Jin Soo Kim: roll – run – hit – run – roll – tick –
(August 25 – October 6, 2005)

Jin Soo Kim’s roll – run – hit – run – roll – tick – is an installation that emphasizes the physical and psychological nature of travel, experience and memory, and is, in part, a continuation of two prior works: her tracks from 1999 and her 2001 piece, roll – run – hit – run – roll.  This intriguing exhibition consists of eight 10-inch by 8-inch by 102-inch fabricated steel tunnels that emit layered sounds of ticking clocks, breaking light bulbs and clanging plates from railroad tracks – sounds that are quiet and seemingly hidden, yet discernable.  This installation illustrates Kim’s interest in addressing themes serially, often repeating and reinventing portions of past installations to create works of art that both exist in the present and reference the past.  As the title roll – run – hit – run – roll – tick – suggests, with its final hanging hyphen, this project may indeed enjoy additional reincarnations in Kim’s work.
   
Along with Kim’s own work, a selection of sculptures from Vanderbilt’s permanent collection will also be on display, all specifically chosen by the artist to be shown as an integral component of her own installation.  Using the human form as the initial criterion for selection, Kim intends to “play” the works from Vanderbilt’s collection off her work of art.  By choosing discrete works from the history of both Eastern and Western art, Kim will attempt to illustrate inherent connections that often link the world’s cultures and time periods.

Jin Soo Kim (b. 1950) American roll – run – hit – run – roll – tick - , 2002-2004 Steel tunnels and audio components 8 tunnels, each 10” x 8” x 102” Northern Illinois University Art Museum Gallery in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Photo: Tom Van Eynde

[Organized by Northern Illinois University Art Museum]

Misleading Trails- Ai Weiwei, Xiaoze Xie, Hong Hao, Vernon Fisher, Enrique Chagoya, Dan Mills, Hai Bo
(October 13 – December 9, 2005)

At first glance, the work of this group of artists from China and the United States is misleading; it appears simply to be about the depicted subjects. Closer viewing reveals complex and layered meanings, sincere and subversive strategies, biting humor and very serious intent, veneration and critique. In visually and intellectually compelling work that investigates history, art, and cultural and personal experience, Ai, Chagoya, Fisher, Hai, Hong, Mills and Xie create provocative art filled with layered images and information, leading the viewer away from their initial response, and down numerous trails full of unexpected discoveries. After opening at the China Art Archives and Warehouse in Beijing, China in 2004, the Vanderbilt University presentation is part of a national tour, traveling throughout the United States in 2005 - 06.

	Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) Chinese Crossed Table, 2000 Qing dynasty (1644-1911) Wood 50” x 70” x 70” Private Collection
	Enrique Chagoya (b. 1953) American Road Map (Plane), 2003 Acrylic on amate paper 36” x 47” Courtesy of the artist and George Adams Gallery, New York
	Vernon Fisher (b. 1943) American Perdido en el Mar, 1989 Lithograph, edition of 50 34-1/2” x 39” Courtesy of the artist and Charles Cowles Gallery, New York
	Hong Hao (b. 1965) Chinese My Things No. 8, 2003 Color photograph 25-1/4” x 39-3/8” Courtesy of the artist and Chambers Fine Art, New York
	Xiaoze Xie (b. 1966) Chinese December 2001, L.T., 2002 Oil on canvas 42” x 75” Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn, Los Angeles
	Hai Bo (b. 1962) Chinese Without Title No. 50 (Elder), 2004 Black and white photograph 19-5/8” x 19-5/8” Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
	Dan Mills (b. 1956) American His World View, 2004 Acrylic and collage on paper 42” x 72-3/4” Courtesy of the artist and Printworks Gallery, Chicago

[Organized by the artists, China Art Archives and Warehouse in Beijing, China and the Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University]

Thicker Than Water: Recent Works by Hanh Ho, The 2004 Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award Winner Exhibition
(January 12 – February 2, 2006)

