This distinctive electric purple stencil was noticed on a wall in Middletown by Illicit Exhibitions, a blog about street art, two weekends ago:
A giraffe skeleton? A horse? At any rate it's probably no longer up, since the city's police chief is pretty scrupulous about painting over graffiti.
What does it mean, and who's the street artist behind it? Speculate here, or email illicitexhibitions@gmail if you've got information.
Martin Benjamin '57, the curmudgeonly alumnus who has developed quite a reputation in recent years as a sharp critic of liberal Wesleyan culture in open letters to the Argus, apparently has a softer side.
When he's not writing bitter, condescending Wespeaks, he is an artist with a penchant for photographing leaves.
Liz Tung of the Argus went to check out his art exhibit, a series of five photographs called “Invitation to the Dance”, in the Main Street Market last week and actually met the guy, who explained to her the ideas behind his craft, spoke sullenly about his relationship to Wesleyan, and provided only vague hints of his past:
Benjamin was disappointingly normal-looking. Somehow I had expected someone who looked like the Penguin – a snippy, sharp-faced and slightly rotund older man who wore bowties, and carried a heavy wooden cane, the better for whacking whatever liberal moron chanced to get in his way. The real Benjamin was tall and thin with glasses and a beard – and he was wrapped in flannel, rather than a suit. He greeted me and then almost immediately disappeared (the better, he later told me, to let me absorb his works without distraction).So he's about as evasive about himself as you might expect from someone so eager to dish out criticism of others. But it's nice to see that he has interests beyond excoriating Wesleyan students, and almost endearing that his great passion in life is seeing visions of Greek mythology and Shakesperean sonnets in fallen leaves....As you may have gathered [from his Wespeaks], Benjamin is a bit of a kook and more than a bit of a bigot, albeit a sharp one with a talent for rhetoric. It is this – the perverse magnetism and novelty of his writing – that has allowed Benjamin to install himself as a fixture in the Argus’ Wespeaks page, and thereby vex generations of Wesleyan students.
To hear Benjamin’s side of it, though, Wespeaks are a mere distraction from his real work – making art. He began photographing leaves roughly 15 years ago, originally as illustrations for a book of historical poems. “Since [the poems] were intended for kids …to get them interested in the drama of history, I thought that history could be illustrated somehow in a way that would make the poems more alive to them,” Benjamin said. “The problem was that I had no talent for painting or drawing.” From this predicament was born Benjamin’s novel solution – leaves... Soon, the photographs had expanded beyond his poems, and the leaves became artistic subjects in their own right.
Benjamin took me through the brief display with a kind of grim relish, explaining in detail the mechanics of his photography and composition...
...Although verbose in his explanations [of his art], Benjamin was less forthcoming on other fronts. For a man who’s spent so much time cultivating his own notoriety, Benjamin proved surprisingly reticent to talk about himself. He refused to have his picture taken and was taciturn about his own history. When pressed, Martin admitted that, after college, he’d spent a couple years in the army before going to Columbia for grad school. Of the years between then and now, he’d only say that he’d spent a few years as a bartender in Midtown, Manhattan. He said anyone who wanted to know more could read his novel “Bagatelles” (which, he only mentioned later, has not yet been published).
Benjamin declined to answer follow-up questions, insisting that further information about his life would only distract from the work.
Inspired by the rapidly approaching dates of Halloween and Election Day, Alice Maggio and Nistha Shrestha '10 of Lo-Rise B10 have carved and decorated some very topical jack-o-lanterns for October 2008. Says Alice:
"it felt rather premature to be carving pumpkins on friday when it was 70 degrees out, but we were having a palin hatin' party so we had to have some decor..."
The current exhibition in Wesleyan's own Zilkha Gallery, "Framing and Being Framed: The Uses of Documentary Photography", got a great review in the New York Times today:
Despite its title — “Framing and Being Framed: The Uses of Documentary Photography” — the exhibition at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University contains many artworks that are not, strictly speaking, documentary photographs...Not bad! The exhibition includes works by contemporary artists/photographers including Wendy Ewald, Eric Gottesman, Emily Jacir, Matthew Buckingham, An-My Le, and Kota Ezawa.
