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Curated by Alastair Noble, assistant professor of art, exhibit begins Oct. 29 in the Grossman Gallery

The Richard A. and Rissa W. Grossman Gallery is playing host to two upcoming events focusing on the importance of public art in the community.

A formal exhibit of proposals for public sculptures to be displayed in the Lehigh Valley area, as well as national and international communities, will run Oct. 29 through Nov. 9. Free and open to the public, the exhibit will feature maps, architectural plans, drawings, sketches, scale models, photographs, and even films, all illustrating preliminary plans for public works of art.

Also, a sculpture symposium, “Public Sculpture in the Community and its Responsibility to the Environment,” featuring a panel of renowned local, national, and international public artists, will take place 4 to 7 p.m. Nov. 1.

Both the exhibit and symposium are being organized by Alastair Noble, assistant professor of art. The Grossman Gallery, located in the Williams Visual Arts Building, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, contact the gallery at x5831.

Panelists for the symposium include Tom Moran, senior program officer of the New Jersey Council of the Arts; sculptors Del Geist and Patricia Leighton from New York; sculptor Dan Kainz from Allentown; sculptor Jos� Balcells from Chile, and possibly one more public artist from New York. Contributing artists to the exhibit include those who will be participating in the symposium, as well as local sculptors who teach at area colleges and universities.

According to Noble, the symposium is meant to be a point of dialogue within the exhibit concerning the role of public art and its ability to shape a community.

“I hope that by having the exhibition up for a few days before the discussion, it will give the students, faculty, and public an insight into the contributing artists’ work and the nature of public sculpture in general,” says Noble. “Hopefully, it will entice them to attend the panel on Nov. 1 and perhaps have questions for the panelists.”

Assisting Noble with the exhibition is art major Marissa Halderman ’09 (Rushland, Pa.), who is also conducting her own public art project for the Easton community as an independent study under Noble’s mentorship. Student gallery assistants will also assist Noble with installing the exhibit.

Noble’s goals are the opportunity to speak about the need for public art both on campus and in Easton, to bring together some of the leading national and international figures in this field, including artists and an administrator of funds for public art, and to establish the art department as a forum for discussing contemporary issues in art.

“I hope this will enlighten the audience to realize how important a role public art can be to a community, and also draw attention to the complexities involved in various stages of developing public art projects,” Noble explains. “This extends from the earliest proposals to the fabrication and installation of them and encompasses many administrative and political issues often encountered.”

“I look forward to students from many different departments besides the art department attending,” he adds, “such as engineering, anthropology & sociology, geology and environmental geosciences, and hope they will participate in the discussion and dialogue.”

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