the Cressman Center for the visual art
Cressman Center Gallery
100 East Main Street
Phone: 502.852.0288
JOHN RANARD MEMORIAL EXHIBITION
First Friday Trolley Hop - June 5, 6 - 9 p.m.
Exhibition Date: Friday, June 5 - Saturday, July 11
Former Louisville photographer, John Ranard passed away in 2008 leaving an extensive body of work, including numerous series of street photography that transcend journalism and become an exquisite representation and expression of shared humanity.
The Hite Art Institute’s Cressman Center for Visual Art is presenting a memorial exhibition for John Ranard opening Friday, June 5 and continuing through Saturday, July 11, as one of its exhibitions in the 2009 Louisville Visual Arts Festival.
Ranard came to Louisville in the late 1970’s to attend the Center for Photographic Studies, and became engaged in the Louisville community after school through his work with a number of Louisville publications including City Papers and Louisville Today. His own freelance and exhibition work with institutions such as the Portland Museum and what today is the Louisville Visual Art Association also added to his reputation as one of Louisville’s most active and original photographers. Initiated as a curatorial seminar group project in response to the Visual Arts Festival call for a thematic focus on the impact of the Center for Photographic Studies, examination of Ranard’s work (which previously was shown at U of L’s Hite galleries in 2001) revealed that the totality of his oeuvre is most impressive in its breadth, consistency and mystical, emotive impact.
His boxing photographs attracted the attention of author Joyce Carol Oates and many of his photographs from a series he titled the Brutal Aesthetic were published in her classic book On Boxing. He later moved to New York’s East Village and then onto Moscow where he completed another acclaimed series of photographs about HIV in post-Soviet Russia.
Numerous other topics of everyday life from river tugs to street front churches attracted his camera, and his easy-going and sympathetic personality allowed him access to images that are extraordinary for their candid honesty.
"He had a very unusual eye," said Merry Esparza, a New York art director who accompanied Mr. Ranard on some of his photographic outings. "He just had a way of making people comfortable. People were flattered that he wanted to take their picture." (Obituary - Washington Post, Matt Schudel, Staff Writer, Monday, June 16, 2008; Page B04)
His simple, straightforward technique, sensitivity to unique situations and never-without-his-camera work ethic allowed him a ubiquitous presence that makes his photography such an intimate experience that the viewer becomes an almost conversational insider (sometimes not a too comfortable one) with the subjects of his photographs.
This memorial exhibition is a tribute to a special photographer, a distinguished “alumni” of the Center for Photographic Studies.
For further information, contact either John Begley at 852-4483 or Bruce Linn at 852-0288 or the Hite Art Institute’s website: http://art.louisville.edu. Or by going to http://www.johnranard.com.
Exhibition Schedule Spring 09
BOB DOUGLAS
Paintings and Sculptures
April 15 - May 16, 2009
Exhibition Reception: Wednesday April 15, 2009, 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Co-sponsored by The Departments of Pan-African Studies and Fine Arts: celebrating the life and work of 25 years of Professor Emeritus, Bob Douglas.
Invited Presentation by Haki R. Madhubuti “In My Lifetime: A Poet’s Reflection on Barack Obama, Young People and the Power of Art:” 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Insomnia: Ceramic Sculpture
MA Exhibition: Gayle Cerlan
April 3 - 11, 2009
Reception: Friday, April 3, 6 - 9 p.m.
Cressman Center for Visual Arts, 1st and Main Streets
JOHN KINGERLEE
JOHN KINGERLEE: Touring Exhibition | Paintings & Drawings
1/16 - 2/28 | Cressman Center Galleries
Lecture on Artist John Kingerlee
Speaker: Dominique Nahas, New York critic and curator
Thursday, February 19, 2009 • Lecture: 6 p.m.
Cressman Center for Visual Arts, 1st and Main Streets
Visiting Artist Lecture
Designing for Understanding
Joel Katz
Co-sponsor LGDA
Thursday, February 26, 2009 • Reception: 6 p.m.; Lecture: 7 p.m.
Cressman Center for Visual Arts, 1st and Main Streets
Seeing Strength, Seeing Power
MA Thesis Exhibition: Denise Furnish, Zhanna Goldentul & Albert Webb
March 6 - 28, 2009
Cressman Center Galleries
Reception: Friday, March 6, 6 - 9 p.m.
