Wesleyan Center for the Arts List January Happenings

Music Class for Children

Title of Event: Youth Gamelan Ensemble

Location: World Music Hall, 40 Wyllys Ave, Middletown, CT

Date: Classes start on Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 10am

Fee: Only $30 for a semester of classes

Phone: 860-685-3355

Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa

The Youth Gamelan Ensemble was founded as a Center for the Arts program in 2002 by Wesleyan Artist in Residence I.M. Harjito, who guides the group along with Professor Sumarsam and Director Joseph Getter. The ensemble is open to all children ages 7 through 17. No prior experience necessary. Rehearsals take place on Saturday mornings from 10am to 11am. Classes start on Saturday, January 26, 2013 and conclude with a performance on Thursday, May 9, 2013. The Wesleyan Youth Gamelan Ensemble has received support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts. To register, call the Wesleyan University Box Office at 860-685-3355 or email boxoffice@wesleyan.edu.


Opening Reception for Gallery Exhibition

Title of Event: Opening Reception for Lucy+Jorge Orta—“Food-Water-Life”

Location: Main Gallery, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT

Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 from 4:30pm to 6:30pm; Gallery Talk at 5pm by Guest

Curator Judith Hoos Fox of c2, curatorsquared

Fee: FREE!

Phone: 860-685-3355

Website: www.wesleyan.edu/zilkha

The work of Lucy+Jorge Orta explores the major concerns that define the 21st century: biodiversity, environmental conditions, climate change, and exchange among peoples. At the same time, this work embodies the philosophy that steers their pioneering art practice, “the ethics of aesthetics.” As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Ortas’ works are, in a sense, reflections of their own function--beguiling assemblages that are the platform for the preparation of food, mechanisms that actually purify water, and elements that they created for their 2007 expedition to Antarctica and that are part of an effort to amend Article XIII of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The works in the “Food-Water-Life” exhibition are metaphors-in-action, constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic. It is in their ability to actually function, albeit awkwardly and haltingly, that these objects gain power as works of art created to move us to awareness and action. Lucy+Jorge Orta: “Food-Water-Life” is curated by guest curators Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox of c2 curatorsquared, and is co-sponsored by the College of the Environment with additional support from the Department of Art and Art History.

Opening Reception for Video Installation

Title of Event: Opening Reception for “Remodeling Zilkha” (2012) by Janne Höltermann

Location: North Gallery, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT

Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 from 4:30pm to 6:30pm

Fee: FREE!

Phone: 860-685-3355

Website: www.wesleyan.edu/zilkha

“Remodeling Zilkha” (2012) is a site-specific, two-channel video installation (8:16 min.) by Janne Höltermann, the Luther Gregg Sullivan Visiting Artist in Wesleyan's Art and Art History Department, that shows the filmed gallery space within the same gallery space. The two videos of the installation extend, compress and mirror the room using the inherent architectural characteristics of the gallery (repetition, segmenting, mirroring) to reconfigure space.


Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown; boxoffice@wesleyan.edu; 860-685-3355.