Christopher Mead Named Regents' Professor

Christopher Mead, professor of architecture and art history, has been named a Regents' Professor, the highest honor the university bestows upon a faculty member. Mead has taught at UNM since 1980, where he holds tenure as well as a joint appointment in the School of Architecture and Planning and in the College of Fine Arts.

From 2004 to 2009, he served as dean of the College of Fine Arts. He received his bachelor's of art summa cum laude from the University of California at Riverside, and both his master's and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mead has served as administrator and academic during his tenure at UNM. "I never thought of administration as what I do, but as what I do as a service obligation to the university," he said. As dean or as professor, he remains committed to research and teaching, recognizing them as a core value in higher education.

"Being an active, engaged scholar enhances the quality of one's teaching. To be named a Regents' Professor is an important recognition of my scholarship," he said.

Mead will use the funding attached to his appointment as a Regents' Professor to support the research and publication of both his forthcoming book on Victor Baltard and his study-in-progress on Japanese modern architecture, called Hypospace.

Hypospace takes Mead from his comfort zone of European and North American architecture. "For me, going to Japan was going in a new direction, to a new country. It makes me stretch my mental muscles – learn a new culture, history and architecture," he said. Both Japan and New Mexico share enduring, ancient traditions while being firmly rooted in the modern age, he said.

"As a historian with an academic appointment in a professional school, I believe it important to publish books on contemporary architecture, even as I build on my national reputation by extending my expertise outside my recognized strengths in Europe and North America to include Asia," Mead said.

Mead, past president of the Society of Architectural Historians, has written and lectured widely on European and American architecture and urbanism. He awaits publication of his new book on French architecture by Penn State Press and a UNM Press title he wrote on Antoine Predock.

Mead was named a 2004-2006 Presidential Teaching Fellow. He received the 1992 Faculty Achievement Award from the Burlington Foundation, was initiated in 2001 as an Honorary Member of Phi Eta Sigma and was named in 2005 a Distinguished Member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

Mead served as associate chair and chair of the Department of Art and Art History, and as interim dean and dean of the College of Fine Arts. His community service includes board appointments to the New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee, the Harwood Foundation, the Albuquerque Arts Alliance, the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, 516 Arts and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

In 2009, he received the Arts Alliance President's Award for leadership in educating the community on the economic importance of the arts to Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. He served nationally as a 10 year board member and officer of the Society of Architectural Historians, including service as president in 2000-02.

A recent New Mexico Business Weekly article revealed that the College of Fine Arts Development office had raised more gift income money than any other unit at the University of New Mexico for the fiscal year ending June 30.

Original article: http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2009/08/31/story2.html

David Craven, Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico, has been selected by the Faculty in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to give the annual McLeod & Mildred Riggins Lecture in Art History. A special endowed lectureship, the Riggins Lecture is awarded annually to a noteworthy scholar who has made a major contribution to the discipline of Art History. Previous speakers have included Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Patricia Mathews, and José Esteban Muñoz. Craven will give the public lecture on November 2, 2009 and its title is "A Trans-Atlantic Dialogue in the Arts: Fri(e)da Kahlo, Hannah Höch, and Tina Modotti."

Craven has written 10 books and catalogues, along with over 140 articles and review essays, which have appeared in the leading publications of over two dozen different countries and been translated into more than a dozen languages. Among his more widely known publications are Mythmaking in the McCarthy Period for the Tate Gallery in 1992, Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist in 1997, Abstract Expressionism as Cultural Critique, published by Cambridge University Press in 1999, and Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910—1990, which appeared through Yale University Press in 2002—a book praised by Ernesto Cardenal, the Minister of Culture in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Craven has also co-edited and introduced another book, Dialectical Conversions: The Art Criticism of Donald Kuspit, forthcoming through Liverpool University Press in 2010.

Awarded a Medal of Excellence from the State of New York in 1991 for his scholarship, Craven was the 2007 Rudolf Arnheim Professor of Art History at Humboldt University in Berlin. He has won more than fifteen major grants and fellowships from such agencies as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, DAAD, the NEA, the NEH, the American Council of Learned Societies, the New York Council for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ministry of Culture in Spain, and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Arte in Mexico.

Albuquerque, NM – Friday, June 26th was the official groundbreaking for Tamarind Institute's new workshop and gallery. Those breaking ground included Tamarind Institute Director Marjorie Devon, UNM President David Schmidly, UNM College of Fine Arts Acting Dean James Linnell, N.M. Department of Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman, Architect Devendra Contractor, and Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez.

