GAUDNEKOLOR POP by Walter Gaudnek

Location: UCF Art Gallery

GAUDNEKOLOR POP, a solo exhibition by Walter Gaudnek, celebrates the artist’s 50th and final year as a professor in the School of Visual Arts and Design at the University of Central Florida. Walter Gaudnek and his daughter Yve Gaudnek (a current UCF film student) selected works for the exhibition that highlight the use of color in poetic figurative settings between tradition and innovation. In 1960, while living in New York City, he proclaimed his philosophy of polymorphism: the idea that a painting is never finished and can be continuously evolved. By creating new works from pre-existing images, he seeks to challenge the modernist reference to originality and demonstrate the inherent power rooted in masterpieces of art.

Please join us for the Opening Reception on Friday, January 10 from 5-7pm
RSVP: https://bit.ly/2XGrWMO

Walter Gaudnek (born in Fleyh, Czechoslovakia) is a German-American artist, professor of painting at University of Central Florida in the School of Visual Arts and Design in Orlando, FL a founder of the Gaudnek Europa Museum (GEM) in Altomuenster, Germany, 1999. As an art student in Munich; Gaudnek created three provocative galleries: Neue Galerie, Ingolstadt, Zimmergalerie, and Galerie 17, Munich, (1953-1957). During his Fulbright scholarship in the USA, he took part in various happenings and art movements in New York (1959-1969). Since the 1970’s Gaudnek has been one of the main representatives of Pop Art with religious topics. Gaudnek’s exhibition record includes Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; São Paulo Museo de Art Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil; Museo Universitario Universidad de Antioqua, Medellin, Columbia; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Alfred Cubin Galerie, Munich; Landesbank, Munich; and Grey Gallery, New York. Walter Gaudnek has shown at the Florence Biennale four times: 2007, 2009, 2015 and 2019. At the Xth Florence Biennale (2015), Gaudnek won the 3^rdprize for his video Cross Glyphs and in 2019 received the Special Commendation by the President of the XII Florence Biennale for his video Shapechanger Prams. His series of large size paintings “The 10 Commandments “, a donation to Pope Francis, is presently in Cuba awaiting installation. His numerous awards at UCF included the Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award ,1990.

_____________________________________________________________________

Please join us for “A Pop Art Primer: What it is; What it’s not.” with Dr. Bradford Collins on Thursday, Jan. 30 from 6-7:30pm
RSVP: https://bit.ly/2QCRDLf

Pop Art was a revolutionary development in the history of modern art, but the fundamental nature of that revolution remains badly misunderstood. Dr. Bradford Collins will discuss the shift in consciousness that made Pop possible and the understandable misconception that has prevented us from recognizing it. Moderated questions with Professor Walter Gaudnek will follow the talk.

Professor Collins received his B.A. in American Studies from Amherst College in 1964 and his Ph.D. in Art History from Yale University in 1980. Before arriving at the University of South Carolina in 1988 he taught at the University of British Columbia and Florida State University. The culmination of his training and early work in 19th century French painting was an anthology devoted to Edouard Manet’s Bar at the Folies Bergère, “12 Views of Manet’s ‘Bar’ (Princeton, 1996), which has become a standard text for methodology classes. Over the past twenty years, however, his focus has gradually shifted to American art and criticism of the postwar period. His research topics have ranged widely from Clement Greenberg and Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, particularly Andy Warhol, the subject of his current book project. In 2012 two of his books were published: Mark Rothko, the Decisive Decade: 1940-1950 (Rizzoli) and Pop Art: The Independent Group to Neo Pop, 1952-1990 (Phaidon). Dr. Collins was also honored that year by his inclusion in the Princeton Review’s The 300 Best Professors (Random House). In 2018 Dr. Collins won The Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year Award, which honors undergraduate teaching.