But this in no way negates the show’s powerful premise, which is to encourage viewers to think about the ways in which artists and photographers use and abuse documentary principles. Nina Felshin, the gallery’s curator, has done a terrific job assembling interesting and provocative work in this vein, the best of which invite viewers to consider issues of agency, context and interpretation in documentary-based art.
Ezra Farber writes:
My Mom just painted this awesome picture of Sarah Palin, and she wanted it to get it out there for some people to see. I thought Wesleyan would really appreciate it. We've also made a bunch of postcards with the picture, and we'd like to send them up if anyone wants them.Ezra didn't mention how to request the postcards, but a simple way might be to leave a comment with your name and WesBox.
Elizabeth McClellan '09, on behalf of Public Art, writes:
Public Art is designing an arts networking and resource website for Wesleyan. The goal of the site is to provide us with easy access to resources and to facilitate creative communications across and outside of departments. We will provide lists of arts resources, host a calendar of creative events, link to other student sites, allow people to post requests for help on projects, and help students post their work where the rest of us can access it. All media are welcome and encouraged.
We want this to be as helpful as possible, so we need your input!
Please tell us about any and all helpful resources you've found on or around campus, in or out of departments. This can include grants from the school or other places, funds available to students, places to get materials, people to borrow equipment from, methods for representing yourself to the WSA or other groups for funding/materials, or generally useful advice.
Also helpful would be anything that you wish you could have had here but couldn’t find, as well as suggestions on how to organize and categorize resources.
The first version of the website should be running in about a month, so keep an eye out. Please respond as soon as you can to publicart.wes@gmail.
Ok really short notice for this, but the University of New Haven is holding an opening reception this afternoon for "Where Heaven Made Fun", an exhibition by artist Nathan Lewis which features a number of paintings with Wes students in them - including "Till We Find the Blessed Isles Where Our Friends Are Dwelling" (the Washington Crossing the Delaware remake).
Among those depicted in the painting are Wesleying's own Xue Sun '08 and Xiaoxi Tu '09, as well as Karimah Nichols '09, Priya Ghosh '09, Greg Silver '09, and Jason Bigman '10. Xue and Jason Bigman also appear in two other paintings in the show. And there's an installation with a 17-foot-long sailboat.
If you missed the painting at Wes, you can head over to UNH until September 26th to check it and the rest of the show out.
Opening Reception:
Date: Thursday, September 4th
Time: 4:30-7:30 pm
Place: Seton Gallery, on the University of New Haven campus
Exhibition Hours:
Date: Through September 26th, 2008
Time: Tuesday-Thursday 1-5 pm, Friday 1-7 pm, Saturday-Sunday 12-3 pm
- UNH site: Works by Nathan Lewis at Seton Gallery
- Driving Directions from Wesleyan
Katie Shelly '09 has created a website for the May 2 Collective, creators of the outdoor art show that you may have seen on Foss Hill near the end of the semester:
the may 2 collective---- was a free-form collective of about 15 or so wesleyan students formed at the beginning of last semester----our objective was to plan and install an outdoor art show as a group on may 2 2008-----we were a mix of people, majoring in everything from drawing to neuroscience to sociology-----it rained on may 2 so the show was actually carried out on may 6, the last day of classes-----but we kept our original name: the may 2 collectiveAs a fellow Help Desker, and after working so hard to create the May 2 Collective site, Katie wrote a tip-sheet explaining how to use Adobe Dreamweaver to create and host your own website on your Wesleyan webspace. The tip-sheet has been posted on the Help Desk website:
our show had everything from taxidermy to flying skateboards to a thesis-turned-naval fleet...
you can check out images of the show digito-retro-actively at our new website
A HOT TIPPPP for young aspiring DIY weswebdesigners::::::
it took some detective work with ITS to figure out how to make dreamweaver compatible with wesfiles to publish this site. i made a howto tipsheet for the ITS blog to share what we learned
for those of you interested in making use of your wesleyan-granted URL [username.web.wesleyan.edu] or if you want to make a website for your WSA-recognized student group [groupname.web.wesleyan.edu] dreamweaver is a great, flexible, program to do this. there are real easy-to-understand tutorials on how to use the program on the adobe website, and dreamweaver is available for student use on all wesleyan lab computers. if you run into any questions, you can always email me with the subject line WEBSITE HELP! or find me during the school year at my job at the ITS Helpdesk....
happy website-making, wesleyan!!!!
