in. The new building will re-open as the Career Center, Art History Department and College of Letters. A grand opening ceremony will be held Feb. 24. Read more about the squash renovation in this October 2011 Wesleyan Connection story. (Photos by Olivia Drake and Bill Tyner '13)

Olivia DrakeNovember 2, 20112min
Peter Mark, professor of art history, is the co-author of the book The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, published by Cambridge University Press, 2011. This study traces the history of early 17th-century Portuguese Sephardic traders who settled in two communities on Senegal's Petite Côte. There, they lived as public Jews, under the spiritual guidance of a rabbi sent to them by the newly established Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. In Senegal, the Jews were protected from agents of the Inquisition by local Muslim rulers. The Petite Côte communities included several Jews…

Olivia DrakeOctober 3, 20113min
For 15 minutes, Elizabeth Milroy, professor of art history, describes the life, artistic techniques and style of abstract expressionist painter and printmaker Helen Frankenthaler. "Here, we see her thinking about framing and edging," Milroy says, pointing at a lithograph in the Davison Art Center. "She emulates Chinese characters in this print. She bring out lusciousness in lithography." As part of the new series, "Artful Lunch," faculty briefly speak about an artist, and display one example of the artist's work from the Davison Art Center's collection. The series is sponsored and hosted by the Friends of the Davison Art Center as…

Eric GershonJune 22, 20112min
Lots of people like watching birds. Understandably, birds don’t always like people watching them. For the Audubon Center at Bent of the River, a 700-acre nature preserve in Southbury, Conn., this presented a problem: the swallows and kingfishers along a popular trail were perpetually startled by human visitors. Assistant Professor of Art Elijah Huge and the 11 students in his Architecture II class devised a solution – a chic bird blind they designed and built from scratch. The structure represents the third major design-build project for North Studio, a faculty-student design collaborative Huge founded in 2006 that is cultivating a…