News and Media

Published: Oct 29, 2009

SAVANNAH, Ga.–The Savannah College of Art and Design showcases the School of Fine Arts with the inaugural deFINE ART festival. The mission of deFINE ART is to establish an annual fall festival highlighting the School of Fine Arts on par with the nationally recognized spring SCAD Style festival. deFINE ART seeks to celebrate the achievements and outstanding caliber of SCAD’s School of Fine Arts that is actively shaping and giving rise to new artistic expression, dialogue and innovation. Highlighted disciplines include painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics.

deFINE ART brings a broad range of noted art professionals, alumni and special guests to SCAD with the highly-anticipated Open Studios as the festival anchor. Nick Cave, Marilyn Minter, Trenton Doyle Hancock and Richard Vine are just a few of the acclaimed artists and professionals who will be performing, lecturing and exhibiting in Atlanta and Savannah at this year’s festival, Nov. 10-14.

Savannah Calendar

Tuesday, Nov. 10

Marilyn Minter Lecture, Trustees Theater, 216 E. Broughton St., 7 p.m.
Famed artist Marilyn Minter seems to be the name on everyone’s lips these days. Madonna bought the artist’s “Green Pink Caviar” video as a backdrop for her “Sticky and Sweet” tour and MAC enlisted her to create works using the cosmetic firm’s fall pigments. Minter has also collaborated with artist Wangechi Mutu in a series of photographs depicting Mutu as a sensual golden goddess, and actress Pamela Anderson became her muse for the centerfold of the Swiss art magazine Parkett. Minter also lent a film still of her now hallmark luscious pink lips with a protruding golden tongue for an exclusive tote bag available at Intermix, with proceeds going toward the breast and ovarian cancer nonprofit group Bright Pink.

Marilyn Minter was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and currently lives and works in New York City. Minter has had a long established career that cuts across commercial and gallery work. The artist has stated that her early sources of inspiration were fashion models and “women with jobs,” who, in her 1950s southern world, only existed in comic books and magazines. Minter has had numerous solo exhibitions around the world at such venues as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Salon 94, New York, among many others. Her work has also been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Miami Art Museum, Miami; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and was also was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. The artist earned a B.F.A. from the University of Florida and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University.

Wednesday, Nov. 11

Trenton Doyle Hancock Lecture: “Bananas for Savannahs,”
Arnold Hall auditorium, 1810 Bull St., 7 p.m.
Revered as one of the leading artists of his generation, Trenton Doyle Hancock will present a lecture providing a performative overview of his practice spanning prints, drawings and collaged felt paintings that together tell the story of the Mounds—a group of his imaginative mythical creatures. Influenced by the history of painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, Hancock transforms traditionally formal considerations—such as the use of color, language and pattern—into opportunities to create new characters, develop subplots, and convey symbolic meaning. Hancock earned a B.F.A. from Texas A&M University, Commerce, Texas, and an M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia. He is represented by the James Cohan Gallery, New York.

Thursday, Nov. 12

Richard Vine Lecture: “New China, New Art,” Arnold Hall auditorium, 1810 Bull St., 7 p.m.
Richard Vine is a senior editor at Art in America magazine. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Chicago and has served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review and of Dialogue: An Art Journal. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the New School for Social Research, New York University, and other institutions in the U.S. and abroad. His articles on art, literature and intellectual history have appeared in numerous journals, including Salmagundi, the Georgia Review, Tema Celeste, Modern Poetry Studies, and The New Criterion.  Vine will speak about his most recent book, “New China, New Art” (Prestel, 2008), which covers avant-garde art in China from 1979 to the present.

Friday, Nov. 13

Creative Panel: “The New Art Economy,” River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 1 p.m.
Featuring noted gallery executives Lea Freid (partner, Lombard-Freid, New York), Mark Hughes (director, Galerie Lelong, New York)  and Marcia Wood (executive director and owner, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta).  Moderated by Steve Bliss, dean of the School of Fine Arts, this panel will address the necessary shifts and changes taking place in the commercial art world in the face of challenges posed by the new economy.

Creative Panel: “The Big Apple Hustle,” River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 3 p.m.
Featuring SCAD alumnus Michael Scoggins and emerging New York-based artists Mark Barrow and Sarah Parke, and David Ellis. Moderated by exhibitions coordinator Matthew Mascotte, this panel will discuss the strategies and practices they employ as emerging artists in New York City.