Do you think that the basement of Usdan, supposed to be a space for students, feels "just as sterile and institutional and vomit-colored as the rest of the building?"
Well, Nick Benacerraf '08 does. He writes in to tell us about WeSpace, which he describes as "a new student group to fight for the creation and improvement of student space on campus."
In response to this suckiness, a group of students called the Student Space Taskforce (WeSpace) is getting together to change this. This is a multi-step process, including getting 24-hour access to the space for students, making the rules down there more lax, and personalizing the space for the student body. The first and most important of which is PAINTING THE MPR. We want huge-ass impressive murals on all 4 walls in there. We want this to be a testament to the artistic creativity of the student population. And as such, we are organizing a 24-hour paint-in during reading week open to the entire student body, to completely transform and reclaim this space.What: 24-hour paint-in artistic planing meeting
This will all be decided and planned-for on Friday at 4:00 PM in the MPR at a major brainstorming session with all interested artists. We'll go in there, get an action plan that we can all agree on, and get ready for the fun-time next week. We invite all collaborators who care to make an impact on this campus for current and future generations.
[Edit by LauraAlyse]: Hunter King '08 had initiated the move to paint the MPR in the beginning of the fall semester. He invited students to join him to liven things up on two different occasions. After all of that, only he and three other students (one being myself) showed up to meet with Dean Rick. That's why the walls are now a dusty red. If you want change, and I know a lot of you do, SHOW UP!!!! Oh yeah, and Dean Rick was open to the idea of getting a DDR machine...
The ghostly senior art project of Matthew Valades '08 in a basement tunnel of the Art Studio (artist and art pictured above and below) is featured in today's Hartford Courant, as is the Wesleying post about it.
Buried in a dank corner of Wesleyan University's art studio, it hangs from the ceiling, bathed in cold blue light and aimed into space. Sometimes, it turns itself on, purring with loud, rhythmic thrums. Its purpose? Speculation on campus swirls. The machine might cause you to hallucinate, someone posted on "Wesleying," a student-run blog, maybe even see ghosts. Students and professors who paint and sculpt on the floors above it don't know who put it there or what it does.Yeah what's up, this is Wesleying and legitimate news sources source us. Check out this sound installation, maybe you will hallucinate or something!
...There's no sign posted to explain where the installation begins or ends, or any advertising to draw an audience. News of it spread on campus by word-of-mouth and the Internet. "It's viral," said Kuivila.
Valades thinks that reaction suits the installation's guerrilla nature. He's a bit miffed that some people boil it down to the "ghost machine," but added, "If it gets people down here and thinking about [the hallway], I guess that's the point."
...When he's not adjusting the installation's decor, Valades enjoys seeing how people react to it. Some take it in stride. Others, not so much — as one recent post on the Wesleyan student blog attests.
"how does it work??" the anonymous poster wrote. "ugh i pass it all the time but never know what to do."
Full article: A Strange Machine's Making Noise at Wesleyan
From the Facebook group:
Wes Shutterbugs, a newly formed photography club that hopes to provide more opportunities for student photographers to display their works on campus and to engage the campus in issues of identity, culture, and diversity welcomes all to a dinner reception for the opening of its first exhibition.Date: Thursday, April 17
Titled "Many Worlds", the exhibition aims to showcase the myriad communities our students come from, and how they perceive the world. Additionally, University photographer, Will Burkhart, will give a talk about his own works at the reception.
This is late (reception was yesterday afternoon), but senior art theses are on display at Zilkha until Sunday, featuring work by:
Hunter King
Zachary Davis
Joshua Pavlacky
Karla Hargrave
Chaz Ganster
Stephanie Calvert
Worth checking out! No pictures available, but they are more interesting than this post describes them to be.
Davy Knittle '11 wants you to submit to The Pedestrian:
1a. THE PEDESTRIAN is a literary magazine.
