Western New York art featured in next Marion Gallery exhibition

An exhibition exploring the regions’ most extensive private collection of Western New York art will open Tuesday, Jan. 26 in the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery.

“Archiving Western New York: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection” will run through Feb. 28. The exhibition includes 112

The ME Block by Nancy Dwyer	Untitled from the Portfolio Heatwaves by Ken Price

works in an array of mediums by 112 artist including: Laylah Ali, Charles Burchfield, Allan D’Arcangelo, Nancy Dwyer, Robert Longo, Ken Price, Robert Mangold, Magda Cordell McHale, Ad Reinhardt, Susan Rothenberg, Cindy Sherman and Martha Visser’t Hooft.

A reception will be held on Friday, Jan. 29 from 7 to 9 p.m. The gallery is located on the main level of Rockefeller Arts Center on the Fredonia campus. The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

The public is also invited to attend two free lectures related to the exhibition.

Mr. Mead will discuss his collection in a Visiting Artist Program lecture on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 8:30 p.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209.

John Pfahl, a nationally renowned photographer represented in the exhibition, will talk about his concepts in a Visiting Artist Program lecture on Thursday, Feb. 11 at 8:30 p.m., also McEwen Hall Room 209.

Born in Hamburg, Mr. Mead is an alumnus of SUNY Buffalo State and the University at Buffalo. During an 18-year tenure (1987-2005) as a curator and educator at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, he organized more than 130 exhibits for the museum. He has taught in the Design Department at SUNY Buffalo State since 1998. He also taught in the Visual Studies Department at the University at Buffalo from 2006 to 2010.

Over the past 29 years, Mr. Mead has amassed a collection of more than 1,000 works of art by more than 900 artists who are associated with Western New York through birth or residency.

Since 2002, 42 thematic exhibitions from the Gerald Mead collection have been presented at university galleries and other public venues across Western New York and northern Pennsylvania. Of these, “Archiving Western New York: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection” is the most comprehensive to date.

An exhibition catalog is available free of charge. Visit the gallery or contact Director Barbara Räcker at 716-673-4897 or barbara.racker@fredonia.edu. To schedule a free group tour of the exhibition, contact Ms. Räcker.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Funding for the exhibition is provided by the Fredonia College Foundation’s Cathy and Jesse Marion Endowment Fund.