Visiting Artist in Printmaking
Larry Schuh
Thursday March 12, 2009
Cressman Center Galleries
Lecture: Thursday, March 12, 8 p.m.
Exhibition Schedule Fall 08
JOYCE OGDEN : [de]hydration
sculpture exhibition
8/14 - 9/20
Cressman Center Galleries
Reception:
Friday, September 5, 2008 • 6-9 pm
FIVE FROM FOUR
International Calligraphy Invitational
Monica Dengo (Arezzo, Italy), Laurie Doctor (Louisville)
Maya Huber (Darmstadt, Germany)
Yves Leterme (Bruges, Belgium)
and Steven Skaggs (Louisville)
9/25 - 11/1
Cressman Center Galleries
Reception: Friday, October 3 • 5:30-7:30pm
Download the 24-page exhibition catalogue [pdf 11MB]
The Art of Experience
Fluxus Works from the Klosterman/Lowe Collection
Exhibition Date: 11/7 - 1/3
Reception: Friday, November 7, 2008 6–9 pm
Download Printable Flyer [pdf]
Sutherland Endowed Chair in Glass
The Sutherland Endowed Chair in Glass Arts brings some of the world’s most important artists working in glass to the University of Louisville each year. Made possible by the generosity of the Sutherland Foundation and a matching grant by the Commonwealth Research Challenge Trust Fund, the Sutherland Chair hosts artists exploring all aspects of contemporary glass. We are pleased to be able to share these artists’ work and their unique insights with the Louisville arts community through demonstrations and lectures open to the public.
All events will be at the
Cressman Center for Visual Arts
100 East Main St, Downtown
502-852-0288
October: Hot Glass Event
Jessica Julius and Erica Rosenfeld —
Burnt Asphalt
Oct 8, 6:30 pm
November: Glassblowing Demonstration
Nancy Callan
Nov 22, 1 pm
December: Demonstration
Richard Jolley
Dec 2, 6:30 pm
Download flyer of Sutherland Glass Lectures [pdf]
Mission
The Department of Fine Arts and the Hite Art Institute are committed to furthering the mission of the University of Louisville to become a preeminent urban research university through the establishment of a visual arts center in downtown Louisville. The opening in November, 2006 of the Cressman Center for Visual Arts located at the corner of First and Main Streets in the heart of downtown is the first step in this process. The Cressman Center will expand the department's studio art and exhibition programs and provide an educational focus for the visual arts within the urban center of the city. Covering 12,000 square feet, the Cressman Center is the home of the department's glass program featuring a hotshop and cold working studios, sculpture studios and shops, seminar room and galleries.
The mission of the Cressman Center for Visual Arts is to educate, engage and excite the community through the visual arts. The Center will function as a space where practice and theory; artists and the public intersect. The Cressman Center will accomplish its mission to ...
• educate our students and the public by providing an educational focus for the visual arts within the urban center of the city. A downtown university-run visual art center will forge a connection between the public and the University through the visual arts. This space will expand the University's outreach; attracting visitors, creating new audiences, and recruiting prospective students from the region and nationally.
• engage our students and the public by expanding the University's studio art capabilities. The Cressman Center adds much needed space for its studio arts program and in particular programs in 3-D studios, including the areas of glass and sculpture. The Cressman Center, with its open design, will engage students and allow them to work in a truly interdisciplinary manner exploring a variety of sculptural media.
• excite our students and the public by creating a unique environment for interactive fine arts experiences. Visitors will be able to see faculty and students at work in various sculptural media in open studios, and at the same time be able to view exciting exhibitions in the galleries, attend lectures and special events, and meet visiting artists and scholars — all in one space. The Cressman Center for Visual Arts will be a destination for the public where they can experience firsthand the art making process.
The Department of Fine Arts is the largest and most comprehensive art program in the state. Its active and productive faculty composed of artists and scholars form the core of scholarship and research from which the Cressman Center will build, but perhaps the most important strength that will ensure the success of the Cressman Center is the cultural wealth of the city of Louisville, and the desire of the University to make a greater contribution to the growth and well-being of the city.
The Belknap Gallery, Covi Gallery and Gallery X are on the second floor of Schneider Hall on the Belknap Campus. The Cressman Center is located in downtown Louisville on 1st and Main streets.
Image above of Cressman Center: Photograph by David Harpe.
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