Contemplative Spaces for Healthier Living

October 3, 2007

Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts & Culture
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

Note: You may view or download this release as a pdf file.

UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) presents Green Space/Reflective Place, a day of programs designed to explore the development of open, contemplative space for healthier living. Events will be held on Wednesday, October 3rd, at the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park and at the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery, both located on the UMBC campus. A portion of the day’s program will include a discussion of the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), who highlighted the need for greater environmental awareness across the globe through his ongoing social sculpture project, 7000 Oaks, which inspired the planting of over 350 trees and several stones by over 500 people in Baltimore City parks and at the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park in 2000.

Put Your Stone in Motion
K-12 Educational Program
Four Baltimore city K-12 schools groups (Native American Program of the Baltimore City Public School System, Patterson Park Public Charter School, Lockerman-Bundy Elementary, and Lansdowne High School) will visit the sculpture site at UMBC for an educational program by Cinder Hypki, adjunct faculty of the Masters of Arts in Community Arts program at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and Anne Draddy of Baltimore City Parks.

Every Tree Has a Price
Joseph Beuys Sculpture Site
12 – 2:00 pm
Lunch will be served at the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park for the UMBC community and the public. An informal program during the lunch hour will discuss the need for contemplative green space and will encourage a greater understanding of the metaphors and motivations behind the Beuys Sculpture Park. Speakers will include:

• Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President, UMBC
• David Yager, Director, CADVC, UMBC
• Tom Stoner, Co-founder, TKF Foundation
• Patricia LaNoue, Director, Interdisciplinary Studies, UMBC

An Idea Takes Root
Lecture: Living Myths: Joseph Beuys and Collective Memory
Lasse Antonsen, Director of the University Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
7:00 – 8:30 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Reception to follow.
Lasse Antonsen will speak as part of a continued effort to generate understanding and interest in the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Site and the need for green, contemplative space. Antonsen’s lecture will discuss the relevance of Joseph Beuys’ performances, social sculpture, and artwork today. Joseph Beuys was an influential German artist who came to prominence in the 1960s. Known for his performances, sculptures, environments, vitrines, prints, posters, and thousands of drawings, he was a charismatic and controversial artist, a committed teacher, and a political activist.

Green Space/Reflective Place is sponsored in part by the TKF Foundation, Annapolis, MD; the Dresher Center for the Humanities, UMBC; and the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, UMBC, with additional support from Students for Environmental Awareness, UMBC.

“The true capital of the world is the human ability for creativity, freedom and self-determination in all their working places.”
—Joseph Beuys (1921–1986)

About the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (formerly known as the Center for Art and Visual Culture or CAVC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of contemporary art and visual culture, critical theory, art and cultural history, and the relationship between society and the arts. The CADVC serves as a forum for students, faculty, and the general public for the discussion of important aesthetic and social issues of the day. Disciplines represented include painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, digital art, video, film, television, design, architecture, advertising, and installation and performance art.

Since 1989, the CADVC has incorporated a number of public programs into its exhibition programming schedule to further impact the communities it serves. Symposia, lecture series, conferences, film series, visiting artist series, and residencies have all been fundamental in an effort to create an ongoing dialogue about contemporary art and culture. The Center has also initiated a number of projects with Baltimore and surrounding schools systems to integrate the contemporary artist and their concerns into the classroom. These projects take place on-site at both middle schools and high schools and are team taught by the instructors at these schools, professional artists, and students from the CADVC’s Internship Program.

The Center produces one to two exhibition catalogues each year. Each document is fully illustrated and contains critical essays on the given subject by a variety of distinguished professionals in the field. Recent publications include Postmodernism: A Virtual Discussion and Paul Rand: Modernist Design. These books and catalogues are published and are distributed internationally through Distributed Art Publishers.

Since 1992, the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture has actively pursued the organization of exhibitions that contain the aesthetic, theoretical, and educational potential to reach both a national and international audience. Over the years, the CADVC has traveled these exhibition projects to a broad spectrum of museums, professional non-profit galleries, and universities national and internationally. Recent traveling exhibitions include:

• White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art (2003)
• Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations (2001)
• Adrian Piper: A Retrospective (1999)
• Bruno Monguzzi: A Designer’s Perspective (1998)
• Minimal Politics (1997)
• Kate Millet, Sculpture: The First 38 Years (1997)

Beyond the scope of these traveling exhibitions, the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture also undertakes an exhibition schedule that includes a Faculty Biennial, and projects such as the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership. As part of the educational mission of the CADVC, one graduate thesis exhibition and one undergraduate senior exhibition are scheduled on a yearly basis. This multi-faceted focus for presenting exhibitions, projects and scholarly research publications focused on contemporary art and cultural issues positions the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in a unique position within the mid-Atlantic region.

Telephone
UMBC Artsline (24 hour recorded message):     410-455-ARTS
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture:         410-455-3188

Web
UMBC Arts website: http://www.umbc.edu/arts
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture: http://www.umbc.edu/cavc

Directions

• From Baltimore and points north, proceed south on I-95 to exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Commons Garage for the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park or the Walker Avenue Garage for the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery.
• From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the roundabout intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to the Commons Garage for the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park or the Walker Avenue Garage for the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery.
• From Washington and points south, proceed north on I-95 to Exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Commons Garage for the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park or the Walker Avenue Garage for the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery.
• Online campus map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap/