Expect a post in the next day or two with links, and proper annoucements about what to expect for the rest of the semester, as well as some preliminary plans for the spring. Meantime, what would YOU like to see?

Any burning questions you have for Panopticon? Any particular news stories or anecdotes you might like to share?

Meantime, there is this, not exactly library-related, but still very cool.

Hope everyone is surviving the final countdown of the semester, and look for several distractions and the like to come this weekend!

Alli is asking for anyone to RSVP by Friday, November 13th, by emailing her at bjorndahl@simmons.edu.

The Open Studios is asking that anyone who attends brings one non-perishable food item for a food drive hosted. All items will be donated to the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Also, it’s not too late to donate for the Tech Lab Art Show! Please email Alli (again, bjorndahl@simmons.edu) to make arrangements for donation, and if you have already put in an entry, all work will be up soon…

And while we are at it, have some more “diversions”:

“There’s a reason why we find it easier to “get” modern art than avant-garde music, and it’s not just about our natural conservatism and our love of Mozart.”

And some very interesting architechture.

This could be fun. If you haven’t heard, the Interstitial Arts Foundation recently came out with their second anthology, Interfictions 2, which is anything like the volume the 1st, will be absolutely delightful. Currently available on Amazon.

However, to further compliment this collection, the IAF is holding an auction, with pieces inspired by the pieces of fiction found in the anthology, and also holding a concert Friday, November 13th, entitled Interstitial Improv: Words and Music”. Event is free, although there is the suggested donation of $5-10 at the door.

An interesting take – it features music inspired by books! Which, all right, is just darn nifty! Yes, no?

Also, don’t forget about the art book exhibit at Newbury College, and here, just for kicks? -

Scientists claim to have discovered the secret behind Mona Lisa’s smile.

Organized by the well-appreciated efforts of Betsy Boyle, one of our co-chairs, she worked to contact all out guest speakers, as well as worked with the technology staff to ensure we’d have a computer and screen for the presentations. Her hard work goes well noted, and we thank her for a job well done, and very enjoyable evening.

That said, the Artists in Libraries panels featured six students: Lisa Gross, Stephanie Cordon, Jack Scheider, Courtney Lockemer, Kirk Amaral Snow, and Gregory Vershbow. (Sarah Peck was also supposed to be featured, but unfortunately, called out sick.)

photo taken by: Melissa Hulme

Things kicked off with each student saying a little about their own projects. With a definite variety (from installations to webpages to photography to performance art), the artists all had a unique perspective on the world around them.

(They do have websites, which will be posted a little further on. While I took notes on their art, I’m not sure I feel entirely qualified to comment. I suggest you check out their websites, and make your own observations, your own conclusions.)

Next followed a Q&A session. We opened the floor with a question about (what else?) …libraries. Specifically, how important are libraries in their individual process.

Lisa (her project is the web design/page, UrbanHomestead) opened by saying the reading and research process was centric to her art, as she needs to be up-to-date on cultural and social aspects of Urban Homestead. She needs to know everything from the practical realties of gardening to “how to make cheese”, as well as where the next Farmer’s Market is. She feels there is something invaluable about books, as kind of like “blogs, if someone makes a book making cheese, they really know what they are talking about.” While she certainly uses the internet, she feels there is no substitute for a good book.

Stephanie (her project forged text with music, and featured floor plans from houses in Pompeii and Herculeum), calls reading “jumping down the rabbit hole”. She loves browsing because no matter what books you find, each book leads yo to more books on a never-ending search of information. It’s for this reason she especially loves the bibliographies, to see what the author might have referenced or read or simply glanced at while researching.

Gregory (whose project was a book called “The Alchemist’s Tree”) feels a strong affinity to books. He finds it most satisfying to start with books, as art must first start in a library only to go out into the world. Eventually, it all comes home again, he says. He likes the idea of combining the book world with the online world, and seeing how the two mediums might work together.

Courtney (whose project focused on the psychological sense of place vs. space, and featured video and performance), can see so much in one place. Libraries are free and open places for everyone. She wishes museums would follow that same philosophy: free for everyone. She loves how projects can rise randomly, and libraries are there to help “fund” the research.

Kirk (whose project likewise featured performance and installation, and was designed to give a sense of wonder to the world), believes libraries help to close the physical distance. Research is a place art can’t get to. It’s very much like releasing a feather, you follow the wind, seeing where you end. You’ll always find something new.

Perhaps Jack (his project was an installation featuring the soda Surge) states it best: “Libraries are beneficial, no need to state the obvious.”

It was at this point I needed to duck out, thus missing the remainder of the discussion. So, I open it to you, dear readers. What was your favorite part of the evening? What witty saying from the guests struck a particular chord with you? What did you like or didn’t like?

