in Trinity 100 and hallway
Director: Sarah Pike, 898-6341, spike@csuchico.edu
School-year hours: M-F, 8-5
Summer hours: M-Th, 8-4

Starting spring semester 2013 the University Art Gallery will occupy the Humanities Center Gallery space during construction of the new Arts & Humanities Building.

September | October | November

Sept. 10-Oct. 12 
Lynn Criswell and Michael Bishop, “It is not that different but it really is”
Sept. 13 opening reception. Trinity 100, 5-7 pm, artist talk at 6

For the last two years artists Lynn Criswell and Michael Bishop have divided their studio time and lives between two cities/two continents – Istanbul, Turkey and Chico, California.  The exhibition titled “It is not that different but it really is” at Humanities Center is a selection of the work done during this period.

Oct. 15-Nov. 30
Gone to Ground: photographs by Wayne Barrar
A collaborative exhibition with David L. Pike (text) and Anna Brown (design)
Reception on Nov. 13, 5-7 pm with talks at 5:30 by Wayne Barrar and David L. Pike on the topic: "Bunker Fantasies, Post-Apocalyptic Culture, and an Expanding Subterra"

Gone to Ground highlights a new series of photographs by New Zealand photographer Wayne Barrar.  This work documents the lingering presence in the landscape of some of the 700,000 bunkers constructed in Albania during the long communist rule of Enver Hoxha.  Often appearing as concrete ‘mushrooms’ in the landscape, but also occurring as completely subterranean structures, these bunkers are a ubiquitous reminder of a crucial political and social period in the country’s history.  Difficult and expensive to remove, they are now re-purposed and re-configured to a fascinating range of uses. The exhibition also presents a selection from Barrar’s recent major book and exhibition, An Expanding Subterra (Dunedin Public Art Gallery), which focuses directly on the human commodification of underground space.

Wayne Barrar is Associate Head of School, School of Fine Arts at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Photographer Barrar is interested in how people use and manipulate underground space. Barrar’s book, An Expanding Subterra depicts hidden underground worksites of mines, power stations, universities, storage facilities, and offices, as well as the surreal domestic world of the subterranean homes in Coober Pedy, an opal mining town in South Australia.

David L. Pike is a professor in the Department of Literature at American University. His courses include introductions to literature and to film as well as urban culture, cinema studies, modernism, and Dante. His books include Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800-2001 (2007), Subterranean Cities: The World Beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945 (2005), and Passage Through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds (1997, awarded the Gustave O. Arlt Award from the Council of Graduate Schools).

* The Humanities Center's theme for this year is "Revolutions."