For nearly 40 years Tamarind has occupied an unobtrusive, 9,000 square foot space at 108-110 Cornell SE, south of Gyros and the Frontier. Tamarind's new location, previously UNM's Architecture & Planning Annex, will increase Tamarind's visibility to the community, provide more space for educational programming, and improve health and safety standards. The new 14,000 square foot building is expected to be completed in spring 2010, in time for Tamarind's 50th anniversary events.

The new building, designed by architect Devendra Contractor, will be LEED certified Silver and consists of both renovation and new construction. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. The new structure includes a number of energy efficient design features, usage of recycled materials, and a storm water collection system. New construction consists of an elevator shaft, third story artist's residence and courtyard. Also included in the project are a new ventilation system, and temperature and humidity control which will provide a safer environment, and protect Tamarind's significant print collection.

Tamarind's capital campaign was kicked off in 2006 with a significant commitment from First Community Bank. Other support followed from the New Mexico legislature, and local businesses and organizations such as, Charter Bank, Thaw Charitable Trust and the McCune Foundation.

Tamarind Institute, a division of the College of Fine Arts at UNM, is a nonprofit center for fine art lithography that trains master printers and houses a professional collaborative studio for artists. Founded in 1960 in Los Angeles, Tamarind played a significant role in reviving the art of lithography in the United States and continues to provide professional training and publishing opportunities worldwide. Tamarind Institute is recognized internationally for its contributions to the growth of contemporary printmaking around the world.

Tamarind Institute is located at 110 Cornell SE and is open to the public M-F, 9-5. For more information, call 505.277.3901, email tamarind@unm.edu or visit http://tamarind.unm.edu.

From the LAND/ART website: "This summer and fall, a group of New Mexico arts organizations have joined together to present LAND/ART, which will explore relationships of land, art, and community through exhibitions, site-specific art works, lectures, and a culminating book. Focusing on "environmental" or "land" art, the collaboration seeks to address our changing relationship to nature, and to offer a new or previously unconsidered understanding of the place in which we live."

LAND/ART website: landartnm.org

Art in America LAND/ART article is HERE

Albuquerque, NM – Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque's world-renowned lithography studio and gallery, has been awarded $100,000 from th­e National Endowment for the Arts in support of its 50th anniversary exhibition and catalogue. The exhibition, with a working title of "Impressive Impressions: Fifty Years of Tamarind Lithographs," will be organized by Tamarind in cooperation with the University of New Mexico Art Museum. The exhibit is scheduled to open on September 10, 2010 and will subsequently travel to other venues in the U.S.

"Impressive Impressions" will feature a selection of 80 lithographs representing the range of work done during Tamarind's five decades, as well as an "honoree" section featuring lithographs by artists who have made outstanding contributions to American lithography: Jim Dine and Ed Ruscha, and Tamarind's founding directors, June Wayne, Clinton Adams, and Garo Antreasian. The exhibition will reinforce the relevance of lithography in the context of the history of American art. Artists from Josef Albers, Vija Celmins, Louise Nevelson, to Nicola López, Polly Apfelbaum and Willie Cole have made significant works of art at Tamarind.

The University of New Mexico Press will publish the exhibition catalogue with full color reproductions of works in the exhibition along with three essays. Faye Hirsch, Associate Editor, Art in America, will write the lead essay on the importance of Tamarind in the context of the development of American printmaking.

This exhibit will be the cornerstone to Tamarind's 50th anniversary celebrations in the fall of 2010. In conjunction with the exhibit, Tamarind will host a symposium in Albuquerque, drawing printmakers and print enthusiasts from around the world. Tamarind's new building at 2500 Central Avenue SE, scheduled for completion next summer, will be the location for much of the symposium as well as a didactic exhibition open to the public. Lectures on topics related to the exhibit will be offered to the public as part of UNMAM's regular programming.

Through printing demonstrations, explanatory materials, and progressive proofs, visitors can gain an understanding of the intrinsic value of lithography as a creative endeavor, and the difference between a reproduction and an original print. The didactic exhibit will demonstrate the artist's thought process as the image is developed, as well as the varied effects that different color combinations and different papers offer the artist.

"We are honored by this recognition of Tamarind's contributions to the art world. The funding will allow us to share our long history and the significant body of work that has been created at Tamarind with the American public," according to Tamarind Director Marjorie Devon.

