News Release

Fanfare 2008 opens with art


Contact: Christina Chapple

9/26/08


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(1) Horisaki -- Social Dress (2) Lawrie Brown -- Trash Series (3) Seldom Seen -- Don Wright

Captions …

(1) SOCIAL DRESS – Takashi Horisaki, a graduate of Loyola University, is best known for “Social Work,” his sculptural replica of a Katrina-battered New Orleans shotgun house. His artwork, including a new installation created with Southeastern students, will be on display through Oct. 17 during Southeastern Louisiana University’s Fanfare at the university’s Contemporary Art Gallery in East Stadium.

(2) ONE WOMAN’S TRASH – “Trash Series” features colorful images that turn trash into art by California photographer Lawrie Brown. The photographs will be on display in the lobby of Southeastern Louisiana University’s Sims Memorial Library Oct. 1 through Nov. 5 during the university’s annual Fanfare arts festival.

(3) PORTRAITS OLD AND NEW – During Southeastern Louisiana University’s Fanfare, the Hammond Regional Arts Center will host “Seldom Seen II,” old and new portraits from area private collections, such as this portrait by Don Wright. The opening reception is Oct. 10, 5-7 p.m., at the arts center, 217 E. Thomas St. in Hammond.


Additional Fanfare 2008 photos: www2.selu.edu/external/gallery/columbia-theatre/fanfare-2008.
    
HAMMOND – Art highlights the opening days of Fanfare, Southeastern Louisiana University’s 23-year-old October arts festival.

     The university’s Contemporary Art Gallery and Sims Memorial Library are both hosting exhibitions that patrons can enjoy throughout Fanfare. Two artists will share space in the gallery, located in East Strawberry Stadium, while the library will host photographs by an artist who was inspired by a normally unphotogenic subject – trash.

     All of the Fanfare exhibits are free.

     Having opened in mid-September, “Two Installations … Takashi Horisaki and Gerald Habarth” will be on display in the Contemporary Art Gallery through Oct. 17.

     Since Hurricane Katrina, New York artist Takashi Horisaki has returned to New Orleans, home of his alma mater Loyola University, to work on projects inspired by the city’s post-storm transformation. He is best known for his sculpture “Social Dress,” a replica of the surface of a Katrina-damaged shotgun house, cast from the latex coating of a real structure. For Fanfare, he will work with Southeastern art students on “Carving Coast,” an installation inspired by Louisiana’s changing coastline.

     Horisaki will share the gallery with the ambitious installations of Gerald Habarth, assistant professor of art at West Virginia University, who combines painting, drawing, video animations and three-dimensional forms into personal narratives, full of symbolism and reflections on our contemporary culture.

     Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., weekdays with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays.

     From Oct. 1 to Nov. 5, Sims Memorial Library will show Lawrie Brown’s “Trash Series.” Brown is a California artist who created her series of photographs over a two-year period during which she collected and then photographed her own trash. In doing this she explained that she was photographing the aftereffects of her own private consumerism. The photographs become large scale, bright and shiny examples of our consumer culture.

     Since the exhibit is located in the library’s main lobby, it can be viewed during regular  hours, Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., and Sunday, 2-11 p.m.

     As Fanfare enters its first full week, the lobby of the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts will showcase an exhibit that has become a tradition during the downtown Hammond theater’s anchor festival, the International House of Blues Foundation Art Exhibit.

     For eight years, Fanfare has partnered with the House of Blues Foundation to sponsor an art competition for area school children. Using “found” materials to create their artwork, young artists are inspired to depict significant events that shaped their lives and world. Participants will travel to the House of Blues Folk Art Gallery in New Orleans for the International House of Blues Foundation’s Blues School House program.

     The exhibit can be viewed in the Columbia lobby on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, noon to 5 p.m.; Thursday, noon to 4 p.m.; and one hour prior to most Columbia presentations.

     Later in the month, Fanfare will partner with the Hammond Regional Arts Center to sponsor “Seldom Seen II,” the second in the biennial series of exhibits of art from private collections. Curated by Marjorie Morrison and Michael Ledet, the exhibit will open Oct. 10 with a 5-7 p.m. reception at the arts center, located across from the Columbia Theatre at 217 E. Thomas St.

     Fanfare 2008 is dedicated to Morrison, a long-time member of the Fanfare Advisory Board and advocate for the value of the arts in education.

     “Seldom Seen II” incorporates portraits, old and new, in various styles gathered from regional private art collectors.  The exhibition will run throughout the month and can be viewed Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. The center is open until curtain for most Columbia Theatre presentations.

     For additional information on Fanfare art exhibits and other events during the October season and 2008-09 season of the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts, contact the Columbia Theatre at 985-543-4366 or visit columbiatheatre.org.



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