News and Events
“PETROPOLIS! St. Petersburg Days at Vassar,” is a celebration of the Russian city with an exhibition, lecture, and film screening. Nov. 19 – Dec. 19, 2008
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — In November and December, the Russian Studies Department at Vassar will present a series of events, including a lecture, film screening, and an exhibition, around the theme: “PETROPOLIS! St. Petersburg Days at Vassar.” Please note that all the events, organized in conjunction with Vassar’s Study Away Program in St. Petersburg, are free and open to the public.
Exhibition: Reflections of Petropolis
November 19 – December 19
The multi-media exhibition, Reflections of Petropolis, will open on Wednesday, November 19, and continue on view through Friday, December 19, in the James W. Palmer ’90. Bringing together various aspects of images of St. Petersburg, the exhibition will feature book illustrations, photography, and video, to original works by St. Petersburg artists, including Pavel Kondratyev (1902–85), Boris Kalaushin (1929–99), Vladimir Zhukov (b. 1933), Ivan Govorkov (b. 1948), Elena Gubanova (b. 1960), Nikolai Firtich (b. 1961), Aleksei Kulbin (b. 1961). A reception will be held in the gallery on Wednesday, November 19, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. The gallery hours are Mondays through Fridays, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 to 6:00 pm.
Lecture: The Spell of St. Petersburg: The City and its Metaphysics in Art and Culture
November 19 at 3:30 pm
The series will open with the lecture, “The Spell of St. Petersburg: The City and its Metaphysics in Art and Culture,” on Wednesday, November 19, at 3:30 pm in Taylor Hall (room 203). Nikolai Firtich, assistant professor of Russian studies and director of the Vassar Program in St. Petersburg, will examine the dazzling cultural mythology associated with St. Petersburg.
Film screening: The Russian Ark
November 20 at 8:00 pm
On Thursday, November 20, there will be a screening of the film, The Russian Ark (2003). Director: Alexander Sokurov (Russia), Camera: Tilman Büttner (Germany). A cinematic reflection on Russian history, The Russian Ark was shot in a single take lasting 97 minutes and involving some 1,200 actors as the camera moved through the splendid rooms of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Dan Ungurianu, associate professor and director of the Russian Studies Department will introduce Russian Ark, which will begin at 8:00 pm in Blodgett Auditorium.
Please note that a concert, originally scheduled for November 21, will be postponed to a future date.
ABOUT VASSAR’S STUDY AWAY PROGRAM IN ST. PETERSBURG
The St. Petersburg program, an innovative one-semester-long study abroad program, is designed to take advantage of the fabulously rich collections of art held in the museums of St. Petersburg. The program is unique in allowing Vassar students virtually unlimited access to the Hermitage Museum with its collection of Western art that is rivaled only by such famous sites as the British Museum or the Louvre. The students are granted equally unrestricted access to the Russian Museum, a treasure-trove of Russian art ranging from medieval icons to Malevich and beyond. Classes are held under the tutelage of Hermitage curators and professors of the city’s European University.
The program offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity both for Russian majors and students interested in art history. No previous knowledge of Russian language is required. Though designed primarily for Vassar Office of International Programs students, the program is also open to seniors, undergraduate students from other institutions as well as to graduate and special students. The program will be offered every fall semester. (http://internationalprograms.vassar.edu/programs/russia_stpetersburg.html)
ABOUT THE GALLERY
Situated between the North Atrium and the Retreat cafeteria, the James W. Palmer III Gallery is at the heart of the College Center. Constructed in 1996, the gallery was named and endowed by the Palmer family in 2000 in memory of their son James, a member of the class of 1990. Serving as an exhibition space for artwork created within and beyond the Vassar community, the gallery displays art of diverse mediums, themes, and origins.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations at Vassar should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.
Posted by College Relations Wednesday, December 31, 1969
About the Arts
Powerhouse Theater
The Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College. It is dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. During an intense eight-week summer residency on the Vassar campus, up to twenty different projects are publicly presented, typically engaging more than 200 professional artists and theater students. Plays, musicals, and screenplays are presented in a variety of forms: readings, workshops, and fully staged productions. Since the first Powerhouse Theater season in 1985, New York Stage and Film and Vassar have served more than 2,000 artists and over 175,000 audience members through the development and production of artistically exceptional and affordably priced performances.
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Located just inside Vassar's Main Gate, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center houses the college's permanent collection, over 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares, charting the history of art from antiquity to the present. The Permanent Collection Galleries feature 350 works, ranging from the sculpted Head of Viceroy Merymose from His Outer Sarcophagus (Egyptian, c 1375 BCE) in the Antiquities Gallery to Marsden Hartley's oil on canvas Indian Composition (1914-15) in the Twentieth Century Gallery. For information on current and upcoming special exhibitions, self-guided and curriculum-based tours, and group visits, please visit the website. The art center is open to the public, and admission is free.
James W. Palmer Gallery
Located in the College Center in Main Building, the James W. Palmer III '90 Gallery presents eight shows annually, including exhibitions by renowned artists and photographers, studio art faculty and students, and local arts organizations. Recent highlights included Andrea Baldeck’s black-and-white photo exhibit, Touching the Mekong: A Southeast Asian Sojourn, organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; the Vassar Haiti Project’s annual exhibition and auction of imported arts and handcrafts; and Design Inside, showcasing the work of Vassar’s College Relations design team. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. For information on upcoming exhibitions, visit the website or call (845) 437-5370.
Music Department
Located in the Belle Skinner Hall of Music, the Martel Recital Hall is wonderfully suited, both acoustically and aesthetically, to music performance. With seating for 500, the Martel is home to the Vassar College Orchestra, Choir, Women's Chorus, Madrigal Singers, and numerous chamber groups and ensembles. The Martel concert schedule routinely includes distinguished guest artists, faculty recitals, senior recitals, and special musical events, such as last year's series of organ recitals celebrating the installation and dedication of the college's superb pipe organ, designed by masterbuilder Paul Fritts. For information on upcoming concerts and events (which are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted), please visit the website.
Dance Department
The Department of Dance sponsors several public performances each year. Among those, the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) has a series of Works in Progress showings in the fall, a winter Modfest performance in conjunction with the The Department of Music, winter galas at the 1869 Bardavon Opera House, and two All Parents Weekend performances in the spring. The department's Master Class program annually invites at least one ballet and one modern expert to campus in addition to two people in other areas of dance. Public performances and lectures are often associated with these renowned visitors. Guest artists in the past have included: Irina Kolpokova, Arthur Mitchell, Helene Alexopoulos, Gregory Hines, Anna Kisselgoff, Donald Byrd, Edward Villella, Ronald K. Brown, Irene Dowd, Allegra Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Pilobolus w/Adam Battlestein, Suzanne Farrell, Mummenschantz, Eldar Aliev, Deborah Jowitt, Bill T. Jones, Pascal Rioult, Clinton Luckett of ABT, Bill Irwin, and Donald McKayle. Many of the department's dance performances are in the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, located in Kenyon Hall.