Fine Arts Center

Melanie Yazzie: Finding Oneself Again and Again
2019-08-24 - 2020-02-23 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Melanie Yazzie is informed by the Diné philosophy of hozho — translated as blessings, beauty, and harmony. After experiencing illness, she challenged herself to create artworks that find ways to heal from and to balance the negative effects of settler colonialism that Indigenous people live with on a daily basis. Her earlier works focused on calling attention to the harsh realities of racism, poverty, and loss of home territories. She continues to acknowledge these struggles, but now layers her artworks with recuperative images. As a Mellon Foundation Artist in Residence at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College in 2018, Yazzie began using printing plates recovered from a 1939 book project about Diné healing practices. By layering the fractional images of the color-separation plates with her own iconography formed from memories of people and places, Yazzie asserts the ongoing significance of Indigenous knowledge. This exhibition presents recent works created during the Mellon Foundation residency and over the course of a very productive time following her experience at Colorado Springs.

Valentine's Day Lunch Special
2020-02-12 11:00 - 2020-02-14 14:00 (America/Denver) | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
3 days only – treat your valentine, a friend … yourself!
From February 12-14, Taste will be offering a special three course Valentine’s Day lunch.
For only $35 per person, guests will enjoy —
Course 1
Endive Salad with sesame tuilles, orange slices, and grapefruit lime vinaigrette
Course 2
Filet Mignon and Herbed Shrimp with potatoes au crème and roasted carrots
Course 3
Valrhona Chocolate Tart with cherry gastrique
PLUS – 2 for 1 Champagne Cocktails (Non-alcoholic sparkling cider available as an alternative)
Reservations recommended: (719) 634-5583
Open 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Standard lunch menu will also be available.

The Bridges of Madison County
2020-02-13 19:30 - 21:30, 2020-02-16 14:00 - 16:00, 2020-02-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
The Tony Award-Winning New Musical on stage Feb. 13-March 1. Francesca Johnson, a beautiful Italian woman who married an American soldier to flee war-ravaged Italy, looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm when her family heads to the 1965 State Fair. When ruggedly handsome, National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid, pulls into her driveway seeking directions, though, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca’s life.

POSTPONED: We Are All Aliens and Other Tales of Radical Imagination
2020-02-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
We are sorry to announce that the February 18 performance by Guillermo Gómez-Peña has been postponed to a later date due to unforeseen health circumstances.
We look forward to announcing a rescheduling of the performance soon.

A brand new spoken-word monologue by Guillermo Gómez-Peña featuring Balitronica Gómez
This performance features core Pocha Nostra member & collaborator Balitronica Gómez.
Free and open to the public
In his newest solo performance, Gómez-Peña presents a spoken-word immersion into his “living archive” encompassing 40 years of material from his engagement in Border culture and US Mexico relations completely reimagined in light of the current political climate. This piece is considered a “live anthology” dealing with immigration, US/Mexico relations, the implications of “the border wall”, racism at the border, extreme Mexiphobia, fear of immigrants and the insidious ways that new ultra-nationalisms are affecting our notions of nationality, identity, language and art making.
WE ARE ALL ALIENS is a philosophical and artistic response to the ongoing crisis in the lives of cultural and religious “others”, refugees and immigrants (legal as well as “illegal”) and a call for reinvigorated action. Throughout the work are the foundational beliefs that the human body is a site for reflection and reenactment of social phenomena and performance art a form of radical democracy and citizenship.

Artist Statement
“My new performance represents the fruit of my life’s work in all its iterations: live performance, lecturing, archiving, literary work, mentoring, community activism, all coming together to address the dangers of the times we live in with its disregard for human life and insidious undermining of democracy.
At this time in my life I am thinking as much about legacy as I am with trying to continually produce socially conscious experimental artwork that is simultaneously plugged into the national debates. I have learned from decades of touring performance material to locations beyond the Border that a call to action – in the form of a work of art – has the power to elicit compassion and inculcate a desire for social justice.
For me performance art is a form of radical democracy and citizenship which depends on the presence of the audience/community to succeed. I view my approach to creating this hybrid piece as “performing the archives” for multiple contexts: The art world, academia, community and the media. I am particularly interested in connecting with a new generation of audience members who may not have been exposed to the history of my generation, performance art and the Chicano movement.”

Artist Bio
Guillermo Gómez-Peña (US/Mexico) is a performance artist, writer, activist, radical pedagogue and director of the legendary performance troupe La Pocha Nostra. Born in Mexico City, he moved to the US in 1978. His performance work and 12 books have contributed to the debates on cultural & gender diversity, border culture and US/Mexico relations. His artwork has been presented at over a thousand venues across the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Russia, South Africa and Australia. A MacArthur Fellow, Bessie and American Book Award winner, he is a regular contributor for newspapers and magazines in the US, Mexico, and Europe, a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU/MIT) and the Live Art Almanac (Live Art Development Agency-UK). Gómez-Peña is also a Senior Fellow in the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and a Patron for the London-based Live Art Development Agency, He was named Samuel Hoi Fellow by USA Artists in 2012, received a Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation in 2013 and a Guggenheim award in 2019. Gómez-Peña is currently preparing two new books for Routledge (2020) and is currently working on a documentary portrait of his beloved troupe.

