Morlan Gallery

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Music lovers, take out your calendars and start planning: Transylvania University’s music program has four compelling—and contrasting—performances scheduled for the next four weeks. They’re all free and open to the public, so why spend an evening without music? Friday, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m., Haggin Auditorium, Mitchell Fine Arts CenterConcert Band and Jazz and Percussion Ensembles Playing for the first time together, the Concert Band and the Jazz and Percussion Ensembles might take the roof off Haggin Auditorium. The Concert Band, under the direction of professor of music and director of instrumental ensembles Ben Hawkins, will perform music by Sousa, Alfred Reed, Robert W. Smith and Norman Dello Joio. The program includes Sousa’s rousing and aptly named “On the Campus,” a brisk circus march. The Jazz Ensemble, conducted by low brass music instructor Valerie Evans, will play “Grooved Pavement” by Victor Lopez, “Now What” by Mike Kamuf and a combined piece with the Percussion Ensemble titled “Cubano Chant” by Ray Bryant. And the Percussion Ensemble, conducted by percussion music instructor Greg Strouse, will present “Kalahari” by Steve Grimo and “Impulsion” by David Long. Wednesday, Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m., Haggin Auditorium, Mitchell Fine Arts CenterGabriel Fauré’s “Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48” Transylvania Chamber Orchestra and various choirs French composer Gabriel Fauré’s well-known “Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48” will be presented by the Transylvania University music program. The performance of the gripping mass for the dead, in seven movements, will

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—“I’ll Be Your Mirror,” Morlan Gallery’s exhibition opening Oct. 25, reveals Lexington’s historically rich, vibrant and fairly secretive gay culture. Referencing the well-known Velvet Underground song, “I’ll Be Your Mirror” depicts the story of the town’s drag queens, sexual outlaws and gender-bending guerilla artists from the turn of the twentieth century right up to present day through the work of contemporary visual artists. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” was curated by Lexington-based artist Robert Morgan, who as a child of the 1960s met people who had identified as gay in the early part of the twentieth century. “I was mesmerized by the tales from their lives and was given loving advice and guidance as I began my life’s adventure as a gay kid from Kentucky on his way into a new century,” explained Morgan. The exhibition explores the flamboyant local lore of days gone by, including ghost stories from the Thomas January House on Lexington’s West Second Street; cross-dressing civil war hero Sue Mundy who, at John Hunt Morgan’s death, took over Morgan’s Raiders and became a legend; and images of the colorful and much loved Sweet Evening Breeze, Lexington’s 1950s version of RuPaul. In “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” Morgan creates a nexus between the historical gay Old South of the twentieth century and the political activism of the twenty-first century. The show celebrates the rebirth of the gay community with young visual artists who have a new way of

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival showcases the cutting edge of art in the digital age with nine exhibitions, three concerts and four lectures presented by 33 musicians and 130 artists in just two days. The festival, free and open to the community, is Oct. 4 and 5. Exploring creative manifestations of technology is the festival’s focus. Timothy Polashek, director of the festival and assistant professor of music at Transylvania, emphasizes the importance of innovation: “All the artists and musicians involved are also technologists who build their own tools, instead of using preexisting tools in traditional ways. This is one of the factors that makes Studio 300 really exciting.” Polashek is himself a software creator and an internationally recognized composer. Studio 300’s exhibitions include “Waves & Currents: An Exploration of Sound, Light, and Time,” by Montréal artist Lenka Novakova and Boston artist Georgie Friedman, in Transylvania’s Morlan Gallery through Oct. 11. Other notable exhibitions include “Vox-Novus 60×60 Video Mix” and the BYTE Gallery International Exhibition. “60×60” is a one-hour multimedia performance made up of sixty 60-second or shorter compositions by artists from around the world. The BYTE Gallery International Exhibition will feature 45 works, selected from several hundred internationally submitted entries. The BYTE gallery features video, audio and still images from all over the world, including Iran, Germany, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Japan, Italy and France. Three multi-artist concerts and four Art Talks over the two days

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—An exhibition incorporating video and sound waves to evoke the sights and sounds of moving water kicks off the Morlan Gallery season. “Waves & Currents: An Exploration of Sound, Light, and Time” opens Friday, Sept. 6, and runs through Friday, Oct. 11. The exhibition features two video installations: Dark Swell by Boston artist Georgie Friedman and River by Montreal artist Lenka Novakova. The title “Waves & Currents” references not only the ocean waves and river currents visually represented in the video installations, but also the media in which the artists are working: sound waves and electrical current. “The combination of water and electricity is normally a cause for alarm, but in this case, the results are electrifying in the most positive sense,” says Morlan Gallery director Andrea Fisher. Novakova’s multi-channel video installation “River” transforms the entire gallery space by simulating the experience of being caught up in a river current. The installation consists of multiple conical screens suspended from the ceiling leaving space in-between for participants to walk comfortably. Multiple projectors display river images on the screens. Meanwhile, Friedman’s “Dark Swell” depicts an ocean wave rumbling on a 9-foot-tall and 14-foot-wide wave-like form. The two-channel video installation is projected in various wave frequencies so it moves around the viewer, while a pulsating audio-scape emanates from speakers. Georgie Friedman is an interdisciplinary artist whose projects include large-scale video installations, single and multi-channel videos and several photographic series. She has lived,

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Work by Katelynn Ralston LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s six graduating art majors will showcase their work in a senior thesis exhibition titled “3XD: Design, Displace, Daddy Issues,” April 4-19 in the Morlan Gallery in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. Artists Paul Michael Brown, Rachel Kimbrough, Meredith Mullican, Katelynn Ralston, Emily Shirley and Amanda Skinner, working in a wide range of media, decided to pair their work according to theme, thus the three exhibition subtitles: design, displace, and daddy issues. Mullican and Skinner created work concerned with design, specifically the process involved in interior design and environmentally and socially sustainable architecture. Kimbrough and Shirley address the social issues of introverted personality and consumption of idealized feminine youth through notions of displacement. Brown and Ralston elaborate on the complexities of queerness, in both the private and the political, while playing with emotional distance or ‘daddy issues.’ The public is invited to celebrate the accomplishments of the six seniors at the opening reception for the artists on Thursday, April 4, from 5-8 p.m. The art majors will give presentations in the Morlan Gallery on Tuesday, April 9, from 12:30-1:20 p.m. The exhibition concludes with the Lexington Gallery Hop on Friday, April 19, from 5-8 p.m. The Morlan Gallery’s regular hours are noon-5 p.m. weekdays. For more information, contact Andrea Fisher, gallery director, at (859) 233-8142, or afisher@transy.edu.