Strohl Art Center, Fowler-Kellogg Art Center and the Melvin Johnson Sculpture Garden

Every summer VACI presents 10 exhibitions, adding to the students overall experience at Chautauqua outside the art school. In 2004 the former Art Association Galleries joined with the School of Art, the Art School Galleries and the visual arts lecture series as cornerstones of the visual arts program at Chautauqua Institution—VACI.

Recently, after $4.75 million in renovations as a museum quality space, the former Art Association Galleries became the Strohl Art Center, home to the 55-year-old Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, which will be selected this year by Kim Levin.

Strohl Art Center Kim Levin has written frequently for publications such as The New York Times, and ArtNews and she was a regular contributor to The Village Voice for more than twenty years. She has also been Contributing Editor of Arts Magazine and New York correspondent for Flash Art and Opus International. Ms. Levin has written catalogue texts for many museum exhibitions including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Kunstmuseum Basel, Welsh Arts Council, the Yokohama Museum, and Moderna Museet Stockholm, as well as many institutions throughout the United States. Long time President of the International Association of Art Critics (she is now President Honoraire) Levin’s essays on art have also appeared in anthologies, magazines, and journals in the United States and internationally, including Neue Bildende Kunst, Kunstforum, World Art, Art Asia Pacific, Artscribe, New Art International, Art in America, Art Journal, Sculpture, Connoisseur, Mirabella, and the American Journal of Archeology.

Don Kimes in 'Abstraction in America'
Albright-Knox at Chautauqua exhibition.
L to R Jasper Johns, Lee Krasner, Paul Jenkins,
Hans Hofmann, Philip Guston A renowned critic, scholar and curator, Levin has taught at Philadelphia College of Art, Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, and Claremont Graduate School, and she has lectured at museums and universities throughout the United States (including the Guggenheim Museum, Brown University, University of Texas, University of Chicago, University of California) and elsewhere. Click here for more information on applying to the 55th Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art.

L to R School of Art Alumni Annie Hoover, Alison Hall Ms. Levin will be speaking and visiting studios in the School of Art during her stay at Chautauqua in 2012. Other recent jurors for this exhibition have included Jim Kempner (Jim Kempner Fine Art in New York City's Chelsea Art District), Robert Storr (curator of the 2007 Venice Bienale and current Dean of Yale University School of Art), Michael Gitlitz (Director, Marlborough Gallery, NYC), Luis Grachos (former Director of Site Santa Fe and current Director of the Albright Knox Museum), Barbara Rose (internationally renowned critic/historian and author of American Painting Since 1900), Donald Kuspit (Contributing editor Artforum and Sculpture magazines), Stephen Westfall (Artist and critic Art in America), Julian Zugazagoitia (Director of Museo del Barrio and former Assistant Director at the Guggenheim Museum) and Rachel Vancelette (Director, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NYC), and Denise Bibro (director of Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC).

School of Art Alumnus Dan Steinhilber (both works)A small sampling of artists whose work has been seen recently in our galleries includes Mel Bochner, Chuck Close, Val Cushing, Tara Donavan, Jim Dine, Caroll Dunham, Judy Glantzman, Sol Lewitt, Terry Winters, Jessica Stockholder, and School of Art alumnae such as Pedro Barbieto, Ani Hoover and Dan Steinhilber, as well as a major show of aboriginal sculpture from around the world. In 2008 the Melvin Johnson Sculpture Garden was inaugurated. New sculpture and installations by contemporary artists are presented here every summer.

School of Art Alumni Albert Weaver and Amber Scoon In 2012 there will be curated shows of contemporary art, surveys of national and regional art, the Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, the Albright Knox at Chautauqua exhibition, and (probably the most popular exhibition of the summer) the Annual School of Art Student Exhibition.