All Things Visual: The University of Chicago Visual Resources Center

Reminder! The Visual Resources Center has partnered with the Center for Teaching and Learning to offer the following workshop:

Visual Literacy in the Classroom: How to Find, Create, and Display Images

Friday, November 18, 10:30AM – 12:00 PM

Gates-Blake 133

Images in the classroom go beyond Google and PowerPoint: students are expected to be visually literate (according to the Association of College and Research Libraries, “able to find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media”). This 90-minute session offers an introduction to the Visual Resources Center and a starting place for instructors seeking quality images for teaching in a visually literate classroom. The session will also cover techniques to engage students with image resources. Graduate instructors and Post-Docs are encouraged to attend.

Registration is Required. Please Register in advance for the session by clicking here.

We’ve all done it…walked or driven by a building and thought, “I wish I could see what the inside looks like”. Well, now you can.

Over the weekend of Oct 15-16, 2011, the Chicago Architecture Foundation is proud to present openhousechicago 2011 (OHC2011), a free public event that gets you behind-the-scenes of some of the city’s greatest spaces and places.

Whether you are an architecture buff, history enthusiast, or cultural novice, OHC2011 is a unique event that’s fun for all ages, locals and visitors, suburbanites and city dwellers. Participating in OHC2011 is like getting a “backstage pass” to many of Chicago’s most important and interesting buildings.

openhousechicago is a free public event. You can plan your own itinerary. No reservations or tickets are required, but you can register for up-to-date information and to win prizes.

The Soviet Arts Experience is a 16-month-long collaborative showcase of artistic work created under the Politburo of the Soviet Union, from 1917 to 1991. This series of programs includes works of art, dance, concerts, lectures, and classes. Twenty-six of Chicago’s prominent arts institutions will present events through 2012.

A Soviet Arts Experience iPhone app has been created to help navigate the showcase’s many events. It includes embedded Google Maps and is available for free to download through the iTunes store.

Directly influenced by Asian shadow and puppet theater, utsushi-e was a uniquely Japanese magic lantern show using multiple, hand-held lanterns.  Bearing some surprising similarities to the European phantasmagoria show, ustushi-e was a screen practice based on back-projection. Tokyo-based performance troupe Minwa-za has revived this 200-year-old multi-media spectacle, which they present in an evening encompassing history, techniques and a special performance of projections, live narration and traditional shamisen accompaniment.

Update: Tickets are now sold out. Event will take place at the Film Studies Center.

Via The Center for East Asian Studies.

Chinese artist Ai WeiWei is still missing after having been detained while trying to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong in early April.

A question posted on Facebook about what we, as an arts community, can do to support the safe release of Ai Weiwei sparked great ideas, including one by curator Steven Holmes to reenact Ai Weiwei’s project Fairytale: 1,001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs—an installation which was comprised of 1,001 late Ming and Qing Dynasty wooden chairs at Documenta 12 in 2007 in Kassel, Germany—in front of Chinese embassies and consulates around the world. This Sunday, April 17, at 1 PM local time, supporters are invited to participate in 1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei, by bringing a chair and gathering outside Chinese embassies and consulates to sit peacefully in support of the artist’s immediate release.

Via Facebook.

Tomorrow!

Indian Folk Art: Patua, Warli Gond, and Madhubani

Friday, October 8th at 3:00pm

South Asia Commons – Foster Hall 103

Please join the South Asia Language and Area Center for the first Friday Chai of the 2010/2011 school year on October 8th at 3:00 PM in Foster hall, room 103.

In addition to being the first Friday Chai, Friday marks the premier of “Indian Folk Art: Patua, Warli, Gond, and Madhubani”, an exhibition of Indian folk art in four styles originating in Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. Dr. Poornima Paidipathy, Harper Schmidt Fellow and Collegiate Assistant Professor, will give a short introduction to the exhibit. Manvee Vaid, collector and curator of the works, will also be present to explain the origins of the artwork and well as answer questions.

Please join Dr. Paidipathy and Ms. Vaid for a discussion of Indian folk art following the presentations. Chai and samosas will be served.

The artwork will be on display in Foster 103 until the end of Fall Quarter. Open viewing hours are restricted to the times of public events in Foster 103. The exhibit will be viewable every Friday of the quarter, between 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM. All of the artwork in the exhibit is available for purchase.