As the Hudgens Center for the Arts readies for what promises to be a fall season visual art highlight, it also prepares for the departure of its leader of eight years.
On Oct. 13, the Hudgens opens "Works by Warhol: From the Cochran Collection," featuring 36 silkscreen prints dating from 1974 through the New York artist's final series done in 1986. Complete sets of his "Myths" (featuring captivating characters in American culture from the Wicked Witch to Uncle Sam) and "Cowboys and Indians" (American heroes from Annie Oakley to John Wayne) series are included.
Teresa Osborn, the Hudgens executive director who is leaving the Duluth nonprofit to serve in the same role at the Bascom: A Center for the Visual Arts in Highlands, N.C., said she couldn't exit before the Warhol opening.
Thus her last day in Duluth will be Oct. 16 and she will move to Highlands the next day.
In a recent email to colleagues and friends, Osborn said, “It isn’t easy to leave the Hudgens or this community.” But she acknowledged that having always loved Western North Carolina and dreamed of retiring there, she was intrigued when she was approached by a recruiter in May.
During her tenure, the Hudgens launched and has handed out three $50,000 Hudgens Prizes to Georgia artists, one of the nation’s largest cash awards to an individual artist; has hosted a number of popular exhibitions; and has offered a wide slate of arts classes to increasingly diverse Gwinnett County residents.
In the broader view, the Hudgens, founded in 1981 and part o the Gwinnett Center since 1993, has become a cultural beacon in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.
“I am so proud to have led the organization and to have been part of its extraordinary transformation and achievements,” Osborn wrote. “By focusing on our mission, we have impacted the community at every level and we are poised for even greater things.”
The Hudgens offers a first look at "Works by Warhol" during its pARTy benefit, 7-10 p.m. Oct. 10 ($100). The show will be up through Dec. 19. 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Building 300, Duluth. 770-623-6002, www.thehudgens.org.
ARTS
Staking a claim to ‘Arts Intersection’ downtown
The 26 new banners that hang high from poles along Forsyth and Luckie streets proclaim their crossing as "The Intersection of Great Theatre, Music, Art & Dance in Downtown Atlanta." Each displays the marquees of two major arts institutions in the historic Fairlie-Poplar district that make the claim credible, the Rialto Center for the Arts and Theatrical Outfit.
The promotional campaign is the latest development in an evolving collaboration between the two long-time Atlanta performing arts presenters. Theatrical Outfit recently completed a run of the “Memphis” at the Rialto, whose spacious, 833-seat auditorium was a more suitable room for the large-cast musical.
A Rialto has operated on the Forsyth-Luckie corner since 1916, when the original theater opened as a vaudeville house; it was razed in 1962 and replaced by the current facility. In 1996, Georgia State University reopened the Rialto, which had fallen on hard times as a movie theater, following a $14 million fund-raising campaign.
Next door on Luckie, the Outfit operates out the former Herren’s, the first restaurant to integrate in Atlanta, in 1963.
Under the direction of Leslie Gordon, the Rialto presents a United Nations mix of contemporary dance and music along with theater and film. It opens its 2015-16 Rialto Series season with Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble on Oct. 17, followed by Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club on Oct. 24.
Led by artistic director Tom Key (celebrating his 20th anniversary this season) and managing director Lee Foster, Theatrical Outfit has just opened the one-man show starring Key, "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe" (through Oct. 25).
As part of the "Arts Intersection" initiative, the two have launched a website, artsintersection.org.
VISUAL ART
Zuckerman, Atlanta Contemporary make appointments
- Kennesaw State University's Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art has appointed Sarah Higgins as curator.
The Georgia native begins working with director of curatorial affairs Teresa Bramlette Reeves on Oct. 19.
Higgins holds an M.A. in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, where she has worked as graduate program coordinator since 2013. She also has served as a curatorial fellow at New York’s New Museum and as community arts director at Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Fla.
- Atlanta Contemporary Art Center has announced Lacey Haslam as its development manager.
Haslam, who has begun work at the Westside nonprofit, will be in charge of donor cultivation and retention, creating and implementing fund-raising strategies including the annual fund campaign, and applying for and managing government and foundation grants.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Haslam founded and directed and raised funds for Block Gallery, which presents free site-specific art experiences in public spaces.
She is also the lead organizer of Archive Project, a collection of books that inspired leading arts and cultural figures, who in turn donated them, with a hand-written bookplate note, for the purpose of public sharing.
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