Art will be featured at NSU spring gala
NATCHITOCHES – Several works of faculty art and pieces from Northwestern State University’s permanent collection will be on exhibit during the President’s Command Performance, a spring gala to celebrate the arts and honor the accomplishments of Bill Brent, former director of the Mrs. H.D. Dear Sr. and Alice E. Dear School of Creative and Performing Arts. The event will be Friday, April 4 and will include a cocktail reception, silent auction and a showcase of student talent with vocalists, ensembles and others entertaining.
On display for the President’s Command Performance will be a suite of prints by Salvador Dali, “La Conquete du Cosmos II.”
“Catalunyan painter and printmaker Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali was a unique character in the global art world,” explained Leslie Gruesbeck, NSU’s director of galleries. “His career was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theory of unconscious and by his association with the French Surrealists, a group of writers and artists led by the French poet André Breton.
“Dali’s work is distinguished by both precision and dreamlike imagery. He often described his images as hand painted dream photographs. Dali’s repeated themes often include, melting, bent watches, barren landscapes and seascapes inhabited by distorted human figures.”
The suite of six embossed etchings with lithograph is suite number 39 of 195 suites pulled. The plates from which the etching were pulled were executed by Dali’s own hand and were printed at Imprimerie D’Art Bellini, Paris, France between 1973 and 1974. Each print was hand-signed by the artist. The works on display will include “Planetary and scatological vision,” “The last comer form the last planet,” “The caduceus of Mars fed by the fireball of Jupiter,” “The unicorn laser disintegrates the horns of the Cosmic rhinoceros,” “Saturnalian giraffe” and “The blood of yin and yang.”
In addition to the prints, art pieces for current and former faculty and alumni will be on display.
The President’s Command Performance sponsorship deadline is March 28. Tickets are $65 per person or $125 per couple. Walk-ups are acceptable. To purchase tickets or sponsorships, contact Vanner Erikson, assistant director of Alumni and Development at (318) 357-4414 or visit northwesternalumni.com.
