School of Art to Present Contemporary Art Jewelry Exhibit and Symposium

Written by Kate Lepard

The Texas Tech School of Art galleries will present a reception and a symposium in conjunction with its Equilibrium: Body as Site exhibition.

A contemporary art jewelry exhibition curated by Kate Bonansinga and Rachelle Thiewes will be on display from Jan. 18 to Feb. 27.

The first event will be a public exhibit reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 4, at the Landmark Gallery in the School of Art (2802 18th Street). Attendees will have a chance to meet symposium speakers during this time.

Symposium speakers include Kate Bonansinga, co-curator of Equilibrium and director of the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, University of Texas, El Paso; Rachelle Thiewies, co-curator of Equilibrium and professor, University of Texas at El Paso; Nicole Jacquard, assistant professor, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.; Haley Bates, associate professor, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo.; and Julia M. Barello, associate professor, University of New Mexico, Las Cruces, N.M.

Mark Nelson, a Texas Tech alumnus with Rio Grande Jewelers, Albuquerque, N.M., will give a metals demonstration for Texas Tech students on Feb. 4. Nelson has more than 20 years of jewelry-making experience including nine years of retail bench experience and five years of laser welding experience. He has taught a variety of classes at Rio Grande Jewelers and at trade shows. Nelson is also Rio's television personality, presenting more than 30 jewelry-making segments for the Beads, Baubles & Jewels program televised across the country.

The Equilibrium exhibition, which was curated for Metalsmith magazine's 2008 annual "Exhibition in Print," will focus on art that engages the body as site and alters sensorial experience. The exhibit will both address the concepts behind each of the works and focus on how the art alters its (human) site by impacting one or more of the five senses and, by extension, perceptions and actions. It will privilege the sensorial over the intellectual – bucking the tide of the past several decades of art interpretation that has favored the intellectualization of art practice and experience.

The second event will be the 2011 Texas Tech Metalsmithing symposium on Feb. 5.

Metalsmith is the premier publication covering art jewelry. Every other year, Metalsmith selects guest curators from a highly competitive international pool to create an exhibition in print. Bonansinga and Thiewew also were curators of the 2008 "Exhibition in Print."

Featured artists include: Claudia Crisan-Calabria, New York; Lin Cheung, Hampshire, U.K.; Jennifer Crupi, New Jersey; Arielle de Pinto, Quebec, Canada; Erica Duffy, Iowa; Don Friedlich, Wisconsin; Caroline Gore, Michigan; Stephanie Hocker, New Jersey; Susan Hoge, Michigan; Jiyeon Hyun, Seoul, Korea; Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Wisconsin; Reka Lorincz, Budapest, Hungary; Jesse Mathes, Illinois; Jieun Park, Seoul, Korea; Damian O'Sullivan, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Lucy Rowlands, London, U. K., Marjorie Schick, Illinois; Courtney Starrett, South Carolina; and April Wood, Maryland.

Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, and noon-4 p.m. Sundays. The galleries are closed on university holidays. Admission is free and open to the public.

Visitor parking is available Monday–Friday for $1.20 per hour in the small lot adjacent to the art building and on the fourth floor of the Flint Avenue Parking Facility. Parking is free on weekends.

Contact Linda Tien at (806) 742-1947 to register for the symposium.