ART DEPARTMENT > SCHMIDT ART GALLERY

Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery
Winter/Spring 2007 Gallery Schedule

Memory Loss / Lost Library
Stan Strembicki
January 12 to February 24, 2007

Artist Talk and Reception: Friday, February 9, 6–8 p.m.

Stan Strembicki has been photographing the streets, people, and events of New Orleans since 1984. In September of 2005 hurricane Katrina ripped through Louisiana and forever changed the physical and social landscape of New Orleans.  Returning to New Orleans after Katrina, Stan found himself drawn not to the crushed homes and upturned cars, but to the washed-away personal ephemera found in the debris fields left by the flooding. 

In his series, Memory Loss, Strembicki attempts to recover the personal history of New Orleans through the lost memories contained within family photo albums in various states of decomposition.  Graduations, Weddings, Family Gatherings, and other common genre themes are barely visible but still recognizable in the corroded fragile images that Strembicki photographs.  These images show us an natural allegory of the temporal nature of human memory as they simulataneously fill us with a sense of connection with the present moment.

In his second series, Lost Library, Stan photographs the strewn remains of a flooded library. The crumpled and waterlogged books laying in fields of grass speak to a broader loss of culture.  The plant life growing on the decaying books seem to represent the natural world slowly reclaiming human knowledge from the plant matter on which it was printed.

The Secret History of the Cedar Valley
The Underground Music Scene 1977-2007
March 17 to April 14, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 17th, 6–8 p.m.

For the past 30 years, a minor musical renaissance has been occurring right here in Iowa. Inspired by the DIY ethic of early punk rock and hardcore, a creative and active music scene has been proliferating in the Cedar Valley. Organized and run primarily by a small cadre of independent-minded youth and college students, this scene is responsible for producing some of the most interesting and progressive music that you've never heard.

Curator Matthew Wilson-Pickering has collected together a wide-ranging array of photographs, show flyers, album art, musical artifacts, video, and information stations which document the collective exuberance and creativity of the bands making up the Cedar Valley underground music scene. In addition, interactive listening stations will be available where you can learn and listen to the music that this scene has produced.

Other events are planned to coincide with this exhibit which will be announced as they are confirmed.

Senior Exhibit
Wartburg College Art Department
April 18 to May, 2007

A year-end exhibit featuring the work of our 12 graduating Art, Art Education, and Communication Design majors: James Blake, Jill Bonsall, Kendra Christensen, Jenna Dodd, Diana Grotzinger, Lauren Kahler, Brooke Nielsen, Lauren Semler, Elizabeth Stadie, Kyle Thye, Jodi Welter, and Kathryn Westergard.

Opening Reception: TBA