NEWS RELEASE

10/11/02

CONTACT: Sylvia Wohlmut, Department of Art and Art History: (650) 725-0143, sspw@stanford.edu

John Sanford, News Service: (650) 736-2151, jsanford@stanford.edu

Recent work by art faculty on view in T. W. Stanford Gallery

The Enlightened Cannibal provides a healthy serving of subversive burlesque.

Enrique Chagoya's installation features cans of "Cannibull's" condensed soup, which bear an unmistakable likeness to the Campbell's brand, stacked in a pyramid just inside the main entrance to the T. W. Stanford Art Gallery, where recent works by Department of Art and Art History faculty are on view through Dec. 2.

A collaboration between Chagoya and Trillium Press (which printed the labels), the cans advertise such mouthwatering concoctions as "Artist's Brains with Rice," "Cream of Dealer," "Critic's Tongue" and "Museum Director's Tripe." It's Andy Warhol with bite.

A walk-through of the faculty exhibition, Synchronism, is scheduled from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, followed by a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

In the corner of the gallery, electronic bleeps and whistles emanate from the interior of a small enclosure, where, in the darkness, visitors can contemplate Moondust Memories, a playful homage to Jaron Lanier's seminal video game Moondust (1982). Created by Paul DeMarinis, the installation features two small robotic vehicles that appear to move randomly around a shallow, dust-filled pit and leave glowing green tracks in their wake.

Matthew Kahn's sculpture-like paintings reflect light and color from hidden surfaces. A self-described "unrepentant modernist," Kahn says, "My painting is concerned with content, translated into essential visual language that is more akin to music than to literature."

David Hannah's protoPOUND.1 and protoPOUND.2 are prototypes for a series of works based on book covers -- in this case, the cover of a paperback of poems by Ezra Pound. The large-scale images appear as thought reflected in a mirror -- a slightly uncomfortable deviation that, if Pound were still alive, he surely would love.

Richard Randell is working on a project that involves the digital animation of traditional children's stories from northern Kenya's Samburu tribes. The video installation features an example of a preliminary storyboard Randell did while on safari there.

Joel Leivick presents black-and-white digital and gelatin-silver photographs -- in subtle but dynamic contrast -- of the landscape around the southern Italian town of Matera.

Kristina Branch again presents artistic renditions of men at work, this time in monotype. "I am interested in the gestures of the men, their relationships to each other and the things that populate their world -- buckets, wheelbarrows, trucks and tools," Branch explains. Unlike the paintings and drawings exhibited earlier this year at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, the monotypes were developed from memory rather than direct observation.

The gallery is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call (650) 723-3788.

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By John Sanford