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Tuesday, December 1, 5-6 p.m.: Fine Arts Library hosts African Art performance on World AIDS dayThe Fine Arts Library is hosting an art performance and installation in recognition of World AIDS Day.
Alafia, a performance and installation of African art by Issa Nyaphaga and University of Texas Art History faculty Moyo Okediji, will take place from 5-6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1.
Alafia – which means “health” in Yoruba – will focus on health matters, especially the scourge of epidemic and pandemic ailments such as AIDS, swine flu, tuberculosis, Ebola and other devastating medical conditions. Art and healing go hand-in-hand in African and African diasporic arts.
The procession of masks will start from the “Igbale” (or shrine) at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, and lead to the exhibition gallery at the Fine Arts Library, where the grand performance and installation will take place. The installation will be on view for one week.
Annually, December 1 is recognized as World AIDS Day, AIDS being an epidemic disease that has devastated Africa more than any other continent.
Statistics for AIDS show that 33.2 million people are living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. Roughly half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35. Around 95% of people with HIV and AIDS live in Africa, South America and Asia.
As Alafia (which means health in Yoruba) will seek to show, HIV and AIDS are diasporic diseases because they break boundaries of nationality, sexuality, gender and race. The swine flu, tuberculosis and a number of other diseases that have become equal opportunity assailants in the twenty-first century can also be considered diasporic diseases because they cross all borders.
Please join the College of Fine Arts and the University of Texas Libraries as they unveil the College of Fine Art’s Art and Art History Collection Thursday, November 12, from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. in the Fine Arts Library.
The Art and Art History Collection (AAHC) consists of ancient art and antiquities from the Americas and Africa. The collection was formed in 2005 when the College of Fine Arts acquired approximately five thousand artifacts from the Texas Memorial Museum (TMM), and sixty objects from the Boeckman family of Dallas.
The most significant holdings of the AAHC are artifacts that were created by numerous pre-Columbian cultures and made from materials such as ceramic, stone, metal, textile, wood, and feathers. In addition to the pre-Columbian objects, the AAHC maintains an important group of Navajo blankets, and ethnographic textiles from Guatemala, Yucatan, and the Huichol region.
The collection is of interest to scholars and students with specializations that range from ancient visual to modern ethnographic studies, and across disciplines such as Anthropology and Latin American Studies. Objects are available for courses such as ancient arts and museology and for individual research projects. Through its displays in the Fine Arts Library, teaching, and research, the AAHC provides a vital resource for students and the greater scholarly community.
See images from the collection here and here.
Daniel Johnson of FAL’s Processing staff appears at 6:44 in this video. See President Powers’s entire speech here.
The Fine Arts Library will be hosting an advance screening of season 5 of the Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary series Art: 21—Art in the Twenty-First Century.
Art: 21 is the only prime time national television series focused exclusively on contemporary art. Through in-depth profiles and interviews, the four-part series examines the inspiration, vision and techniques behind the creative works of some of today’s most thought-provoking artists.
The sneak preview being hosted at FAL is part of Art21 Access ‘09, a nation-wide series of screenings organized in partnership with Americans for the Arts as part of National Arts and Humanities Month, which is celebrated every October.
The screening of “Episode 3: Transformation” takes place from 4-5pm on October 7 in DFA 2.204. It is free and open to the public.
Art: 21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, “Episode 3: Transformation” – Whether observing and satirizing society or reinventing icons of literature, art history, and popular culture, the artists featured in Transformation capture the sensibilities of our age while at times inhabiting the characters they have created. Yinka Shonibare MBE, Cindy Sherman and Paul McCarthy are featured.
The Fine Arts Library would like to announce the completion of the integration of the AV Library into the Fine Arts Library. The move was made to streamline and enhance the services of Fine Arts and AVL by consolidating the similar materials, formats, and tools of the individual libraries. The combined location for both resources creates a one-stop shop for primary users of both collections. The combined unit will be the busiest library unit after PCL. The audiovisual collection now numbers over 47,000 CDs, over 9000 DVDs, and over 16,000 VHS tapes. Questions about the integration should be referred to Laura Schwartz, Head Librarian, Fine Arts Library, 512.495.4476.
Handel scholar and U.T. Fine Arts Library’s Music Librarian Dr. David Hunter has made the papers in his native England with his recent discoveries about Handel’s health. Dr. Hunter has lately been in the Old Country conducting research.
Links to some stories:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227021.500-how-misery-inspired-handels-messiah.html
www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/02/handel-anniversary-exhibition
The fourth annual David O. Nilsson Lecture in Contemporary Drama takes on meta-theatre as noted stage actors tackle scenes from Tom Stoppard’s playful play about plays, “The Real Thing.”
British actors Eunice Roberts (”Inspector Morse,” “Twelfth Night,” “Tartuffe”) and Matthew Radford (”Macbeth,” “One for the Road,” Austin Shakespeare) join Austin’s own David Stahl (”Richard III,” “Gross Indecency,” “A Macbeth”) onstage, with commentary by Director of Shakespeare at Winedale Dr. James Loehlin and Department of English faculty member Dr. Kurt Heinzelman..
The Fine Arts Library is hosting the installation Egungun: Diaspora Recycling on the 3rd floor through March 5.
Also on exhibit through January is a selection of newly acquired books on African art and art history.
KUT reports on this exhibit (with photos and a sound file):
“If one of your New Year resolutions is to learn about different cultures, then the Fine Arts Library on the University of Texas at Austin campus may be just the place for you.”
FAL has a new print station that accepts Bevo Bucks.
Dr. David Hunter, FAL’s music librarian, will be presenting his paper “Accounting for Taste: Audience Choices and the Consumption of Entertainment During Handel’s Years in Britain (1710-59)” to the Music/Culture/Critique colloquium at the Butler School of Music October 10. For more information see http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/music/erlmannseries/VEIT/Lecture%20series.html
In November he will give the same paper to the History research seminar at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
David was also in London during July to present a paper at a conference held at Tate Britain on the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, and meanwhile, undertook some research at The National Archives.
He was interviewed for a BBC TV program on Handel to be broadcast next spring.
