Three new arts programs have recently been launched by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts as a part of the Innovation Grants Program. A graphic novel workshop, a Materiality lecture series and an art exhibit centered around communal gatherings will be available to UH students and the community.
“These are public programs — not necessarily classes,” said Karen Farber, director of the Mitchell Center. “There is one program that is a class and that is the graphic novel course, which will be available when spring registration opens.”
Creative writing professor and novelist Mat Johnson will teach the graphic novel workshop and several professional artists will also visit the class throughout the semester.
The Materiality lecture series, co-hosted by the School of Art and Blaffer Art Museum, is open to the public and will be running through both the fall and spring semesters. The lectures will feature conservators, curators, anthropologists and artists who discuss the meaning of the use of material objects in art. The first lecture in the series will be at 1 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 29 in room 110 of the Fine Arts building and will feature Diana Al-Hadid, a well-known contemporary artist.
“The reason that these lectures are so important is they’re the first major lecture series the School of Art has had in a long time and in partnership with Blaffer, which raises the bar for the caliber of speakers they’ll be able to bring in and increases visibility within the program,” Farber said.
Lastly, the Feast Exhibit will be coming to UH in Fall 2013. It will be a collaborative effort between several artists and will focus on the theme of meals and communal gatherings.
“The exhibition looks at the meal as a medium and in particular the relational aesthetic of the meal and how the meal is represented in contemporary art,” said Claudia Schmuckli, director and chief curator of the Blaffer Art Museum. “The exhibit explores the meal through props and how they employ the meal as a medium, particularly in the early 1900s and continues to the present.”
The Innovation Grants Program is intended to foster interdisciplinary art projects at UH. All Mitchell Center member units—the School of Art, the Blaffer Art Museum, Creative Writing Program, Moores School of Music and the School of Theatre and Dance—may apply for the annual grant to propose projects that correspond with grant requirements.
“(This grant) helps fund proposed programs that are innovative and that are considered transformational in their field,” Farber said.
For more information about these programs, please visit www.mitchellcenterforarts.org.
