Registration Going On Now For VSW Fall Evening And Weekend Workshops

Visual Studies Workshop is offering 15 exciting new workshops for Fall! Weekend, one-day and short-term evening workshops in Photography, Artist Books, Web Design, Video, 16mm Film and much more will be taught by local artists and instructors.

The City Paper on "State of the City"

Rebecca Rafferty, writing in the City Newspaper, takes the occasion of reviewing The Rochester Contemporary Art Center's annual "State of the City" show to contextualize the not entirely recent re-framing of the debate around street art.

Mark Your Calanders for "Tokyo Sonata" and "The Limits of Control"

The Dryden Theater is going to be showing the latest film from Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa, "Tokyo Sonata," on the 4th and then again on the 6th of September. This movie picked up a lot of buzz at the last NY Film Festival and Cannes, and marks a significant departure from the landscape of the psychological and horrifying for which the director has become known, to the more Ozu-like territory of the everyday dramas of families.



Also, if you are interested in seeing Jim Jarmusch's latest movie, a kind of surrealist meditation on narrativity, you may want to catch "The Limits of Control" on the 5th or the 6th.

"State of the City" going on until Sept. 20th

Make sure you head over to the Rochester Contemporary Art Center before the 20th of next month for their State of the City exhibit.

August 7 - September 20, 2009
Opening Reception: August 7, 6-10pm     
Artist Talk: August 8, @ 1pm
Film Screening of Style Wars: September 13, @ 1pm

ARTISANworks and the George Eastman House to present the photography of Nathan Lyons

News from ARTISANworks:

On Thursday, September 10, and Friday, September 11, ARTISANworks and The George Eastman House will present the photography of Nathan Lyons as part of their annual lecture and exhibit series. In memoriam to the harrowing incidents of September 11, 2001, Lyons’ series, After 9/11, was developed in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center.

On September 10, in a lecture at the George Eastman House, he will present a preview of an entirely new body of work entitled Return Your Mind to its Upright Position at 5 p.m. in the Dryden Theatre.

On September 11, ARTISANworks will host the opening reception for After 9/11 from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. These events are open to the public and free to ARTISANworks and Eastman House members.

After 9/11

In response to the tragic events of September 11, photographer Nathan Lyons, known for his direct and often questioning observations of American culture, has created a poignant body of images. Photographing in small towns and large cities, Lyons has keenly observed the extreme variety of responses – from deep reverence to blatant commercialization - displayed by average Americans.

The provocative sequence of images, often loaded with multiple messages, is powerfully coherent and strangely disturbing. The edited sequence of photographs will both engage audiences to question their responses to this horrific event in the context of our complicated society and memorialize the loss of so many innocent lives.

Return Your Mind to its Upright Position

This current project represents a continuation of an ongoing investigation of the complexity of American culture. It began in the early 1960’s with the publication of Notations in Passing and was followed by Riding 1st Class on the Titanic, in 2000, and After 9/11 in 2003. This extended sequence of photographs has been developed over a period of almost fifty years and traces at one level a selective social history of America through this period and also sustains a broader historic overview of our layered past. Lyons will discuss his working method and the structural considerations used in developing an extended sequence of images.