The Institute for Contemporary Art‘s inaugural exhibition, Declaration, will open on April 21 and run through September 9. This exhibition features many VCUarts faculty including Distinguished VCUarts Professor Sonya Clark (Craft/Material Studies), Stephen Vitiello (Kinetic Imaging) and Hope Ginsburg (Art Foundation).
VCU professor Sonya Clark’s Edifice and Mortar (2018) also sheds light on the disenfranchised. From afar, the work looks like a brick wall, but when viewers approach, they realize that the mortar is made from human hair.
“Someone might walk past” without noticing, Clark says. “That’s also part of the work because of how much we walk past the old brick buildings that have been built in Richmond, and we don’t consider who laid those bricks and who made those bricks.”
VCU’s kinetic imaging professor Stephen Vitiello created a sound piece that blares lines from Jorge Luis Borges’s story The Garden of Forking Paths (1941) in Chinese, English, German, and Spanish. The short story, which explores the theme of infinite possibilities, also inspired [architect Steven] Holl’s design of the museum and neighboring meditative garden.
“It brings people together. There are lots of concepts here, and people are in a space where they can talk about whatever their feelings are about anything,” says VCU president Michael Rao. “This becomes a great place to convene people, who might come from a wide range of views and perspectives, and give them the opportunity to really talk to each other in a civil way.”
Read the full article on artnet.
Image: Exterior view of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Photo: Iwan Baan for artnet.
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