SOU Schneider Museum

Fall exhibitions at SOU’s Schneider Museum

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NEWS RELEASE

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s Schneider Museum of Art has announced the opening of its Fall Exhibition, “Terrain: The Space Between from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.” The work is curated by SMA Director Scott Malbaurn, and includes work by Vija Celmins, Judy Pfaff and Ed Ruscha, on view in the museum’s Entry Gallery through Jan. 5.

The exhibition’s opening reception will be from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27, at SOU’s Schneider Museum of Art.

“The Schneider Museum of Art continues to curate exciting exhibitions of some of the most important artists of our time,” said Jordan D. Schnitzer, President of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. “The artists on view encourage patrons to think about the space and time in our lives. This is our fifth exhibit at the Schneider and we look forward to continuing our partnership in the future.”

Exhibition Essay Excerpts by Elizabeth Walborn
Ed Ruscha, Judy Pfaff and Vija Celmins have vast differences in artistic styles, but they share a similar appreciation in the spaces between.

  • The space between the viewer, the black redaction marks and the landscape in Ruscha’s “Country Cityscapes: It’s Payback Time” (1991) leaves a question of what is blocked out – not only the words, but the scenery behind it. One is caught between wanting to know what is more important; what lies behind the large marks or the reasons behind marking the image.
  • In Pfaff’s “End of the Rain” (C) (2000), the space between the viewer and the blue house creates a feeling of driving along an abandoned country road and spying an old home across the lake.
  • The lack of space between the viewer and the waves in Celmins’ “Ocean with Cross #1” (2005) creates a loss of horizon and a direct plain of existence, leaving the spectator in a state of alarm.

About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Jordan D. Schnitzer bought his first work of art from his mother’s Portland contemporary art gallery at age 14, starting his lifelong avocation as a collector. He began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in earnest in 1988. The collection now exceeds 13,000 works and includes many of today’s most important contemporary artists. It has grown to be one of the country’s largest private collections. He generously lends work from his collection to qualified institutions. The Foundation has organized over 160 exhibitions and has had art exhibited at over 100 museums.

Schnitzer is also president of Harsch Investment Properties, a privately-owned and Portland-based real estate investment company that owns and manages office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in six Western states. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.

About the Schneider Museum of Art
The Schneider Museum of Art, part of the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU, is a vital force in the intellectual life of SOU that promotes an understanding of the visual arts within a liberal arts education. Serving both an academic and community audience, it builds a challenging environment that engages with the visual arts through exhibitions and programs supporting interdisciplinary study, research and discourse. Visit sma.sou.edu.

ICFAD Longshore

Three SOU arts leaders accepted as fellows in international council

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NEWS BRIEF
(Ashland, Ore.) — Three Southern Oregon University faculty members – the largest contingent from any college or university in the world – have been accepted into the 2018-19 Fellows Program of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD).

SOU’s new ICFAD fellows are music professor Terry Longshore, director of SOU’s Percussion Studies program; Deborah Rosenberg, professor of costume design in the university’s Theatre Program and past president of the Faculty Senate; and Scott Malbaurn, director of the Schneider Museum of Art. In addition, David Humphrey – director of SOU’s Oregon Center for the Arts – has been invited to serve as a mentor for a fellow from a different institution.

The international council offers a fellows program every third year as a professional development opportunity for talented arts administrators considered ready to move into leadership positions.

This year’s program for the 19 fellows who were accepted from around the world will begin in October with an education program, “Strategies for Developing Leaders,” at the ICFAD’s Annual Conference in Seattle. Each fellow will also be assigned a mentor from an ICFAD member institution other than their own.

The International Council of Fine Arts Deans was established in 1964 to facilitate the sharing of information and ideas among deans and other arts executives in higher education. ICFAD is the only organization that focuses solely on issues that impact higher education leaders in creative areas including fine and performing arts, arts education, art history, architecture and communication.

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SOU Thalden Pavilion

SOU’s new Thalden Pavilion to be dedicated on Friday

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NEWS RELEASE
(Ashland, Ore.) — SOU’s new Thalden Pavilion has lived up to its tagline – “dedicated to outrageous innovation in sustainability and the arts” – and the just-completed venue for information, education and performance will be recognized in all its audacity at 10 a.m. Friday, April 20.

The dedication ceremony will serve as an introduction of the visually stunning structure, which was made possible through the generosity of Barry and Kathryn Thalden of Ashland. Speakers at the event – at The Farm at SOU, on north Walker Avenue – will include SOU President Linda Schott, the Thaldens and Ashland architect Chris Brown of Arkitek Design and Architecture.

Performers from the SOU Music Program will provide entertainment.

The Thaldens and SOU saw the pavilion as a facility at The Farm that would bring together the university, local schools, the city, the business community and local theaters for various events and opportunities.

Donations from the Thaldens have covered the project’s design and construction costs, and their enthusiasm for the concept led them to commission Brown’s architectural firm to bring their vision to reality. Barry Thalden is a retired architect who designed casinos throughout the West, and Kathryn Thalden is a landscape architect who had her own firm in Kansas City before becoming a Unity minister and founding the Unity Church of Las Vegas.

Since moving to Ashland six years ago, their generosity has led to the flower basket program in downtown Ashland and murals outside the Ashland Emergency Food Bank and on Calle Guanajuato on the Ashland Plaza. They have recently commissioned an Ashland-themed mural to be painted in Ashland’s Mexican sister city of Guanajuato.

The Farm is a student-led agricultural and learning center at SOU. The 3 ½-acre property on Walker Street in Ashland serves as an organic farm for the production of healthy, sustainable food for the SOU community. It is also a center for sustainability and a hub for education, student and faculty research, and community outreach to the Rogue Valley.

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