UConn Advance - September 15, 2008 - Contemporary Art Galleries hosting exhibition of alumni art

The work of five notable graduates from the School of Fine Arts is featured at Contemporary Art Galleries. The show is the Galleries’ first exhibition of artwork by alumni.

Colin McMullan, MFA ’05, left, in front of his artwork “Pulling Together: The Legends of Willimantic,” speaks with Richard Klein, curator of the Alumni Biennial (One) exhibition at the Contemporary Art Galleries.

Photo by Frank Dahlmeyer

Galleries director Barry Rosenberg wanted to showcase the exemplary talents of some of the University’s most creative and accomplished graduates.

The exhibition, Alumni Biennial (One), is a deliberate reference to the prestigious national biennial exhibition hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan.

“To be able to bring back these artists for a show is exciting,” Rosenberg says. “These artists are making a significant impact on the contemporary art world.”

Richard Klein, exhibitions director for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn., served as the exhibition’s curator.

“UConn has an incredibly strong program, and the challenge of the selection process was in choosing a small group of artists who could represent the range of accomplishment exhibited in its alumni,” Klein says.

A work by Afarin Rahmanifar, MFA '99, part of the Alumni Biennial (One) exhibition on display in the Contemporary Art Galleries.

Photo supplied by the Contemporary Art Galleries

“The five artists I selected also represent a cross-section of contemporary practice, including painting, sculpture, graphic design, video, and performance. If there is a thread that ties these artists together, it is their willingness to experiment and not be tied down to a particular medium or genre.”

One of the key features of the exhibit is a 19-foot wooden sailboat constructed by Colin McMullan (MFA ’05) and Ted Efremoff (MFA ’06).

The boat – built with the help of local shipwrights and close to 100 volunteers from the Willimantic community – is the centerpiece of a multimedia courtyard exhibition that also features video footage of the boat’s construction, its journey down the Connecticut River, and interviews with project participants.

McMullan, aka “Emcee C.M.,” focuses his work on people – their work, their lives, their struggle – by employing spontaneity, teamwork, play, adventure, volunteerism, learning, and discovery.

Now located in New York, McMullan has presented projects in Germany, Spain, South Korea, and Serbia.

He has done collaborative projects in public spaces in New Haven and New York, and has shows this year at the Bronx Museum and Artists Space in New York.

A work by Ari Tabei, MFA '07, part of the Alumni Biennial (One) exhibition.

Photo supplied by the Contemporary Art Galleries

A work by Colin McMullan, MFA '05, is transported to the Contemporary Art Galleries where it is now on display as part of the Alumni Biennial (One) exhibition.

Photo supplied by the Contemporary Art Galleries

Other featured artists include:

Ari Tabei (MFA ’07), who displays a meticulously hand-crafted paper dress-sculpture entitled “Dress for Today #5.” The piece is made entirely of Japanese newspaper, along with staples and black cloth. The elaborate train of the dress, which takes up a large portion of two exhibit walls, is at once fragile and delicate and overwhelming and baffling.

Tabei is currently based in Brooklyn, N.Y., with residencies with New York’s Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Vermont Studio Center. She has used the dress as a vessel for her performance art.
Rebecca Parker (MFA ’07) presents two performance projects in video. Parker curates exhibitions for the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Her work has been included in several juried and invitational exhibitions, and she recently performed in New York and Philadelphia.

She provides one performance video, titled “What Girls do in White Dresses,” that investigates the transitional experience of growing up and the games we play. Through the reenactment of childhood activities, she questions the way in which experiences become gendered as we move away from childhood and mimic activities of adults. A second work, titled “24-Hour Conversation,” features a running dialogue involving Parker, fellow artist Efremoff, and others, in a Manhattan gallery space.

Visitors to Alumni Biennial (One) will be able to interact with the two videos, entering their comments and impressions through a keyboard link.
Afarin Rahmanifar (MFA ’96), currently a faculty member at Eastern Connecticut State University, exhibits a series of paintings that juxtapose and combine images from mainstream American popular culture with images from Persian paintings.

Rahmanifar, a native of Iran, uses her art to express her personal views of female imagery as portrayed in American and Iranian cultures.
Apirat Infahsaeng (BFA ’03) is a graphic artist and designer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. His distinctive work, described as “organic digital images,” has been used by such companies as AT&T Wireless, Coca-Cola, Kodak, and Yahoo. Several pieces and posters produced by Infahsaeng will be on display in the exhibit hall.

Alumni Biennial (One) is free and open to the public. The Contemporary Art Galleries in the Fine Arts Building at 830 Bolton Rd., Storrs, are open weekdays from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The exhibition runs through Oct. 10.

Contemporary Art Galleries hosting exhibition of alumni art

by Colin Poitras - September 15, 2008