And as promised, the websites:

Kirk Amaral Snow: N/A
Stephanie Cardon: Stephanie Cardon
Lisa Gross: Lisa Gross – Urban Homestead
Courtney Lockemer: Courtney Lockemer
Jack W. Schneider: Jack Schneider
Gregory Vershbow: Gregory Vershbow

POINT. LINE. FENCE.
Felix Lembersky 1913 – 1970
Paintings and Drawings

November 5 – 23, 2009
Gallery talk: Wednesday, November 11, 3:30 – 4:30pm
Reception and book signing: 5 – 8pm

Newbury College Art Gallery
Academic Center – Library
150 Fisher Avenue
Brookline, MA 02445
T. 617 730 7071
Gallery Hours
Monday–Thursday 8am–9pm
Friday 8am–5pm
Saturday 8am–4pm

Newbury College Art Gallery is pleased to announce Point. Line. Fence., the first solo exhibition in New England of the late Russian artist Felix Lembersky. The exhibition coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ended the cultural divide between the West and countries of the Eastern block.

The Work
Lembersky was first known in Leningrad during and after World War II as a master portraitist whose penetrating and nuanced work focused on the psychological state of his sitters. Rooted in the classical academic tradition and influenced by Rembrandt and El Greco, he reduced his color palette in this early work to nearly monochrome and employed a dramatic chiaroscuro to heighten the emotional eloquence of his subjects. His rendering of the human body diminished its materiality, suggesting the spiritual struggle of individuals coping with war and its aftermath. A decade later, he led the reform in Soviet art that reintroduced non-representational pictorial devices banned by Stalin in the early 1930s.

Lembersky’s work represents a synthesis of the theoretically antithetical elements of the Russian avant-garde, Socialist Realism, Non-conformism, and European modernism, united to communicate an intensely personal and spiritual vision. He brought together elements of Cubism, Primitivism, Russian icons, folk art, stage design, and faux –children’s drawings. Mining Judeo-Christian themes and symbols, he created compositions that function as metaphors for human experience. He internalized war, terror, and destruction followed by resurrection, a cycle he understood to be inevitably repetitive through history. He gradually dissolved the boundaries between the human body and the landscape, fusing their forms into an integral whole. Through his expressive, non-mimetic color and pulsing shifts of space, contour, and shadow, he created complex pictorial riddles that can be experienced both emotionally and analytically.

The Exhibition
The present selection is focused on Lembersky’s portraits of workers and other figures he encountered in his daily life, and the industrial and residential landscapes in which they lived and functioned. The drawings and paintings on view show the way the artist moved from an objective description of the world to an evocation of what he perceived to be the inner forces that give it life. In the townscapes, he used the motif of the fence to position the viewer on the outside while providing controlled access through gates and paths. Perspectival rendering and architectural details suggest the possibility of movement through an actual place, while the smears, contours, and overlays of color on the surface of the canvas offer an alternate, interior reality. The interplay of objectivity and subjectivity holds Lembersky’s works in dynamic tension and gives the eye and mind ample space in which to wander.

The show features four periods of the artist’s oeuvre. The first comprises portraits made during and following World War II. The second includes thematic compositions such as Execution: Babii Yar, named after the site of a massacre of Jews by the Nazis in Kiev, Ukraine, and created during Stalin’s anti-Semitic campaign (the Doctor’s Plot), when official rhetoric denied the Holocaust. The third period is represented by landscapes in the Ural Mountains executed during the late 1950s. These images are poetic and romanticized views of the land between Europe and Asia at the Siberian border. Rich in natural resources, this region is the birthplace of Russia’s industrialization. Lembersky showed its natural beauty and fairytale qualities, echoing local legends that depict the mountains as a fire serpent with bones made of iron ore, blood of oil, and scales of malachite and diamonds. At the same time, he described industry as a relentless force in a pristine natural setting. The fourth period is represented by non-mimetic, symbolic compositions of the 1960s.

The show is co-curated by Lucy Flint, an independent art consultant, and architect Yelena Lembersky, the artist’s granddaughter. A short documentary film created by a team of Emerson College students will be screened during the opening. The exhibition is co-sponsored by Newbury College and the Uniterra Foundation, Cambridge, MA.

The Artist
Lembersky lived through a period of enormous violence. He was born in Poland in 1913. At the outbreak of World War I, his family evacuated to Ukraine. He was five when the communist revolution arrived, soon escalating into civil war. In the 1930s he was witness to the Ukrainian famine in which several million farmers died during a state takeover of their land. When World War II erupted, he was wounded, and lived through the Siege of Leningrad. His parents perished in the Holocaust.

Lembersky’s art education began in the 1920s in Ukraine, where he was exposed to the Russian avant-garde, an important later influence. He moved to Leningrad to study easel painting at the elite Academy of Art in Leningrad in the 1930s. During his lifetime, his work was shown in major exhibitions in Moscow and Leningrad. In recent years, solo exhibitions of his work have been organized in New York, Michigan, and Russia. He is represented in the holdings of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University. In 2009, Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Art was awarded a prize for the exhibition and limited-edition catalogue Feliks Lemberskii: Tvortsi Uzniki Sovesti at Intermuseum–2009, a national museum convention held in Moscow.

