The Wexner Center docents are a diverse bunch with a range of backgrounds and interests. One broad thread that pulls them together is their love of the arts. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share a series of posts featuring members of our community and university student docent programs. Check back often and get familiar with some of the faces that you might see in our galleries.

Danielle Miller is a student docent who has been with the Wexner Center since 2008. She’s currently studying medicine at Ohio State. Danielle recently spearheaded a project that combined her interests in the arts and medicine. Working with Dr Merjin Van der Heijden (Dean of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program) and Drs. Robert DePhilip (Professor of Anatomy) and Peter Embi (Biomedical Sciences Vice President), Danielle created a unique experience for students of both fields. Here’s her description of the project: Anatomy According to the Artist; Anatomy According to the Physician. (more…)

WOSU produced a piece on last fall’s production of HOUSE / DIVIDED to air on the Big Ten Network. From WOSU:

Learn how The Builders Association, a nonprofit theatre company, offers Ohio State University students and faculty an opportunity to collaborate on a show commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Here’s a list of the top ten bestsellers at the Wexner Center Store in the past month. Not seeing your favorite merchandise? You can always vote with your wallet (in the Store or online) or tell us your picks on the Facebook page.

1. David Smith | Cubes and Anarchy
2. William Wegman: Gray and Scarlet Poster
3. Chris Marker: Coreennes
4. The New iPad 16GB Wi-Fi
5. The Modern Architecture Game
6. WEX “I’m not a papercup”
7. Kippenberger: The Artist and His Families
8. Petite Planete Poster
9. Shockaholic
10. The Art Of Daniel Clowes Modern Cartoonist

“How was it?”

I have to confess I haven’t felt up to the challenge of properly describing the experience of seeing the US premiere of Napoleon in Kevin Brownlow’s most recent restoration of the Abel Gance silent-era epic at Oakland’s Paramount Theater on March 24.

Sure, it was unforgettable. Hyperbole only goes so far, however, because in trying to sum up the experience one realizes there really isn’t anything to compare it to.

It’s hard to image a better setting for such an event. The gorgeously restored, 3,000-seat art deco Paramount Theater felt like it had been sitting there on Broadway in Oakland’s theater district all of these years waiting for this film—and this point in film history—to come along. Adding to the once-in-a-lifetime sensation was the Oakland Symphony’s equally memorable performance of Carl Davis’s score, conducted by the composer himself in its American premiere. The accompaniment transported me back to the 1920s, as I imagined what it must have been like to experience films in this manner on a regular basis. It also left me worrying about Davis’s right arm…not everyone has the stamina to conduct a 5-1/2 hour score, breaks or no breaks. (Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum Director of Repertory Programming, told me he tried to get to get Guinness to consider the music to be the world’s longest continuous film score but to no avail.) (more…)

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending the 6th Annual Editors Retreat in Austin, Texas. The five-day conference is held in a different city every year and attracts professional video and film editors from a wide variety of experience and work environments. I work as a video editor here at the Wexner Center’s Film Video Studio Program, where for 15 years I’ve been helping video artists and filmmakers see their work to completion. I’ve always known how special our residency program is—offering in-kind support of our post-production facilities and editors. I thought it would be a good idea to network with other like-minded individuals who face many of the same challenges each and every day. So I applied for an Ohio State University Staff Development Grant to attend the conference and ended up getting it! (more…)

Hear from Director of Performing Arts Chuck Helm on the jazz shows that will be gracing our performance space in the coming months.

Here’s a list of the top ten bestsellers at the Wexner Center Store in the past month. Not seeing your favorite merchandise? You can always vote with your wallet (in the Store or online) or tell us your picks on the Facebook page.

1. David Smith | Cubes and Anarchy
2. Voucher Book For Women
3. XX XY Blocks
4. La Jetée | Sans Soleil: Two Films by Chris Marker (Blu-Ray)
5. The Modern Architecture Game
6. Chris Marker: Coreennes
7. 10 AM Is When You Come To Me | Mug Gift Set
8. The Book of Symbols
9. WEX “I’m not a papercup”
10. Earth Sticker

To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of our Artist Residency Awards, we’ve put together an 8-minute video highlighting this vital aspect of the Wex over the years. Produced in partnership with Mills James Productions, the piece features interviews with past Artist Residency Award recipients such as Mark Bradford, Anne Bogart, and Bebe Miller, as well as curators, Director Sherri Geldin, and Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee, along with a few concluding words from Leslie H. Wexner. Read more about our residency program, and this year’s award recipients, here—and stay tuned for an announcement in the spring about our 2012–13 Award recipients.

Mark Bradford exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; photo: Nathan Keay © MCA Chicago

With the winter exhibitions under way, we thought we’d check in on two of our exhibitions that have been making their way across the country.

