VCCA Sponsors VA Book Panel, March 28


On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the VCCA and Second Street Gallery present three practitioners and an astute observer of art and conflict to reflect on how artists address the most pressing social and political issues.

"Depravity, Upheaval and the Good War," features VCCA Fellows David Griffith and Judith Shatin and artist Sandow Birk, and is led in discussion by author and activist William Cleveland. Please join us Friday, March 28, 2008, at Second Street Gallery, 115 Second St., S.E., Charlottesville. Panel begins at 6 p.m. with a reception preceding at 5 p.m.

Sandow Birk is a west coast visual artist who, according to the Los Angeles Times "is pursuing one of the most fascinating, unpredictable careers in Los Angeles art." Birk's "Depravities of War" is currently at Second Street Gallery. The 15 large-scale woodcut prints follow the course of the Iraq war. His awards include the NEA, Guggenheim, Getty and Fulbright.

William Cleveland is an activist, teacher, lecturer, and director of the Center for the Study of Art & Community in Washington state. The author of Art in Other Places, his current book projects are Between Grace and Fear: The role of the Arts in a Time of Change and Art and Upheaval: Artists at Work on the World's Frontlines published in February 2008.

VCCA Fellow David Griffith is the author of A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in the Utne Reader, Image and Killing the Buddha, and other publications. He is professor of creative writing at Sweet Briar College.

VCCA Fellow Judith Shatin is an award-winning composer. Her composition "Songs of War and Peace" is based on the work of Israeli poets. Honored with four NEA fellowships, Shatin is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor at the University of Virginia and the Director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music. Her work has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Tel Aviv Opera, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

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