The University of Arkansas’ newest academic building is also an up-and-coming contemporary art venue.
Hillside Auditorium, which opened for classes in January, is home to four works by three internationally known black artists: Leonardo Drew, Chakaia Booker and Willie Cole. The works are the first selected for display by the university’s Public Art Oversight Committee, a group whose mission is to “educate and enrich the lives of students and the community through observation of and participation in public art.”
The artwork will be showcased at the dedication of Hillside Auditorium, located on Dickson Street east of the Greek Theatre, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“This is space that would have been just industrial kind of classroom space” had the artwork not been added, said Jeannie Hulen, chairman of the UA art department.
“You go in there and you don’t even realize you’re on campus,” Hulen said.
The university purchased one of the four pieces - Booker’s wall-mounted rubber tire floral sculpture, On File (2011) - at a discounted price of about $20,000 after assistant art professor Cynthia Nourse Thompson met the artist and saw the piece at Expo Chicago in September. The piece was the committee’s first purchase, Thompson said. Funding came from private donors.
Booker was on the original list of potential artists to be included in the university’s public art collection, said Thompson, curator for the exhibition.
The other three pieces are on loan from the artists and their respective galleries, though the university was responsible for shipping costs. Cole has two pieces: The Difference Between Black and White (2005-2006), a sunflower forged of women’s worn black and white shoes that is 7 feet in diameter, and Infestation (2000), four plywood panels with the shapes of leaves scorched into the panels. Drew’s work, Number 23S (2012), is an 8-foot square wood and mixed-media piece 20 inches deep.
“This series demonstrates the UA’s commitment to increase diversity and promote sustainability, as the artists in this series are artists of color and work with materials considered sustainable or recyclable,” Thompson said.
She said she chose the works in an attempt to create a visual dialogue between the works and the structure of the building.
The 35,000-square-foot Hillside Auditorium replaced the Science Engineering Auditorium and the former Geology Building, both of which were in such poor condition that renovation was cost prohibitive. Between the time the previous auditorium was razed a year and a half ago and when the new facility opened this semester, large classes requiring auditorium seating were held elsewhere across campus, including Barnhill Arena.
The new multilevel building has two auditoriums of 488 seats and 272 seats, as well as a three-tiered “living” roof, landscaped with plants and trees. UA has applied for silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification on the building.
“We believed that Hillside was a perfect location for these works as the building is new, has a large amount of traffic, and it is based on many principals of sustainability,” Thompson said. She subtitled the exhibition “Sustenance: Contemporary Artists Reuse, Repurpose and Recreate.”She also served as installer, along with Robert Lemming of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and a host of student artists.
The works will be on display through May of next year, possibly longer if the committee decides to purchase the works on loan. Cole’s shoe sunflower is priced at $65,000; he’s asking $35,000 for the plywood piece.
Drew’s work is priced at $80,000. He is scheduled to attend Wednesday’s dedication and will give a lecture at 5:30 p.m. today at the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall on the Fayetteville campus.
“We’d love to keep these works on campus,” Hulen said. “We want them to stay.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 03/26/2013