Mark Bradford, which was organized by and premiered at the Wexner Center in 2010, continues its massive tour of the country. Shortly it will be on the West Coast, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (February 18–June 17, 2012), concurrent with a presentation of three Bradford works at the nearby Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, including Bradford’s Detail, his “ark” of sorts for Hurricane Katrina. In a review in the San Francisco Chronicle , Kenneth Baker called it an “impressive solo show,” and notes that “Bradford shows that in the new century lineages such as painting and installation thrive not by mimicking their ancestry, but by reimagining it.” Before that, the exhibition, called “light and fleet” by The New York Times, was at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in late fall 2010/winter of 2011, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in summer 2011, and the Dallas Museum of Art in the fall. In Chicago, the exhibition was called “gorgeous, thick, meditative, relevant” (Huffington Post), while he left his mark in Boston with works “quietly radiating meanings, emotions, and no end of visual satisfactions” (Boston Globe­). D Magazine in Dallas took note of the exhibition, catalogue, and microsite: “That’s the kind of generative impact that just a handful of institutions can have on the larger art world.”

Elliott Hundley: The Bacchae, which was organized by the Wex and premiered here in the fall, is currently at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. In a recent review, Dallas’s D Magazine wrote about Hundley’s intricate mixed-media works inspired by The Bacchae tragedy: “Their complexity practically defies description, and the range of materials is remarkable.” The Fort-Worth Star-Telegram described it as “a veritable bacchanalia of textures and found objects.” And the Dallas Morning News called the exhibition “thoroughly au courant.” Along with the exhibition itself, the lush and fully illustrated catalogue produced by the Wexner Center “give[s] you the opportunity for further ogling and education” (alive!).

And speaking of traveling shows, mark your calendars for Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 1955‒1972, which opens May 19 at the Wexner Center, on the heels of a Los Angeles run at the Hammer Museum, where it’s on view now through the end of April. The show, featuring about 100 works in polyester resin and other materials by the late Polish sculptor, premiered in Brussels at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in the fall of 2011. The exhibition earned an Artforum cover feature in November 2011, and Frieze writes, “A place for Szapocznikow within the canon of art history is firmly being made.” The exhibition makes its way to MOMA in New York later this year. But before New York, Columbus.

We asked Heirloom chef John Skaggs to write about his café, which opened inside the Wexner Center in September. His thoughts about the past, present, and future of Heirloom:

On our way to a softball game on a beautiful Ohio summer day in June, we receive a phone call: Kimberly and I have been awarded the bid for the café space at the Wexner Center. My niece, Deonna, says, “We have a restaurant?”

Fast forward 10 weeks until September 12, 2012 (opening day). The restaurant is called Heirloom. Our menu is made from scratch with a core focus on seasonal ingredients creatively prepared. We somehow managed to gather and hire an inspired group of food and service specialists. Grower, farmer, purveyor, and other artisan relationships of our combined restaurant management experience were combined and rekindled. With personal investment and family support, we gathered the funds to develop the concept, test menu items, assemble and train a team to complement our vision. Our guests to Heirloom include students, faculty, staff, and the many visitors to the Wexner Center and Ohio State campus.

We have a restaurant?!

Fast-fast-forward to January 15, 2012:  our first 100 days and counting:

Our menu is still made from scratch and newly revised with an ever-growing accent on local and sustainable sources. Our café staff is continuing to exceed expectations.  New relationships combined with past ones have fruited many new sourcing opportunities including collaborating our efforts with Ecological Engineering Society on our own Wexner Center Chef’s Garden.  We are defining our success, thus far, by purchasing quality ingredients and continuing to employ our talented staff. Our guests have expressed much gratitude for the delicious food served in a timely manner, all facets echoed by local positive media support. Perhaps the greatest reward for us in this business is that we can often forget that this is a business, in the way an artist might get lost in art. Hospitality happens.

We have more than a restaurant.

On the horizon:

February 17:

Dinner premiere at Heirloom in a special event preceding the films Truck Farm and The City Dark, both introduced by director Ian Cheney.

Now thru April:

As part of Ohio State’s SENR (School of Environment and Natural Resources) MENR (Masters in Environment and Natural Resources) project, graduate student Bob Fitchko is evaluating Heirloom and comparing overall site and operations against industry standards for optimal sustainable practices.

By June:

A chef’s garden. Heirloom, an eco-conscious restaurant, will start a garden later this year outside the Wexner Center, providing Heirloom visitors with local, sustainably grown fare. Stay tuned for more information on this garden, which will complement the Wexner Center’s “Green Mission Statement” and its “green” programs focused on sustainability and reduction of environmental impact.

And so much more to come.

John and Kimberly Skaggs
Heirloom
wexarts.org/cafe
twitter @HeirloomCafe