The Visual Arts Center (VAC) at The University of Texas at Austin has been awarded a $45,000 grant to support a multi-part exhibition by Mexico City-based artist Victor Pérez-Rul curated by Leslie Moody Castro (M.A., Art Education, 2010). This grant is part of more than $82 million approved by NEA Chairman Jane Chu to fund local arts projects and partnerships in the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016.
“The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like the one from the Visual Arts Center at The University of Texas at Austin offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”
The VAC has partnered with UT’s Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) and Energy Institute, as well as the Mexican American Cultural Center for a project that will explore the human consciousness of energy systems. Between Aug. 12 and Sept. 22, Pérez-Rul will collaborate with participants in art, physics, engineering, architecture and design to create an installation that recycles solar power into kinetic and sonic energy to power an immersive and interactive environment within the VAC. In addition to the installation at the VAC, maquettes of the artist's related work with solar-powered pods that emit sound and light at night will be exhibited on the outdoor plaza of the Mexican American Cultural Center. Both installations will be on view from Sept. 23 through Dec. 10. Moody Castro will document the exhibition's open lab and inventions with a catalog and a website.
“With the gracious support from the NEA, the Visual Arts Center will provide a unique learning platform for both collaborators and audiences that is tightly linked to our mission to educate through process,” said VAC Director Jade Walker. “Having an artist and curator in residence for such a long period of time allows for important relations to be built and true experimentation to happen throughout the course of the project.”
For more information, contact: Alicia Dietrich, College of Fine Arts, alicia.dietrich@austin.utexas.edu, 512-475-7033
Image: "Crystal 4" by Victor Pérez-Rul.