Tamarind Institute, a division of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico, is a non-profit center for fine art lithography that trains master printers, and houses a professional collaborative studio for artists. Founded in 1960 in L.A., Tamarind helped revive the art of lithography in the United States, and continues to provide professional training and publishing opportunities worldwide. Tamarind Institute is recognized internationally for its contributions to the growth of contemporary printmaking around the world.

Tamarind Institute is located at 110 Cornell SE and is open to the public M-F, 9-5. For more information, call 505.277.3901, email tamarind@unm.edu or visit http://tamarind.unm.edu.

Professor Jeffrey Piper, of the UNM Music Department, received the International Trumpet Guild's(ITG) Award of Merit in a ceremony on May 29, 2009 at the ITG Annual Meeting at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The ITG Award of Merit is bestowed to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the art of trumpet playing through performance, teaching, publishing, research, composition, and/or support of the goals of The International Trumpet Guild. Past recipients include: Ray Crisara, John Haynie, David Hickman, Frank Kaderabek, Anatoly Selianin, Benjamin Margolin, Carole Reinhart, Charles Colin, William Adam, and Vincent DiMartino.

Piper has performed as Principal Trumpet of the San Diego Symphony, and served as Principal Trumpet with the Santa Fe Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, and Opera Southwest, and performed with the Santa Fe Opera. He co-founded and performs with the New Mexico Brass Quintet which was in residence at UNM for thirty years. Piper has served on the ITG Board of Directors since 1998, including terms as President, Vice President, and Secretary. He was recently elected to the Board for a term lasting through 2013.

Jeffrey Piper holds degrees from Northeast Missouri State University and The University of Michigan. He has appeared throughout the United States, Mexico, Australia, China, Canada, Finland, Russia and Europe as soloist, adjudicator, clinician, and has frequently appeared on recitals and programs for the International Trumpet Guild.

Professor Piper's principal teachers include Clifford Lillya, Arnold Jacobs, Susan Slaughter, Robert Nagel, Richard Giangulio, Samuel Krause, Reynold Schilke, and Adolf Herseth. Piper can be heard as a member of the New Mexico Brass Quintet on three recordings produced by Crystal Records. His students can be found teaching at major universities, and performing in professional orchestras and military bands. (please go to the UNM music department website for a complete listing). Most recent student appointments and accomplishments include Paul McLaughlin-appointed to the faculty of New Mexico State University; Dan Isbell-appointed to the faculty of Ithaca College. Melanie Hess-appointed to the faculty of Messiah College .and Brian Garrison-national finalist in the MTNA competition.

Piper has been on the faculty of The University of New Mexico for the past 32 years and previously served on the faculties of Quincy College and Truman State University.

UNM Dance Program student Gabi Rojas, who graduated last June, can be seen on the nationally famous SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE! TV series this month. The program airs at 7:00pm on Thursday nights. Ms. Rojas was chosen during an audition in New York City to be one of forty contestants to fly to Las Vegas for the first round of the competition.

Photo: Pat Berrett

The College of Fine Arts is pleased to announce that the Spring 2009 Newsletter is now available to download in PDF format. Visit our Newsletter page to view this and several back issues of the newsletter.

From Cinematic Arts: A standing ovation to our very own visualiste, the excellent Bryan Konefsky, creative genius behind the attendance record-shattering fourth year of the wondrous "Experiments in Cinema." In addition to rallying our students to produce the four-day festival, he brought film and video artists to Albuquerque from around the world to speak about the works they've made, the shows-within-the show they've curated, and the state of the avant-garde vis-à-vis cinema's distant past and immediate future.

All this, and oh yes: in the august company of only two others at UNM, Bryan has just been named Lecturer of the Year! Let us raise a glass at the official awards ceremony on May 6.

Bryan Konefsky is a self-taught media artist and cultural worker. At UNM he teaches studio and critical studies courses that explore un-dependent and experimental media through the Department of Cinematic Arts.

