PCC Art Faculty Member Guest Curator of UA Museum of Art Exhibition
September 12, 2012
Friday opening reception for “An Engagement with Presence: Drawings and Prints from the UAMA Collection”
Tucson, AZ – Pima Community College art faculty member Michael Stack is the guest curator of an upcoming University of Arizona Museum of Art exhibition featuring drawings and prints by such masters as Rembrandt, Picasso and Matisse.
“An Engagement with Presence: Drawings and Prints from the UAMA Collection,” runs Friday, Sept. 14 through Sunday, Jan. 6. The Opening Reception, which is free and open to the public, will be this Friday from 5-7 p.m.
UAMA Curator Lauren Rabb invited Stack to guest curate the exhibition.
“Curator Lauren Rabb and the whole UAMA staff have been fabulous to work with,” Stack says. “It truly has been a great experience and I hope both the selection and structure of the exhibition will be a future resource for students, artists and educators, as well as the general public who might take the plunge and take a drawing class.”
According to UAMA the artworks in this exhibition, from historical to contemporary, explore portraiture, figure drawing, an expressive line and speak to a variety of diverse interests and approaches to drawing and printmaking. The exhibition emphasizes the direct, profound and unmatched experience of seeing works on paper first-hand.
“Learning to draw can be an arduous and subtly deceptive process, with results that can appear and then disappear in the blink of an eye,” Stack says. “So imagine a student who spends months getting a handle on the ‘discipline’ of drawing, and then in one museum visit comes face to face with the same materials and techniques transformed beyond expectation. This encounter with the breadth and mastery of world-renowned art allows students to more fully understand the potential of what is pursued in the classroom.”
For all of his 10-plus years of teaching at PCC, Stack has used UAMA’s drawing and print viewing opportunities for his Drawing I & II classes. With the help of UAMA staff, he selects a dozen or so drawings from the collection for a special viewing for students at the end of the semester.
“By far, it is one of the highlights of all my classes . . . it brings to life many of the techniques we cover in class, with almost the smell of the paper in the air,” Stack says.
Stack also is finalizing plans for PCC’s fourth installation of the PCC Sculpture-On-Campus project. Since the project had its first installation in 2004, a total of 19 sculptures have been displayed throughout East Campus, 8181 E. Irvington Road. The 2012 Installation Reception for SOC IV, celebrating the addition of seven works, will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Oct. 10, starting in the East Campus Community Room.
Stack teaches four art classes a semester at PCC’s East Campus and integrates drawing in all but one – Color & Composition, which he calls his “other passion.” He has been a PCC art faculty member since 2002. He earned his master’s in painting at the State University of New York at Purchase and a bachelor’s in fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a four-year certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
“Sculpture-On-Campus would not be in play without the support of our super cool staff, faculty and administrators – with a big shout out to our super appreciative students and the ever patience of my family,” Stack says.
The University of Arizona Museum of Art includes more than 6,000 artworks in its permanent collection created by artists from the 14th through the 21st centuries.
CONTACT:
C.J. Karamargin
Vice Chancellor for Public Information and Government Relations
(520) 206-4850
ckaramargin@pima.edu