Publication
The Newbury College exhibition coincides with the publication of Felix Lembersky 1913 – 1970: Paintings and Drawings, a fully illustrated bilingual (English/Russian) monograph resulting from an international collaboration. The book is distributed by the Uniterra Foundation, MIPP International, and East View Information Services, Inc.

First, some annoucements…
1) On Wednesday, October 28th, Melissa Hulme, Betsy Boyle, and I will be helping to table for the event up at Paretsky Conference Center. Come say hi, have some lunch, and be sure to take a bookmark!

2) EVENT ANNOUCEMENT:
You’ve probably seen the flyers for “Artist in Libraries”, but even so…
Artists in Libraries” Panel Discussion
Hosted by the GSLIS Panopticon/ARLIS Student Chapter
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
6:00-7:30 pm
Kotzen Center, located on the main floor of Lefavour Hall, Simmons College

Light snacks will be provided!

Again, stop by! Learn about this unique take on the library career path, and possibly make a contact or two…

3) We are still taking entries for the Tech Lab art show. Please do let one of us know if you have anything to show.

That all being said, some links.

1) ArtSTOR is currently working with Tufts University to digitize a collection of stained glass. While most of the Collection is French, some Austrian and German pieces are also included.
More information (and pictures!) available on the ArtSTOR site.

2) Also, kind of a cool google search.

…woodcuts! of Mount Fuji.
All woodcuts created by Katsushkia Hokusai.

Which one is your particular favorite?

And hope to see everyone at the Artists in Libraries panel!!

So, given I’ve now received 3 emails in regards to this, probably a good idea to post. I apologize, of course, if you too, have seen this 3 times also. But if not, look! News!

It’s time. It’s time for us to make this Art Show a reality! We are looking for
art to display in the GSLIS tech lab for the rest of the semester (or however
long you’ll allow us to share your work!).

Also, details about an Opening or Closing Party coming soon! If you have any
questions or concerns about the Art Show, please feel free to shoot us a comment here, or to contact Ally or Betsy directly.

So… let’s start creating?

(Courtesy of wired.com)

First link tonight comes by way of ArLiSNAP’s (the Midwestern counterpart to ArLiS/NE) blog.

Citing an article originally posted by ACRLog, the article takes a spin on the article “12 Things Newspapers Should Do To Survive”, only applies it to libraries. So, what made the top 12?
Things like: Put the Web First, Charge for Quotes, and Offer Unique Content in Print.

The last listed here seems especially pertinent given the digital world we are entering as librarians, archivists, and visual communicators. Full article can be found here.

I’d be interested to hear what you have to say. Do you think the advice (as it is) written in this article relevant to what we want/hope to one day do in our professions? What parts of the advice would you change? Would you add? Or deem not relevant?

Second link tonight comes from the blog Dark Roasted Blend, (if you’re not reading this feed, I highly recommend it), in the form of Astronomical Clocks.

Article gives a brief overview of the history of the clocks and time herself, with some gorgeous photos as well. Given that these are the original clocks, including some from the Medieval periods, all are in very excellent condition.

Also, not from my Google Reader, but another “oh, look! Pretty!” link -

MassArt has a collection of artist’s books, portions of the collection being viewable to students and individuals.

No word on hours or times to view, but two numbers are listed on the bottom of the page. I’m particularly fond of this one, I have to say.

Also, Harvard Art Museum is starting a series of lectures, the first being on “Buddha’s Hand”.

According to the website: “Each lecture will look deeply at a single work of art, inviting interpretations that probe beneath the surface. Approaching each work from multiple perspectives, we will examine the techniques, contexts, and stories that helped shape these exceptional works…”

Ticket prices are slightly steep on a student budget. $18 for a single lecture, and $90 for the whole series. (Buddha would count as single lecture). No price for student tickets, although you do save if you are a member of the museum.

More information found at the Arts Boston site.

You might have heard that it’s Banned Book Week. Making my weekly visit to my local library, the YA/Teen room had a large display just for this week: on their “highlights” shelf, was yellow police tape, with warning labels on the book.

“This book contains magic” and “this book contains swearing” or “this book has underage sexual content” (not even sex, we’re talking kissing, holding hands.)

Want a list of books banned?
Harry Potter; Twilight; And Tango Makes Three; The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging…

… the list goes on.

Why? Because they dare to be different. With the exception of the Twilight series, I’ve read all those books listed, and nothing in them deserves to be banned, to be pulled from the shelves, to be told they can’t be read.

So, what do you think? There were two articles, the Wall Street Journal against, and Joan E. Bertrin of Huffington Post for.

But I want to know what you think? Given recent events such as Cushing Academy, of living in a world where we might not be able to read that one particular book because (good heavens!) it might have a boy kissing a boy, where does that leave us? As future librarians?

Are we living a world where one day our job will be to catalog the Banned Book Week’s art posters as relics?

What is your opinion? Which side are you on?

//steps off her soapbox.
(Regular scheduled program will return next week. Meantime, have video.