Arts & Entertainment

Blaffer offers free art exhibits for students

By Uruj Perwaiz
The Daily Cougar

Our campus isnit delivering the promising Houston humidity this week. Yet do not despair, there is a solution to the brisk and biting winds on campus. When strolling through campusi sidewalks and dodging construction, itis easy to head to the University Center or the UC Satellite. This time escape to the Blaffer Gallery instead. 

The gallery is conveniently located on campus in the Art Museum (Fine Arts Building). And of course, above all, it is a warm as well as free recluse for all students.

After hours of intense staring at computer screens and PowerPoint presentations, give your eyes and mind a treat with the projects at the gallery. Currently, there are two absolutely fascinating projects on view. 

Downstairs, I>Renunciation<P> is produced by a Danish photographer. Mads Gamdrup turns his lens towards the unending and unpopulated desert landscapes of the United States, Morocco, Egypt and Iceland. The display forces the viewer to discover the cross between the real and the imagined through the lens of landscape photography. <I>Renunciation<P> features sixteen large-scale color photographs. For American audiences it will be the first opportunity to observe Mads Gamdrupis exhibition.

The massive images of the deserts are so invigorating; the viewer can almost feel a spiritual connection. Also, though the deserts of the United States, Morocco, Egypt and Iceland are so extravagantly different, by examining the portraits intimately, an obvious connection is established.

Upstairs, Blaffer is displaying two interrelated installations by a Canadian artist. Angela Grauerholz is known as a conceptual photographer that examines the deep relations of images and text, memory and time, and with traditions of fine and applied art. 

<I>Reading Room for the Working Artist<P> and <I>Privatization<P> are displayed downstairs. 

The former is specifically designed to be installed in the Blaffer Gallery, while the latter is a collection of images portraying the beauty of charred books. The length of documentation that Grauerholz performs in <I>Privatization<P> will surprise your intellect on the aesthetic boundary that is crossed with these burned and deteriorated books.

Both exhibitions will be displayed through March 16, 2003.

<I>the verdict:<P> The exhibits are intriguing and amazing.

 Send comments to dcshobiz@mail.uh.edu