Cinematic Arts website: Cinematic Arts faculty page
Experiments in Cinema: Experiments in Cinema
undergroundfilm.org: undergroundfilm.org

Theatre & Dance is thrilled to announce that student Kamarie Chapman's play, Deception Pass: An American Story, has won two national awards from The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. The first award is The David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award. It also comes with a national award from ATHE (Association of Theatre Higher Educators) and a reading in New York City this summer. Kamarie's second award is the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. For more information, visit these links:

http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/actf/actfcohen.html
http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/actf/actf_vogel.html

E. Luanne McKinnon, Director of the University Art Museum has been recognized by the American Association of Museums (AAM) as a national winner of the 2009 Museum Publications Design Competition for the exhibition catalogue, Corps Exquis: Fragments From a History of the Human Form, ca. 1585 - 2006. The publication includes works about the female and male form by thirty-six artists such as Henri Matisse (cover image), Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rembrandt van Rijn, Kiki Smith, Vanessa Beecroft, and Paul Cezanne, which are accompanied by the poetry of eighteen outstanding writers such as Louise Gluck, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Ashbery, Walt Whitman, and Charles Simic, among others, McKinnon's book was produced for an exhibition at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College in Florida which was realized prior to her joining the UNM Art Museum last August.

Corps Exquis is available on www.amazon.com.

Students of Arts 429, "The Community Mural Process", led by renowned muralist Joe Stephenson, are transforming the north Administrative Offices hallway in the Center for the Arts. "The goals of the class," states Joe, "are to impart the skills needed to produce a Community mural. This is a mural in which the content responds to the input of the community where the mural is located. We solicit ideas from the public; the muralists then cull through the gathered material to turn words and ideas into thematic images." Stephenson adds: "Cooperation between the artists in the design process is a key element, like musicians working together. Egos have to be checked in order to arrive at a workable design. The resulting design goes through a review process by the Community members for revisions and refinement. This final design is then transferred to the wall and drawn and painted."

This has been a fascinating process to witness, with faculty, staff, students and groups of visitors invariably stopping to linger for a while each day to take in the ever-changing "view".

William Liotta nominated for third BIG EASY Entertainment Award for Best Lighting Design in New Orleans for Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House" at Southern Repetory Theatre.

More information can be found at their website: HERE >

The UNM Board of Regents unanimously approved a $2.3 million expansion of the Museum. Located directly above the existing Main Gallery, an additional 8,000 square feet will provide room for administration offices, relocation of the Prints and Photographs Study Room and vault, and, a 3,000 square foot state-of-the-art gallery intended for new media and video art installations. The Jonson Gallery will move to the main Museum complex and will occupy the Lower Level Gallery where it will celebrate its 60th anniversary in new quarters. We are anticipating a GRAND fete to launch the new Museum in January 2010. The Museum will remain open intermittently throughout the construction phases, so please check the website for updates.

More information can be found at their website: http:unmartmuseum.unm.edu

Elaine Avila premiered her piece, "Naked Singularity" at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysterical Theater in New York City in March. It is about black holes and animal bridegrooms.

She also published an article about her collaboration with Governor General Award winning writer Paul Yee, Pangaea Arts and Cantonese Opera performers which will appear in the next issue of Canadian Theatre Review. They published another article of Elaine's earlier this year, about the London and Canadian premieres of the site-specific production of her play about shoes, directed by Kathleen Weiss, Head of Directing at the prestigious University of Alberta. Professor Weiss, a reknown UNM alumn, is going to direct Tricklock's Production at UNM next Fall.

The 2009 John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium will feature MacArthur fellow and Columbia University Professor of Music, George Lewis, a composer/performer with a long history of prominence in the experimental music tradition. That history includes his membership in the famed Chicago musician's cooperative, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an organization about which Lewis has recently completed the definitive history, "A Power Greater Than Ourselves" (University of Chicago Press). His appearance at the Symposium is being co-sponsored by the Outpost Performance Space where Lewis and an ensemble featuring Nicole Mitchell and Hamid Drake will give the Opening Concert on Sunday, March 29. Go to http://robbtrust.org/ for more information including the schedule of concerts.

Monday, March 30, the Concert in UNM's Popejoy Hall will include the world premiere of Christopher Shultis' Openings by the UNM Wind Symphony and a performance of John Donald Robb's Viola Concerto by soloist Kim Fredenburgh with the orchestral ensemble "Chatter" conducted by David Felberg. The Symposium's "ensemble in residence", the Hoffman-Goldstein Piano-Percussion Duo, will be featured in Concert on Tuesday, March 31. Wednesday April 01 will present a day of performances guest-curated by composer Raven Chacon. These performances emphasize radically new developments in contemporary music and feature concerts by Chacon, Adam Overton, and William Fowler Collins.