Last Chance

Fifth Street School Auditorium
401 South 4th Street
Las Vegas, NV 89101

Friday, September 4 , 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Artist's Lecture and Screening:

Christoph Draeger - Last Chance

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1965, Christoph Draeger is known for investigating the events and sites of disaster and, more recently, the utopian thought and culture of the late 1960s.

The evening's program includes opening remarks by curator, Alise Upitis, followed by a screening and remarks by the artist. The screening includes:

Bunkerball,the tale of a man who believes himself the last surviving human. He passes his time by playing a one-person game of soccer in a fallout shelter, although he is all the while haunted by memories of the past. Pastoral images of Bavarian home life are inter-cut with the flashes of horror that may explain his lone status, such as masses of chickens infected with bird flu, chainsaw-wielding monsters, and scenes of both government and terrorist sponsored executions. It serves as a reflection on the hyper-media status of professional sports and the extreme disjunction produced by contemporary media practices.

Three other films will be screened.

Co-Sponsored by The City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center of Las Vegas, and the Swiss Arts Council

[text from City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs press release. Graphic from artist's website. Caption: "Still from Hippie Movie, 2008. Hippie Movie, shot in HD video and Super-8, is a funny, post-romantic documentary about a Hippie movement named Tropolicalia, which was founded by Christoph Draeger in Warsaw as an ironic remake of San Francisco's Summer of Love 1967. In the light of rising social injustice, an unpopular war in Iraq, ecological concerns and a new cold war looming, the film is a meditation on political, social and cultural behavior first coined in the 1960's by the Hippies, who protested and contested many issues that seem to make a comeback today. It is also a celebration of the inventions of 1960's rock music, and last but not least, a hallucinatory, post-psychedelic visual trip."]

Rick Lowe at the 5th Street School

Wednesday February 18, 2009 - 7pm
"Toward Social Sculpture – Rick Lowe:
Project Row Houses"

Reception at 6:30

Fifth Street School Auditorium
401 South 4th Street
Las Vegas, NV 89101

Sponsored by the City of Las Vegas Arts Commission and UNLV Art Department and the "Art in Public Places" lecture series.

Rick Lowe is the founder of Project Row Houses, an arts and cultural community located in a historically significant and culturally charged neighborhood in Houston, Texas.

Rick Lowe has participated in exhibitions and programs nationally and internationally. From 1992 to the present he has exhibited at the Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York, Kwangil Bienale, Kwangil Korea, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Glassell School and the Kumamoto State Museum, Kumamoto, Japan.

Rick Lowe has received many honors. In 1997, he and Project Row Houses were awarded a silver medal by the Rudy Bruner Awards in Urban Excellence.

In 2000 he was a recipient of the American Institute of Architects Keystone Award. In 2002 he was awarded the Heinz Award for arts and humanities,
and he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002. He has received the Brandywine Lifetime Achievement Award and he is an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

[graphic from Project Row Houses Web site.]