Nene Humphrey Exhibition, Performance and Gallery Talk: “Circling the Center,” Pinnacle Gallery, 320 E. Liberty St., 7 p.m.
“Circling the Center” uses the drum circle, one of the oldest forms of human communication, the craft of Victorian mourning braiding, and the sounds generated during the fabrication process as its conceptual underpinnings and physical structure. The exhibition showcases individual weavings made in the gallery by Humphrey, students, faculty and alumni that, combined, create a central structure of woven wire elements.

Humphrey earned an M.F.A. degree from York University in Toronto and an M.A. degree from Goddard College in Boston, Massachusetts. She has taught at New York University, University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the University of Connecticut. Her work is included in the permanent collections of art centers including the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana, Cuba; The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta; and the Ogden Museum at the University of New Orleans.

Saturday, Nov. 14

Open Studio Night, Alexander Hall, 668 Indian St., and River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 5-8 p.m.
Open Studio Night features original works by SCAD students, faculty and alumni. The event showcases the best of SCAD painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics. Artworks are available for purchase. Guests are invited to visit the college's studio spaces and experience hands-on demonstrations from students.

Projection and Motion Paintings, David Ellis, Adler Hall parking lot, 532 Indian St., 6-8 p.m.

Nick Cave, Hamilton Hall parking lot, 522 Indian St., 8-9 p.m.
Nick Cave is one of the most internationally acclaimed and sought after artists working today.  Cave held a solo exhibition “Cosmic Couturier” in Spring 2009 at SCAD’s Pinnacle Gallery in Savannah, which featured newly created Soundsuits and tondos by the artist, performer and designer. Suggestive of ceremonial garments, costume, haute couture and superhero disguise, Cave’s Soundsuits, or performative wearable sculptures, are intricately ornamented with reclaimed fabric and found objects selected for their symbolism and auditory function. Densely layered in material and meaning, Cave’s otherworldly creations will be performed by Cave, SCAD students and community members as part of the deFINE ART festival in what Cave is calling a spoken word, dance, DJ music extravaganza.

He has been the celebrated recipient of solo exhibitions at such prestigious venues as Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2008); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (currently); and Studio La Citta, Verona, Italy (forthcoming 2010), to name only a few. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery, New York; Ruben Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (check title of this venue), Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; The UBS Art Gallery, New York; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; American Craft Museum, New York; and The Netherlands Textile Museum. He was the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2008); Creative Capital Grants (2004 and 2002) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2001). His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Modern Painters, The Washington Post, Artforum, The New Yorker, and others, and a recent comprehensive catalogue, “Meet Me At the Center of the Earth,” was published this year. Cave earned an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Mo.

Music:

• Unsolved Mysteries, Jon Lynn and Colin Alexander, River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 9-10 p.m.
• Helado Negro, Roberto Lange, River Club, 10-11 p.m.
• Prayer Town, Phil Ashley and Patrick Parker, River Club, 11 p.m.-midnight.

Atlanta calendar

Tuesday, Nov. 10

Trenton Doyle Hancock Lecture: “Bananas for Savannahs,” SCAD Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St., 7 p.m.


Revered as one of the leading artists of his generation, Trenton Doyle Hancock will present a lecture providing a performative overview of his practice spanning prints, drawings and collaged felt paintings that together tell the story of the Mounds—a group of his imaginative mythical creatures. Influenced by the history of painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, Hancock transforms traditionally formal considerations—such as the use of color, language and pattern—into opportunities to create new characters, develop subplots, and convey symbolic meaning. Hancock earned a B.F.A. from Texas A&M University, Commerce, Texas, and an M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia. He is represented by the James Cohan Gallery, New York.

Thursday, Nov. 12

“Spatial Relations: Recent Editions from Pace Prints,” SCAD Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St., 2 p.m.
A public discussion between SCAD Printmaking Chair Robert Brown and Pace Prints Director Jeremy Dine.

Projection and Motion Paintings by David Ellis, The Hub, SCAD Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St., 6-8 p.m.

Open Studio Night, Fifth floor, Building C, SCAD Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St., 7-9 p.m.
Open Studio Night features original works by SCAD students, faculty and alumni. The event showcases the best of SCAD painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. Artwork on exhibit is available for purchase. Guests are invited to visit the college's studio spaces and experience hands-on demonstrations from students.

Media inquiries may be directed to 404.253.3410.