IRIS Photos

Events

The Committee on Professional Development (PDC) will hold its annual Professional Development Week from May 22 to 25.  Professional Development Week is a forum for all CUL staff to share their work and research with their colleagues, to present on projects or Library initiatives, to share a presentation they recently gave at a conference or meeting, and to receive feedback from peers to help refine a work in progress.

This year the PDC will host a kick-off reception with refreshments on Monday, May 22, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Kroch 2B48.  Sarah Thomas will give remarks, and John Dean, the preservation and conservation librarian, will give a talk entitled “Cornell’s Global Preservation Efforts.”  In addition, a small poster session will be held in the adjacent room.  During the rest of the week, from May 23 to 25, a variety of panel sessions and presentations will take place on topics such as promotion and career paths, collaborations with faculty and other partners, implementation of new services, the future of integrated library systems, and e-resource management.  Snacks and beverages will be provided.  A complete schedule with room locations will be sent to all members of the Library community within the next week.

“My World” Exhibit
On Friday, April 14, “My World: The Photography of Gordon F. Sander: 1965-2006,” an exhibit of photography by the photographer and writer Gordon F. Sander, opened at the Fine Arts Library in Sibley Dome.  “My World” includes over seventy color images chosen by Sander and his cocurator, J. J. Manford, a Cornell senior fine arts major.  The images were selected to illustrate Sander’s “wide, wonderful, and wacky world” (as he describes it) and were culled from his slide library of 10,000 transparencies. 

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Amusement Park Gothenberg

“My World” is Sander’s third photography show at Cornell.  His first exhibit, “Sunday Painter,” was held in the Art Room of Willard Straight Hall in 1972, when Sander—who originally matriculated in the College of Art, Architecture and Planning—was a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Thirty years later, after he returned to Ithaca to be artist-in-residence at Cornell’s Risley Residential College for the Creative and Performing Arts, Sander was honored with another one-man show, comprising thirty images, at the Hartell Gallery of the College of Art, Architecture and Planning.  The current exhibit in the library is twice that size.  It is also bigger than “My America,” the large show of images of the United States that he mounted at Helsinki’s Municipal Art Hall in 1998.  In addition to his Cornell and Helsinki shows, Sander has also had one man-shows in London and New York.  His photos have been published in the New York Times, Image, and many other newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Rod Serling's Swimming Pool

Sander, who resides in Cayuga Heights, is also the author or co-author of several books, including Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in biography (Dutton, 1992); The Frank Family that Survived, a historical memoir (Random House UK, 2004) ); and Book, a coffee-table book-cum-anthology of his photography and journalism.

“‘My World’ is the next step from ‘My America,’” said Sander.  “I suppose you could call it a composite self-portrait, spread out over forty years.”  As much an installation as a show, the exhibit takes up the entirety of the two-floor Fine Arts Library.  There are photos on walls, photos on columns, photos between bookcases.  The show is designed to be as much an experience as possible—as well as to make maximum use of this wonderful, idiosyncratic space.  The three photos of Sander’s that already hang on the walls of the library, which Sander calls his “artistic laboratory,” are also included.  Sander claims that “My World” is not just a show, but also a celebration of his relationship with Cornell and with the library and space as well.  The fact that he has been using the Fine Arts Library as a student, teacher, or artist off and on for almost four decades makes it something very special and meaningful to him.

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Two Cars Collegetown, 1971

The centerpiece of the show is a 44” x 55” image of Paris’s Magdalene, printed at Cornell’s Digital Media Lab, which hangs in the main room of the library.  There are also large prints of Rod Serling’s former swimming pool (“The Land of Mink Swimming Pools”), taken while Sander was researching his biography of Serling, and other subjects.

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Watching Election Returns

The exhibit will continue through June 11.  For more information, contact Martha Walker, at maw6, or J. J. Manford, at jdm57.  Sander himself can be reached at Gorsander@aol.com.

“What Is a Map?
You are all invited to enjoy “What is a Map?” a fascinating new exhibit in the display case on the lower level of Olin Library.  The exhibit presents the work of students in Drawing IV, an advanced drawing class in the Department of Art.  Shea Hembley, the artists’ TA, challenged them to take the inspiration for their semester projects from some aspect of cartography.  The class visited the Map Collection early in the semester, where the students examined a wide variety of maps, globes, and other cartographic objects before disappearing into the studio for twelve weeks.  They re-emerged with ten surprising and surprisingly different creations.  Some took the map directive quite literally, others made only passing cartographic references, and a few re-interpreted the assignment in highly idiosyncratic ways.  They used a variety of media, from ink on paper to paint on denim, prints, and acrylics.  Whatever the approach or medium, all the works will engage your imagination.  Come down and look, share your impressions with us, and ponder for a minute, “What Is a Map?” We were again very fortunate to have the expert help of Susann Argetsinger and Pat Fox in mounting the display.  The class gave them free rein to place and mount objects as they thought best.  The result is impressive and brings the work to life.  “What Is a Map?” will continue through June 16.

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