Location
Richard F. Celeste Theatre
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave.
Generously sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant for Southwest Arts and Culture

Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental
2020-02-21 - 2020-12-05 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
This major solo exhibition of Rebecca Belmore shows that she is one of the most important contemporary artists working along the border of art and politics. One of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Belmore creates artworks that respond to the pressing concerns of our time with beauty, sensitivity and resilience. The exhibition is the largest survey of Belmore’s work ever presented, featuring photography, sculpture and media installations from the past three decades.

Artist and Curator Dialogue with artist Rebecca Belmore and curator Wanda Nanibush
2020-02-21 17:30 - 18:30 | Packard Hall, 5 W Cache la Poudre St, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Please note the time for this event has changed to 5:30 p.m.
This artist and curator dialogue is Free and open to the Public
The Fine Arts Center is proud to present the US debut of Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental, a major solo exhibition of works by internationally recognized multi-disciplinary artist Rebecca Belmore. Join us for a conversation with artist Rebecca Belmore and exhibition curator Wanda Nanibush.
A member of Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), Belmore has given voice in her work to social and political issues for over 30 years, employing a visual language that is both poetic and provocative to contend with subjects such as water and land rights, women’s lives and dignity, and state violence against Indigenous people. Belmore was the first Indigenous artist to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale (2005).

Sunday Salon
2020-02-23 17:00 - 18:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
The FAC Theatre Company and Colorado College will host a conversation about themes emerging from the show following the Sunday, Feb. 23 matinee performance of The Bridges of Madison County. This will be the fourth of several Sunday Salon discussions throughout the season, which allow additional engagement with the production through conversation with a member of the Colorado Springs community and a member of the Colorado College faculty.
Mark Reis is a 1980 graduate of Iowa State University and has been working as a photojournalist since then. He is passionate about photojournalism and loves to tell peoples’ stories with photographs. Mark joined The Gazette staff in 1986 and was the newspaper’s Director of Photography until 2017, when he left to expand his freelance photography business. He has covered ten Olympic Games and five Superbowls. He and his wife, Wendy, have two daughters and four grandchildren.
Emma Powell is an Assistant Professor of Art at Colorado College, where she teaches all levels of photography including; digital printing, alternative processes, and traditional darkroom techniques. Powell received her MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her personal work incorporates alternative photographic processes to illustrate fantasy narratives. Selections from Powell’s most recent series Svala’s Saga have been displayed at the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey, England, the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California, and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at Colorado College Deco Lounge, to name a few, and featured in publications such as Fraction Magazine, Hand Magazine, Lenscratch, as well as Lapham’s Quarterly.
This Sunday Salon is free and open to all ticket holders (regardless of which performance of they attend during the run).

The Bridges of Madison County: Backstage Tour
2020-02-27 21:30 - 22:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for a FREE guided backstage tour following the third Thursday performance.

The Bridges of Madison County: Talkback
2020-03-01 16:30 - 17:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for a FREE talkback session following the final Sunday performance.

Community Gathering with Emanuel Martinez, Lucha Martinez de Luna, and Jerry Vigil
2020-03-05 17:00 - 19:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Please join us for a community gathering honoring Emanuel Martinez (internationally renowned muralist, painter and sculptor) and Lucha Martinez de Luna (Chicano Murals of Colorado Project) along with special guest, local artist Jerry Vigil. Remarks from Dr. Nancy Ríos, Department of Southwest Studies.
Free Admission.
Refreshments Provided.
Sponsored by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant for Southwest Arts and Culture and Hulbert Center for Southwest Studies.
Image: Emanuel Martinez, Arte Mestiza (detail), 1986, acrylic on concrete; located in the FAC parking lot

Member Preview Day
2020-03-13 10:00 - 19:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Special FAC member perk – get early access to view the exhibition Nancy Lovendahl: Small Glimpses, Many Times on Friday, March 13. Check in at the front desk during regular museum hours (10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.) with your membership card to receive your special entrance badge for exclusive access before this show opens to the public on March 14.

Nancy Lovendahl: Small Glimpses, Many Times
2020-03-13 10:00 - 2020-11-08 19:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Small Glimpses, Many Times presents a never-before-seen body of work by internationally renowned sculptor and mixed media artist Nancy Lovendahl. Lovendahl, affected by her observations of the Colorado landscape, investigates themes of scale and perception. Taking its title from Dzogchen, a foundational practice in Buddhist meditation, this exhibition tracks Lovendahl’s consistent exploration of repetition across new developments in her social practice in art.

Sketchbook in Quarantine: Virtual Zoom Studio
2020-04-27 14:00 - 15:00 | FAC Digital, CO, United States
Throughout history, artists have always kept visual diaries of their ideas and surroundings. In this online class, we will explore what that means to us during this challenging time of COVID-19. Using basic art supplies and items at hand, you will learn some techniques for exploring, playing and recording your environment in a sketchbook. We will cover mark making, pattern generating and meditative techniques for making art during this stressful time. We will meet virtually but also have opportunities to view a variety of instructor-created videos with plenty of time to create and share your work. At this time of isolation, we encourage families to work together. Ages 6-Adult

Streaming: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
2020-05-01 - 2020-05-07 | FAC Digital, CO, United States
One Week Only: Watch the full production of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane! Edward Tulane is an expensive toy rabbit made of china. He is loved by a little girl named Abilene, but Edward doesn’t care. He is vain and self-centered. He has no interest in anyone other than himself. On an ocean voyage, Edward is accidentally thrown overboard and sinks to the bottom of the sea. So begins his journey – a journey over which he has no control, for he is a toy rabbit.
