FAU Announces the University Galleries 2021-22 Season

Image: Harumi Abe, Pine Island, 2018, gouache and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48." Featured in Why Shouldn't We Talk  About These Things at the Table?: A Community Based Conversation With South Florida Artists exhibition

The University Galleries in Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters has announced its 2021-22 exhibition schedule. All exhibitions are presented in the Schmidt Center Gallery and/or Ritter Art Gallery, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. Each season, the University Galleries presents a variety of public programs including traveling exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, film series, and music performances, bringing the community an opportunity to explore and interact with the visual arts. The 2021-22 season continues this tradition with another engaging lineup of programs that are free and open to the public. For more information, visit fau.edu/galleries.

The season begins with “Under the Florida Sun: South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Fellowship Exhibition” which opens on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m., and will remain on view in the Ritter Art Gallery and the Schmidt Center Gallery through Saturday, Oct. 30. Each year, the South Florida Cultural Consortium awards 12 $15,000 or $7,500 Visual and Media Arts Fellowships. Artists residing in Florida’s five southeastern counties are eligible to compete for this nationally significant individual artist award which means the “Consortium” fellowship is hotly contested each year by the region’s best visual and media artists. The exhibition presents recent work by the 12 artists awarded a 2021 fellowship and marks the seventh time since 2001 that the University Galleries have had the honor of presenting this prestigious annual contemporary art exhibition.

Following is the “Faculty Biennial,” which opens Friday, Nov. 12 at 6:30 p.m. and remains on view through Saturday, Jan. 30, 2022 in the Schmidt Center Gallery. This exhibition features the works of more than 20 FAU faculty members who simultaneously continue their practice as professional artists. Participating artists include faculty from FAU’s Department of Visual Arts and Art History, the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and the School of Architecture in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters; and the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College. The exhibition presents a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography and digital media.

“Teaching the Object: Selections from the FAU Art Collection” is on view at the Ritter Art Gallery beginning on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022 and remains on view through Saturday, March 5, 2022. In celebration of a gift of works by prominent artists including French painter Henri Matisse, and American Modernists Stuart Davis and Suzy Freylinghuysen, this exhibition acknowledges Rick Stone and Lesley Blackner who provided, in addition to their gift of 17 works of art, funding to assist the creation of FAU’s Art History Teaching Lab, being inaugurated at the same time. The Lab’s creation has also been facilitated by funds from the family of the late artist Tom DiSalvo, several of whose paintings are part of the collection and will be included in the exhibition.

While not technically a collecting institution, FAU has been gifted hundreds of works of art in all media, from multiple cultures and time periods. A selection will be on view alongside the Stone gift. FAU Art History Professor Karen J. Leader with her art history students will curate the idea of a “teaching collection” in a global context. What does it mean to articulate an art historical model that is diverse and representative? And how does having access to works of art to view up close and in person facilitate deep appreciation and rigorous interpretation? The Lab will serve as a training ground for students preparing for careers in museums, galleries, and other arts organizations.

“Why Shouldn’t We Talk About These Things At The Table?: A Community Based Conversation with South Florida Artists” is a contemporary art exhibition that presents 15 artists residing in South Florida whose work varies greatly in style and media. The exhibition looks at the American cultural tradition of not discussing politics, religion, and other challenging subjects at the table, and proposes that given our diverse family structures we should bend these rules and allow for conversations that bring together an informed and empathetic community as extended family.

The title and concept of the exhibition was inspired by conversations between curators AdrienneRose Gionta and Jeanie Ambrosio about the 1922 text by Emily Post, “Etiquette: The Blue Book for Social Usage” which provided the earliest “how-to’s” for interacting thoughtfully with others. This exhibition considers Emily Post’s dinner table guidance which states, “while politics, religion, and other potentially volatile topics aren’t really off-limits, discussing them could risk nettling your dinner companions and putting a damper on the meal.”

Today, table etiquette recommendations prevail in the form of blogs, podcasts, social media posts and news articles that are readily available via any device with a wireless connection. The persistent nature of this advice has led the curators to question why it still seems appropriate to avoid important subjects in conversation. To begin this discussion, we bring together the works of:  Harumi Abe, John William Bailly, Randy Burman, lou anne colodny, Morel Doucet, Todd Lim, Laura Marsh, Peggy Levinson Nolan, Marielle Plaisir, Sri Prabha, Sandra Ramos, Lisa Rockford, Sarah Michelle Rupert, Onajide Shabaka, Michelle Weinberg.

The 2021-2022 University Galleries, FAU Season also includes:

• Fall Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition , Ritter Art Gallery, opens Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, 6:30 pm and runs through Friday, Dec. 3, 2021.
  
  
• Fall AMPlified Exhibition , Schmidt Center Gallery Public Space, opens Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, and will remain on view through Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. The Spring AMPlified Exhibition will open in the Schmidt Center Gallery Public Space on Thursday, May 19, 2022 and will run through Saturday, June 25, 2022
  
  
• Two Free Family Art Days , Schmidt Center Gallery and Ritter Art Gallery, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, 10:30 am – 3:30 pm and Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022, 10:30 am – 3:30 pm. Children and families can participate in fun and interactive tours of exhibitions to experience art and create their very own works of art.
  
  
• The Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County: Annual Imagemakers Exhibition , Ritter Art Gallery, Friday, March 18 through Saturday, June 25, 2022
  
  
• Annual Juried Student Exhibition , Ritter Art Gallery, opens Friday, March 25, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. and will remain on view through Saturday, April 9, 2020.
  
  
• Spring Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition , Ritter Art Gallery, opens on Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. and remains open through Friday, May 6, 2022.
  
  
• Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition , Schmidt Center Gallery, Friday, April 22, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. and remains open through Saturday, May 28, 2022.
  
  

 FAU’s University Galleries are open Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. School and group tours can be scheduled by appointment by contacting Kaila Rutherford at UGMuseumEd@fau.edu. The Schmidt Center Gallery is located in the Performing Arts building (building #51), near the Living Room Theaters. Daytime visitors must obtain a temporary one-day parking pass online for $5 at http://parking.fau.edu to park in Parking Garage 2 for Schmidt Center Gallery. There are also Parkmobile mobile app meters in the parking lot just north of the entrance to Parking Garage 2 that only accept credit or debit card payment.

2021-22 University Galleries Exhibitions and Programs are supported by the Isadore and Kelly Friedman University Galleries Fund; Cultural Council for Palm Beach County; and Florida Department of State Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on the Arts and Culture. Museum Education Programs made possible by the Kaye Arts Integration Endowment.

For more information, call 561-297-2661, email autley2018@fau.edu or visit

fau.edu/galleries