Imaging and Digital Arts 2012 Graduate Thesis Exhibition

January 26th through February 18th, 2012

Come and see the works of four degree-seeking students of UMBC's MFA program in Imaging and Digital Arts. The exhibition will feature work in robotics, photography, performance arts and trans materials. All are welcome to attend lectures and performances.      

Save the date:

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012, 5-7pm 

Open reception in the Gallery                          

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Ali Seley, Pultritude: Lashes, 2012. Archival pigment print.

Command Z: Artists working with Phenomena & Code
March 29 - April 28, 2012
Curaor: Lisa Moren, Associate Professor, Animation and Interactivity, Department of Visual Arts, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Command Z: Artists working with Phenomena & Code features three artists and one artist team who have been pioneers in the area of art and technology. Individual works by Ingrid Bachmann (Canada), Paul DeMarinis (USA), Nina Katchadourian (USA), and the artist team of Emile Morin and Jocelyn Robert (Canada) feature a wide range of formats including kinetics, computer programming, morse code, audio, and research on gravitational issues. The exhibition will also feature a grand piano performing live music generated from an interactive light sensitive keyboard and an historic operatic recording given voice through the combination of an open flame and wax.

Overall, the exhibition will feature six individual installations, including the recreation of two installations by Nina Katchadourian and Emile Morin and Jocelyn Roberts that served as seminal works in the emerging field of art and technology.

For a sneak preview of the exhibition, see the video at this LINK.

Currently traveling exhibitions include:

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights

International Center of Photography, New York
May 21–September 12, 2010

DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL
January 17--May 15, 2011

Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, DC
June 10--November 27, 2011

Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
November 2012 to March 2013

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover MA
April 2013--August 2013

explore the official website

Organizing Institutions: Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.

Curator: Maurice Berger, Research Professor, Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, UMBC

In September 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Money, Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, Mrs. Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes, the brutality of segregation and racism, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of racial justice and equality. “Let the world see what I’ve seen,” was her reply. The publication of the photograph transformed the modern civil rights movement, inspiring a new generation of activists to join the cause.

Despite this extraordinary episode, visual culture is rarely included in the history of the modern civil rights movement. For All the World to See is the first comprehensive museum exhibition to explore the historical role played by visual images in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for civil rights in the United States. The exhibition is comprised of over 250 objects, including posters, photographs, graphic art, magazines, newspapers, books, pamphlets, political buttons, comic books, toys, postcards, and clips from film, newsreels, and television. Maurice Berger, cultural historian and Research Professor, Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County is the curator of the exhibition.

For All the World to See looks at images in a range of cultural outlets and forms, tracking the ways they represented race in order to alter beliefs and attitudes. The exhibition examines the extent to which the rise of the modern civil rights movement paralleled the birth of television and the popularity of picture magazines and other forms of visual mass media. Images of the civil rights era were ever-present and diverse: the startling footage of southern white aggression and black suffering that appeared night after night on television news programs; the photographs of black achievers and martyrs in Negro periodicals, which roused pride or activism in the African-American community; the humble snapshot, no less powerful in its ability to edify and motivate. In each case, the war against racism and segregation was waged—by civil rights leaders, activists, and ordinary people alike—not with bricks or flesh or words but with pictures. By including a compendium of iconic objects, motion pictures, and intimate portraits of black life, For All the World to See attempts to reach museum visitors on a deeply personal and moving level as it offers important insights into the way visual images forever changed the cultural and social landscape of the United States.

For All the World to See is co-organized by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, UMBC and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C. A comprehensive, richly illustrated companion book written by Maurice Berger with a foreword by the celebrated essayist, novelist, and librettist Thulani Davis will published by Yale University Press in May 2010. A comprehensive WEBSITE also launched in May 2010 (WWW.FORALLTHEWORLDTOSEE.ORG), and will include an online version of the exhibition, online film festival, and educational materials.

The exhibition currently has five confirmed venues: International Center of Photography in New York (21 May to 12 September 2010);The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL (January 17 through May 15, 2011); The National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution in the galleries dedicated for use by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (June 10, to Nov. 27, 2011); The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (Fall/Winter 2012 - 2013); and The Addison Gallery of American Art, The Phillips Academy (Spring/Summer 2013).

Funding for the exhibition has come from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Trellis Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, St. Paul Travelers Corporation, the Texas Foundation, and the Maryland State Arts Council. Additional support has come from CBS News Archives, Ed Sullivan/SOFA Entertainment, Sullmark Corporation, and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

For All the World to See was designated a “We the People” project by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The goal of the “We the People” initiative is to “encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture through the support of projects that explore significant events and themes in our nation’s history and culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define America.”

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Top Photo: Eikoh Hosoe: META