1b. Furthermore, it's a literary magazine that has already chosen a theme. The Spring 2008 Issue will be The Mechanical Issue, but it also responds to the name, "The Penultimate Issue." Submissions are due April 12.
2a. THE PEDESTRIAN will accept almost any sort of creative work that can be conveyed on a plane.
2b. I mean, like on a two-dimensional sheet of paper: a paper plane.
2c. I mean, creative work like a short story or a long poem or a medium length piece of creative non-fiction.
2d. Or photographs or drawings or paintings.
2e. But not mobiles, shadowboxes, or sculptures.
3. Work can be submitted to up five different locations:
pedestriansubmission@gmail.com
mandruczyk@wesleyan.edu
sknittle@wesleyan.edu
Box 92343
Box 90336
4a. All proceeds will go to the Faintly Missing Bob Weisz Foundation.
4b. And I'm certain there will be no proceeds.
Round one of the studio theses has begun! See the work in Zilkha Tuesday, March 25 (today) through Sunday, March 30 between 12 and 4 (apparently Zilkha is open til 8 on Fridays, which I didn't know). The reception for this week's theses is tomorrow from 4-6.
This week's artists:
Ben Ahles
Brad Alexander
Daniel Meyer
Martin Schapiro
Amanda Sim
What: Senior Art Theses
Where: Zilkha
When: Reception is Wednesday, March 26, 4-6pm and the show is up til Sunday
Drop Everything and Draw (D.E.A.D.) holds free live nude model drawing sessions every Saturday from noon to 3:00 PM in the CFA's Drawing Studio, room 105. All art supplies are provided for free. No prior drawing experience is needed.
Date: Saturdays
Time: 12:00 - 3:00 PM
Location: CFA Drawing Studio 105
The art show "Experiencing the War in Iraq" in Pawtucket, RI will be featuring a photograph by Max Krafft '09. More info here, and facebook event here.
For those interested, here are the facts:
What: Experiencing the War in Iraq: a multi-media installation
When: Opening March 7th @ 6 pm, running through March 30th
Where: Machines with Magnets/Pawtucket Armory, Pawtucket, RI
Who: artists and musicians, soldiers and civilians, including Max
Remember the open call for New Haven artist, ex Wes prof and all-around badass Nathan Lewis's remake of Washington Crossing the Delaware? It's here and it's freaking huge. Peep the Wes cameos, including Karimah Nichols '09, Priya Ghosh '09, Greg Silver '09, Jason Bigman '10 and Xiaoxi Tu '09 (twice)!:
"Till We Find the Blessed Isles Where Our Friends Are Dwelling"
6'x10'
Acrylic on Canvas
2008
It's showing at the John Slade Ely House in New Haven, and the opening reception is this Saturday from 6-9pm.
As a part of Black History Month, Ujamaa is organizing the Second Annual Student of Color Art Show that will take place during the month of February.
The reason and intent of putting on such a show is to raise consciousness about the real challenges that people of color face in the art world. In order to do this, we would like to celebrate the diverse backgrounds of the artists in our community and how their experiences are reflected in their artwork.
Artists are allowed to submit up to 3 pieces in the following forms: sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, and prints.
If you are interested in participating in this event, please reply back no later than Dec 18. In your reply, you must provide photographs of your work OR detailed descriptions that provide a good sense of your work and the mediums used.
All entries should be sent to Karimah at knichols@wesleyan.edu
If you have any general questions please contact Kristin Juarez (kjuarez), Julius Hampton (jhampton), or Alaina Gibbs (agibbs).
Kate Gavriel '09 writes:
Artists! Wesleyan’s Public Art Initiative will be hosting a large student art show on Wednesday, December 12, at Eclectic. The show will open at 1 PM and close at 7 PM, with a reception at 3 PM. Our aim is to foster Wesleyan’s visual arts community by providing a publicly accessible venue for student work.To repeat, the quick 'n dirty:
Each artist is invited to show up to 3 or 4 smaller works or 2 larger works. We’re looking for everything from small work on paper to large-scale sculpture, and we are happy to make accommodations for installations or other artistic initiatives.
To have your work included in the exhibition, contact either Kate Gavriel or Elizabeth McClellan by this Monday, December 10.
