THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080043
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 87 lines
AFTER NEARLY four years as curator at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, Jan Riley has resigned to take a job in an important New York gallery.
She will work as an administrator and registrar at the Robert Miller Gallery on East 57th Street.
``I've enjoyed working here, but it's time to go,'' Riley said Friday, her last day at the center. ``I think that curators mostly stay for three to five 5 years - and go. So, it's really part of the profession.''
She said her departure is not connected to the June resignation of former director Helen Snow or to center's current search for an executive director.
Rather, it's a decision to live in a major arts capital, and to work closely with world-class art. The 20-year-old Robert Miller Gallery handles such significant 20th century artists as David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus.
``My job description isn't really set,'' she said. ``They're keeping it flexible. I'll be staying behind the scenes for a while.''
As curator, Riley was responsible for the artistic direction of the center. She broadened its exhibits by including challenging and provocative art by women and other minorities.
She expressed an affinity for art of a more intellectual bent, and often chose exhibits that featured such works in an accessible manner. ``IS IT ART?'', a show in October 1995, featured conceptual and installation art along with kiosks that explored and explained it.
``We really feel it's a loss for us personally,'' said Jim Spruance, the center's interim director and a board member. ``In the best of all worlds, we can only expect to be a steppingstone for talented people like Jan. We're glad to have had her expertise for 3 1/2 years, at least.''
Riley left the center with a 18-month schedule of shows. Assistant curator Neill Hughes has been named acting curator.
Her replacement might possibly be the next executive director, Spruance said. It all depends on whom the center hires at the helm.
As of the Sept. 30 deadline for submissions, the center had collected 96 applications, Spruance said. The five-member search committee, headed by Norfolk lawyer Jody Wagner, hopes to hire someone by year's end.
``Now, with the knowledge of Jan's departure, we have looked again at all of the applicants with a thought toward the background of the executive director being more curatorial,'' Spruance said. ``There are a lot of directors who have come up from that chain, and who hold on to that, and use that skill.''
And, if the new director was disinterested in organizing the exhibits, he said, that person could hire a curator with complementary skills.
Brazen - and ablaze
Old Dominion University has put a spotlight on censorship issues with this year's Literary Festival, set for Thursday through Sunday. To augment, the university has organized pre-festival lectures and an art show.
Wednesday at 8 p.m., Dr. Linda McGreevy will give a slide lecture, ``Art Under Fire,'' focusing on recent censorships of art photography. McGreevy, an associate professor of art history who specializes in 20th century art, will discuss attacks on controversial art, and examine the impact of these campaigns.
Jan Riley, the departing Virginia Beach curator, experienced such censorship firsthand. She was working at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center in the spring of 1990, when indictments were issued to CAC and to its director for exhibiting work by the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe that was deemed obscene by a local citizens group.
The charges eventually were dropped. But the whole ordeal was a shot heard 'round the world, initiating a battle that rages on between the freedom of expression proponents and those who prefer more restrictions.
The 1996 ``Artistic Freedom Under Attack,'' the fourth annual catalog published by the People for the American Way, lists 137 challenges to artistic expression in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, 73 percent were successful in enacting some level of restriction.
McGreevy's free talk will take place in room 107, Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center, 49th Street and Elkhorn Avenue, Norfolk.
Beginning Thursday, ODU's University Gallery, 765 Granby St., will host the exhibit, ``Visual Art and Literature.''
The show features art by regional artists responding to the work of censored authors taking part in the literary festival. Participating artists include Ron Snapp, Jill Snapp, Richard Hovorka, Marcia Brown and Melissa Berent.
The exhibit opens Thursday with a 5:30 p.m. screening of ODU film studies instructor Andrea Slane's ``Irresistible Impulse,'' a feature-length experimental video. A reception for the artists will be held Friday from 7 to 10 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
The art show continues through Nov. 10. The gallery's hours are 7 to 9 p.m. Thursdays, noon to 4 p.m. weekends. Admission is free.
For more information, call 683-3020. by CNB