News

If you’ve ever given or asked someone for directions to the Sloan Music Center, you’ve probably heard of the Spirit Waves Fountain sculpture, more commonly known by students as “the French fry sculpture.” Here we would like to note that, as artist Aristides Demetrios reminds, "you only nickname a person you're acquainted with." That is, here at Davidson, we have become acquainted with Spirit Waves, and have made it our own by nature of its new, affectionate nickname--we acknowledge the sculpture's belonging to our campus and have integrated it into our culture. Spirit Waves Fountain was a gift to Davidson College in 2003 from Dr....
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Seen in Storage is a periodic blog post where students, staff, and professors identify some of their favorite works from our permanent art collection. Sometimes clever, sometimes funny, sometimes introspective, and always illuminating, these short posts shine a light on the variety of works that inhabit our beloved basement storage area, when not on view in the galleries or in academic buildings. The permanent art collection provides critical learning experiences to the Davidson community and we encourage you to make an appointment to see these works in person. This installment of Seen in Storage is brought to you by Helen Sturm '20....
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Can this abstract sculpture spur Davidson students to wrestle with tough questions?
Written by Lisa Rab, arts correspondent for the Charlotte Observer. In his quest to capture the shape of wind, Yinka Shonibare started with a hair dryer and a piece of fabric. The British-Nigerian artist sees movement as a metaphor for the migration of people – immigrants, slaves, refugees. He wanted his fiberglass sculpture to convey that movement while appearing weightless, as if it were defying gravity. So he photographed the fabric billowing in the dryer’s artificial breeze. That photo became a mold, which he converted into a 3D image, and then a 3D print. That grew into a larger mold, stretching...
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Digital Art Acquisition Results!

Written by:

November 6th, 2018

Olivia Crumm, still from
Written by Elizabeth Young '20 and Isabelle Sakelaris '19 Passing through the atrium of the E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center, visitors can’t help but notice the giant video wall often used for presentations and lectures. When the wall is not being used for presentations, you can see a number of digital artworks, initially selected by members of the Art Collection Advisory Committee, as well as by a few Davidson College Faculty and Staff. This year, the Van Every & Smith Galleries hosted a contest to decide which of thirty new works by contemporary digital artists to acquire for the...
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AngyRivera
Angy Rivera is a Colombian-American immigrant who fled to the U.S. with her mother due to violence in Colombia when she was just a child. Now in her 20s, she is one of the most vocal undocumented youth activists. Rivera has two siblings who are American-born, and is experiencing the unique struggles of being in a mixed-status family. Although an undocumented immigrant Rivera doesn’t let documentation define her. However, starting at a young age, barriers resulting from her immigration status stood in her way; even scholarship applications are a different reality for undocumented youth. While her teachers encouraged her to...
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