This exhibition will feature new work by Hanh Ho, the 2004 Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award winner. The Hamblet Award winner is selected by a panel of outside jurors from an open invitational for graduating seniors held each spring. The award, a $19,000 grant to be used for travel and study during the year following graduation, culminates in this exhibition. In her artist’s statement, Ho articulates the plan for her Hamblet year: “Last year, I elected to study in Italy to hunt down the ancestors of my artistic lineage, and now I want to visit Asia to discover a more literal heritage. In the same vein that I believe artists have to know art history before they proceed with their creative processes, I have to know my personal history before I can continue my life’s future…In the future, I won’t necessarily make feminist or race-related art, but I have to accept my race and sex as a part of my identity the same way I accept that art is a part of who I am.”

Hanh Ho (b. 1980) American Elevator 3, 2005 Digital photograph 40” x 30” Courtesy the artist

[Organized/curated by Joseph Mella, Director, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery]

Three Paths to Abstraction: Herbert, Leland, and Mode
(February 9 – March 16, 2006)

In his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), Wassily Kandinsky argued that color, along with other formal elements, such as line and shape, is a language that communicates to all—a language that is comparable to sounds and their evocative capacity. Though Kandinsky’s argument was radical by early twentieth-century standards, the survival of abstraction as a viable mode of visual communication affirms its universality.

As the centennial anniversary of abstraction (especially, non-objective painting) approaches, the celebration—and exhibition—of this mode of expression is appropriate.  Three Tennessee artists who have demonstrated a life-long commitment to non-representational work will participate in Three Paths to Abstraction—Whitney Leland (Knoxville), Carol Mode (Nashville), and Pinkney Herbert (Memphis).

Utilizing a fluid, gestural approach, Whitney Leland creates spatial arrangements of brightly colored, overlapping forms that simultaneously elicit a sense of chaotic rhythm and organic order.  Exploring the properties of space in nature, Carol Mode layers seemingly familiar shapes and forms, creating planes—or topographies—that reference a specific time and place in her life. Recently, Mode’s work reflects influences that include astronomy, weather, the often unseen worlds found beneath the ocean, and to water itself.  Drawing from his own memories and referencing world events, Pinkney Herbert investigates both the destructive and transformative qualities of fire with bold, expressive lines and intense, evocative colors.

	Pinkney Herbert (b. 1954) American Fire Flower, 2005 Oil on canvas 36” x 25-1/2” Courtesy the artist
	Carol Mode (b. 1943) American Micro Climate 2, 2004 Acrylic on panel 15-7/8” x 15-7/8” Courtesy the artist
	Whitney Leland American 2003 IV, 2003 Acrylic on canvas 80” x 50” Courtesy the artist

[Organized by Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery in conjunction with The Ewing Art Gallery, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.]

Roy Villevoye: Propeller
(March 23 – May 12, 2006)

Since the mid-1990s, the Dutch artist Roy Villevoye has been working with photography, installation, and video in the Asmat, a virtually impassable swampy region along the southern coast of Irian Jaya (New Guinea), in Indonesia.

The exhibition includes large-format photographs, an artist’s book, and two films: Beginnings (2005) and Propeller (2004). In both films, Villevoye replicates the passage of real time and avoids artificial conventions such as voice-overs or linear progression. Beginnings (recipient, 2006 Tiger Award for Short Film, Rotterdam International Film Festival) explores our concept of origins and our desire for paradise, or our wish to recover an idealized existence. In Propeller, Villevoye unravels the history of an aircraft propeller found in the depths of the jungle by interviewing an Asmat elder, the Dutch pilot, and others. Like his films, Villevoye’s photographs reveal a cross-cultural ambiguity reflected, for example, by Papuans wearing t-shirts with commercial logos and political messages. These images confront the viewers’ expectations, and invite us to look again at our assumptions about both native populations and our own commercial society.

To hear a discussion with the artist about the work in this exhibition, click here.

Roy Villevoye (b. 1960) Dutch The Fifth Man, 2003 Chromogenic print 40” x 60” Courtesy the artist

[Organized by De Hallen (Frans Hals Museum), Haarlem, The Netherlands]