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Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts

Amanda Browder: Magic Chromacity

August 29 - September 5, 2014
Opening Reception, August 29

Sponsored by the Department of Art & Art History, John S. Jemison Fund and the Alys Stephens Center

Magic Chromacity exhibition"Magic Chromacity" exhibition

In the first joint project for UAB’s Cultural Corridor, the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, the Department of Art and Art History, and the College of Arts and Sciences’ new Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts commissioned Browder to create “Magic Chromacity.” The vast artworks Browder is creating use recycled and donated materials collected in Birmingham and Brooklyn, New York, and will adorn the AEIVA and ASC buildings for one week. These huge, vibrant, quiltlike works will allow the buildings, which face each other on 10th Avenue South, to reflect and complement each other while also serving as individual installations.

Browder will give a free, public lecture at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, and an opening reception will be held from 5-7:30 p.m. Aug. 29, in the AEIVA. The Department of Art and Art History, John S. Jemison Fund, and the Alys Stephens Center sponsor her lecture. Due to storms and the threat of severe weather, “Magic Chromacity” was taken down Sept. 3 to protect and preserve the artwork.

For Browder, UAB’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts and the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center are dramatic symbols of Birmingham’s involvement in contemporary art and performance. “Magic Chromacity” metaphorically “sews” these two buildings together using fabric, a traditional material found in local homes, and which, in the form of clothes, has always been a personal bridge between public, private, functional and celebratory worlds, she says.

The works began during her first visit in November 2013, as part of her ongoing residency at the DAAH. More than 200 community volunteers from ArtPlay and Bib and Tucker Sew-Op, students from Birmingham City Schools including the Woodlawn Summer Bridge program, and UAB students, staff and faculty helped create the works during community sewing days. Browder will be in residence with the Department of Art and Art History leading up to the installation of the artworks Aug. 26-28.

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