Artist Talk and a Poetry Reading by Artists in 'Altarations: Built, Blended, Processed'

The University Galleries will present two public programs by artists that are included in the exhibition "Altarations: Built, Blended, Processed," currently on view through Saturday, Feb. 28, in the Schmidt Center Gallery and the Ritter Art Gallery,  777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. The public programs and the exhibition are free and open to the public. Both program venues will be open a half hour before the program for exhibition viewing.

Brooklyn-based artist Penelope Umbrico will present a talk on her installation in "Altarations" and on her photographic work at Girls Club on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. at 117 NE Second St., Fort Lauderdale. Girls Club is a contemporary art collection and alternative space that produces exhibitions, educational programs, publications and events with a focus on contemporary art by women. Umbrico is a photo-based artist whose work explores the ever-increasing production and consumption of photographs on the web. For the "Altarations" exhibition, Umbrico has produced an installation of her "Suns from Sunsets from Flickr" series consisting of more than 4,000 individual 4-foot-by-6-foot color photographic prints sourced from the photo website Flickr. The installation is 7-feet high and measures more than 100-feet wide.

Umbrico has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a recent Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Aperture published her monograph, "Penelope Umbrico (photographs)", 2011 and Range, 2014. Out of Order, 2014, was published by RVB Paris. She is represented by Mark Moore Gallery in the U.S. and XPO Gallery in Paris.

Jibade-Khalil Huffman will present a reading of his poetry on Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m.  in the Ritter Art Gallery. Huffman is a Los Angeles-based artist who works in multiple medias and is also a published poet. Huffman's reading is presented in association with FAU's Department of English. For "Altarations" he is exhibiting five modest-sized colorful collages that seem simultaneously digital while also retaining the spirit and feel of hand-cut collage. Another larger single work appears as a swath of undulating fabric, however parts of the image have been very subtly manipulated, visible only through close inspection, and thereby it strongly contrasts the "rougher" smaller collage works.

Huffman earned a B.A. from Bard College, New York, followed by an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, and an M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Southern California. He is the author of three books of poems, "19 Names For Our Band" (Fence, 2008), "James Brown is Dead" (Future Plan and Program, 2011), and "Sleeper Hold" (Fence, 2014). His work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions in venues such as Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.; and MoMA/P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York. He was an artist-in-residence at Workspace, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. In 2014, Huffman's work was included in "Made in L.A. 2014," Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Calif. and through Sunday, Feb. 8, his work is featured in a two-person exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York.

"Altarations," was organized by W. Rod Faulds, FAU University Galleries' director, and FAU alumna Jeanie Ambrosio, and presents a wide range of photographic work by 23 living artists from several generations and geographic origins. The University Galleries at FAU are free and open to the public Tuesdays through Fridays, from 1 to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. Group and class tours are welcome during public hours as well as at other times scheduled by appointment. Gallery exhibitions are sponsored in part by the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County. Additional support is provided by The R.A. Ritter Foundation, Beatrice Cummings Mayer and other contributor. The Galleries' active Museum Education Program for school-aged children is made possible by the Kaye Arts Integration Endowment. For more information, call 561-297-2661, email galleries@fau.edu or visit www.fau.edu/galleries.