Department/UCR News and Events

Welcome from the Chair

As I hope will be apparent from the other parts of this website, the Department of the History of Art at UC Riverside is a lively place to be and offers something highly distinctive to potential students at both graduate and undergraduate level. To undergraduates we offer courses dealing with a wide range of world art - from Renaissance sculpture to photography and landscape in 20th century America, and from the architecture of colonial Latin America to German painting around 1900. To graduate students we offer a well-established MA program that provides a thorough training in a range of art historical methodologies so equipping students to proceed to some of the best PhD programs.

These activities, achievements and plans all stem from the varied and distinguished faculty that has expanded considerably over the past two years. The interests of this group of scholars give the department an unusual profile. While most of the expected areas of the discipline are represented - you will not look in vain if you to study either medieval pilgrimage churches or the relationship between art and language in the 1970s - our faculty also is exceptionally well equipped to work with students interested in the less familiar histories of sculpture, architecture and photography.

During the coming year we shall be developing several new collaborative initiatives. One, involving a series of workshops over three years, is with the University of Warwick, in the UK, whose History of Art faculty have interests which mesh well with ours. Another, closer to home, concerns the display and viewing of sculpture, using the rich resources of Special Collections at the Getty Research Institute. In addition, an Early Modern Studies group, spanning Europe, Asia and Latin America, will be running a workshop with colleagues at Caltech. Not least, we are delighted to welcome to the faculty our new colleague, Dr Susan Laxton, a specialist in the history of photography, who will be joining us in fall 2010, after a year at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton.

Please be sure to explore all the different parts of our website and find out what is happening in History of Art at UCR.

Malcolm Baker
Chair

 

 

NEWS

University of California Riverside has been ranked as 16th most effective American research university by Washington Monthly magazine.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/toc_2009.php

 

Statement from the Department of the History of Art, UC Riverside, about the UC Day of Action

September 23, 2009

The faculty of the History of Art Department of the University of California, Riverside has voted unanimously to endorse the UC System Day of Action on September 24, 2009. We resolve to support it as we each consider is consistent with our commitment to our students.

We together endorse the key demands of the Day of Action:

  1. the preservation of access to affordable public education
  2. the protection of employees who earn the least
  3. the restoration of transparency and shared governance in the UC system

We protest against the erosion of public higher education accessible to all Californians.  We also reject attempts to play faculty, students and staff against each other and question the assumptions on which the administration’s budget is based.  United with our colleagues across California, we call for the restoration of the Master Plan for Higher Education, for full funding for public education, and for real and effective advocacy for the University of California from our highest officials.

On behalf of the faculty of the department,

Malcolm Baker
Distinguished Professor and Chair
History of Art Department
University of California, Riverside

 

Wong Endowment in Asian Art

Completion on the new website for the Wong Endowment in Asian Art is available at http://vrc.ucr.edu/wongsite/index.html. This vehicle providing information about Asian art, culture and local history is made possible by the Voy & Faye Wong Asian Art Resource and stimulates interest and research in artistic topics of Asian culture. Resources include the availability of 5,000 high quality digital images of works from the permanent collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.

 

LECTURES AND EVENTS

  • Animal Scores: a dance performance
    November 5, 2009
    UCR Sweeney Art Gallery, First Thursday ArtsWalk
    6-9pm
  • A CONVERSATION BETWEEN COLIN WESTERBECK AND GRAHAM HOWE
    November 7, 2009
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
    2:30pm

     This conversation is being held in conjunction with our current exhibition "And Howe! Photographs by Graham Howe, 1968 - 2008." This exhibition is a wonderful time capsule - one coming right up to the present - of the culture of photography in Southern California since the 1970s, and Howe is an articulate voice speaking out of this on-going history. Most people familiar with Howe's name today know him as the CEO of Curatorial Assistance, the Pasadena company he founded in the late 1980s that creates and tours exhibitions both here and abroad. Having originally come here from his native Australia to study under legendary UCLA photography teacher Robert Heinecken, Howe had been a photographer for 20 years before starting Curatorial Assistance. He quit exhibiting and publishing his photography in the late 80s only because he felt it would be a conflict of interest for him to be a working artist and an influential curator at the same time. But he didn't stop making photographs. Now, 20 years later, he has been persuaded to come out of the shadows of the past and bring us up to date again on his photography. I feel that there's an extraordinary continuity here that has permitted the work to remain what art often is at its best—spontaneous, playful, carefree. Howe has preserved throughout all of the 40 years he has been photographing the irreverent wit and freshness of view that an artist too often begins to lose after the first flush of success.
  • Curatorial Walk-Through
    November 14, 2009
    UCR Sweeney Art Gallery
    Walk-Thru begins at 12pm

 

EXHIBITIONS

  • YO! Youth Media Showcase 2009
    Celebrates stories, photography, and graphic design by IE youth
    September 3 - October 30, 2009
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
  • Off the Grid & (-Americans)
    Keliy Anderson-Staley
    October 1, 2009 - November 27, 2009
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
  • Intelligent Design: Interspecies Art
    September 5, 2009 - February 6, 2009
    UCR Sweeney Art Gallery
  • And Howe!: Photographs by Graham Howe, 1967 - 2007
    September 26, 2009 - January 2, 2010
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
    Opening Reception: September 26, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Lewis Baltz: The Park City Portfolio
    September 26, 2009 - January 2, 2010
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
    Opening Reception: September 26, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Lisa Oppenheim: Open Source
    September 26, 2009 - January 2, 2010
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
    Opening Reception: September 26, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Smoke and Mirrors: The Magic of the Autochrome
    September 26, 2009 - January 2, 2010
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
    Opening Reception: September 26, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • The End of Film: The Brief History of Digital Cameras 1987-2009
    October 15, 2009 - January 30, 2010
    UCR/California Museum of Photography
  • Arts Walk
    November 5, 2009
    Art Block
    Downtown Riverside, CA
    The First Thursday of Every Month from 6:00-9:00 pm

    The Riverside Arts Walk on First Thursdays presents over twenty participating arts venues, art museums, galleries, and studios open free to the public every month. These participating locations present an eclectic mix of visual art mediums and styles, in addition to special art/musical performances, exhibitions, tours, and art-making demonstrations.

    Local restaurants and retail establishments along the Arts Walk also offer special menus and discounts. For more information, call the Riverside Downtown Partnership at 951-781-7335 or visit www.riversidedowntown.org.

    Attendees may begin their walk at any participating sites or get started at one of the two coordinating sites: the Riverside Art Museum (3425 Mission Inn Ave.) or the Riverside Community Arts Association (3870 Lemon St.). Some of the other participating sites are: UCR/California Museum of Photography, Riverside Municipal Museum, Mission Inn Museum, and the Riverside Public Library, Division 9 Gallery, Riverside Visitor's Center, People's Gallery, Back to the Grind, and Exposures Photo Gallery.

    For more information on this event and the evening's schedule of special tours and performances, please contact the Riverside Art Museum at 951-684-7111 or visit the www.riversideartscouncil.org for a listing of current events.

 

For a complete and up-to-date listing of all UCR campus events and activities, please consult the UCR campus calendar.
http://www.ucr.edu/happenings/

 

UCR Homepage