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Emilie
Brzezinksi: New Directions
June
28 – Sunday, Sept. 7, 2003
OPENING
RECEPTION
Saturday, June 28, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Public welcome
Since
the mid-1980s Emilie Brzezinski has carved sculptural forms from
felled trees, which she brings to her studio in McLean, Va. Using
a variety of tools — chainsaws, chisels, chains and ropes —
she sculpts enormous pieces of wood, uncovering their essential
forms. Often retaining the vertical structure of the original, she
shows her own marks on the wood, emphasizing the importance of the
process as much as the product.
Brzezinski
usually works in series, creating environments with her art that
simulate gigantic forests. She also has created chairs and bowls,
many enormous in scale, as well as hanging bark forms that evoke
the human body.
Brzezinski’s
art takes on both metaphoric (the tree as life experience) and anthropomorphic
(the tree as human) meanings. The emergence of a form within the
wood is a natural, and at times arduous, process for her. "Emilie
Brzezinski: New Directions" will feature a selection of the
artist’s chairs, bowls and hanging forms, as well as new pieces.
The
physicality, scale and beauty of Brzezinski’s work, as well
as its multiple meanings, invite collaborations with other art forms.
As part of the exhibition the museum has invited Brzezinski to work
with Judith Shatin, an internationally known composer and member
of the University music faculty, to create a related musical piece.
This effort received partial support from the Virginia Commission
for the Arts.
An illustrated
catalog, with an essay by the art historian Aneta Shine, accompanies
the exhibit.
The
exhibit is sponsored by the Rosenstiel Foundation and the University
of Virginia Arts Council.
Photo
available. Contact Jane Ford at (434) 924-4298 or jford@virginia.edu.
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Tree
Music
Judith Shatin’s Tree Music, an interactive installation
piece commissioned by the University Art Museum with assistance
from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, accompanies the exhibition
of Emilie Brzezinski’s sculpture that runs from June 28 through
September 7.
Shatin
composed Tree Music from recordings she made of Ms. Brzezinski
sculpting tree trunks, creating a musical embodiment of that process.
The musical results range from foot-tapping rhythms to cosmic
singing. Shatin, who directs the Virginia Center for Computer
Music in the University’s McIntire Department of Music, is
the first to use GAIA (Graphical Audio Interface Application)
created by David Topper, technical director of the VCCM.
Here, the program translates density and motion of those attending
the exhibition into signals that change certain elements of the
music, creating an experience that is always evolving, yet creates
a web of interconnections. Internationally known for her dramatic
acoustic pieces and imaginative computer music, Shatin is currently
William R. Kenan, Jr. professor of music at U. Va. Topper’s
work, frequently presented in international forums, currently
focuses on interactive media, new synthesis techniques, sound
spatialization and development of the open source computer music
program Rtcmix.
The
museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is
free. Limited parking is available behind the museum. The museum
is handicap accessible. For details about the exhibit and information
about the museum, call (434) 924-3592.
Click
here for additional
information on visiting the Museum.
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