Karen Gergely Exhibit on Display in March
The Art Department of Fairmont State University will sponsor an exhibition of new
work by Karen Gergely, a faculty member of Shepherd University's Department of Art
in March.
The exhibition will be on display from March 6-28 in the Brooks Gallery of Wallman
Hall. Gergely taught at FSU during the last academic year. The opening reception for
the exhibition will be held on Thursday, March 6, from 7-9 p.m. The artist will talk
about her work at the opening. The event is free and open to the public. Regular gallery
hours are Mondays - Fridays from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. For special arrangements, please
call or e-mail Curator Marian J. Hollinger: (304) 367-4300; mhollinger@fairmontstate.edu
Gergely says of her exhibition: "I am working on an exhibition in which I am asking
for art students and staff at Fairmont State University who are committed to the contemporary
arts to be involved. The exhibition will be all about journey and the exploration,
investigation and documentation of the campus and the immediate neighboring community.
"My interest in the nature of this exhibition is due in large part to the Fairmont
campus' major facelift over the past several semesters. Walk Along is about the exploration
of one's current and changing surroundings. I am interested in working with Fairmont
State staff and students for the duration of this exhibition as people who live and
interact with the campus on a daily basis and who rely on this surrounding to be their
inspiration. A map and a video camera will be given to each participant who will,
in turn, follow the path provided making video documentation along the way. The exact
number of routes will be determined by the number of participants involved. From these
map drawings I have provided, I will ask participants to walk this line at their own
pace around the campus, documenting with a video camera provided. The films will be
in-camera edited by the participants as they proceed. The documentations will be shown
as a major part of the exhibition, which revolves around journey and the process of
walking, exploring and the awareness of current surroundings. The walks will be focused
less around destination and more on the process of the walk itself. Films shown will
remain exactly as the 'walker' has made it and undergo no further editing by me in
order to retain the document's purity. Information will be provided in the exhibition
about who took the walk, the time it took, the day it occurred and the route taken.
"Each walk will range in distance from a quarter of a mile to a full mile, depending
on the day, and will take no more than an hour to walk and document. All documentation
will be done prior to the start of the exhibition in March.
"The exhibition will consist of large video projections, showing what I have explained
in the body of this document. A large hand-drawn map of the campus with the paths
participants took will also be on display, along with Polaroid pictures of each participant
noting the day, route number and time of walk. The other part of the exhibit will
consist of the documentation of several of my journey-based performances made for
this exhibition, along with props used in the performances."
