ArtsEventsSamuel Dorsky Museum of Art

Celebrate Hudson Valley art and artists at the Dorsky: April 28 and May 1

NEW PALTZ – The State University of New York at New Paltz is pleased to announce two upcoming special events presented by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

These exhibitions are among a series of Tenth Anniversary Year exhibitions that commemorate The Dorsky’s focus on the art and artists of the Hudson Valley. The Hudson Valley is a unique region that has been a source of inspiration and nourishment for artistic creation and innovation since the Hudson River School painters.

The first event is a lecture by artist, Tim Davis, on Thursday, April 28, 7 p.m. at the State University of New York at New Paltz Lecture Center 102.

The second event is a curator and artists’ gallery talk called “Thick and Thin: Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz” on Sunday, May 1, 2 p.m. in the Sara Bedrick Gallery at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

Tim Davis will present a slide show and discussion of recent photographic and video projects, including works from the current Dorsky Museum exhibition, “The Upstate New York Olympics: Tim Davis,” currently on view at the museum through July 17, 2011.

Combining his ongoing interests in performance, photography, sculpture and poetry, Tim Davis has developed a series of video and installation works and objects entitled “The Upstate New York Olympics.” Davis’ “events” document, and deliberate on, the artist’s concerns with the fundamentals of performance art, personal expression, regionalism and the risks and rewards of the creative life.

Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz, independent artists as well as a husband and wife team, have produced distinct bodies of work that complement one another in process, form and effect, but their work has never before been exhibited together. “Thick and Thin: Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz” is the couple’s first joint public presentation of their work.

Landauer’s drawings and objects play with scale and humor to provoke realizations about our expectations about representation and abstraction. Swartz’s sculptures, installations and architectural interventions shift our perceptions of space, form and light. Together and separately, their works address the ways we make sense of the world. This exhibition includes a selection of recent and new works. “Thick and Thin” runs through October 23.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Malawi-born Tim Davis, a graduate of Bard College and Yale University and a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in 2007, is an artist and poet whose
exhibition/publication projects include “Permanent Collection” and “My Life In Politics.” Davis teaches at Bard College and is represented by Greenberg Van Doren Gallery. His work is in several institutions’ collections, including the Dorsky Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hirschorn Museum.

Ken Landauer (Colgate University; Rhode Island School of Design) lives in Stone Ridge, NY, and he has exhibited installations, sculptures and other works at The Fields/Art Omi, Socrates Sculpture Park with the Public Art Fund and at AH Gallery.

Julianne Swartz has created solo projects for BBC 3, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Josée Bienvenu Gallery. Her work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and in other group exhibitions at the Tate, the New Museum for Contemporary Art and the Aldrich Museum.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, located at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is gaining wide recognition as the premier public showplace for exhibition, education and cultural scholarship about the Hudson Valley region’s art and artists from yesterday and today.

With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, the Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums within the SUNY system.

For more information about The Dorsky Museum and its programs, visit http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum, or call (845) 257-3844.