The Department of Performing and Fine Arts at Fayetteville State University would like to invite the public to join more than 100 visitors arriving from six states to attend a distinctive gallery crawl on Nov. 4. 

The exhibits are the direct result of the indirect support of two national conferences taking place at FSU on Nov. 4-5, the 16th National Alliance of Artists from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Conference of Artists, an organization of African-American artists and educators that has been in existence since 1959. 

Although there is a small fee to attend the conference, it is an historic event on the campus of Fayetteville State University and for the community; the conferences have been committed to the works of African-American artists and their canon in the history of art. During the past five decades the NCA has counted among its membership some of the leading African-American artists and historians of the 20th century. Through its annual meetings and related exhibitions, it has been in a position to monitor the evolution of African-American artists throughout that period as well as assess the work of their African-American forebears. 

Six galleries are participating in the gallery crawl on Friday, Nov. 4, between 3 and 8 p.m. Students from many historically black college/universities and their professors/alumni will be exhibiting in local galleries; while other galleries are involved by hosting exhibitions that include significant contemporary or historical African-American artists. 

Rosenthal Gallery on the campus of Fayetteville State University is hosting the faculty and alumni from the NAAHBCU and organization of historically black colleges and universities. Many of the artists exhibiting are historically significant and have contributed to the history of the African American canon in art.

Ellington White Contemporary Gallery is hosting the Charles White Sketchbook exhibit. The exhibit features 17 sketchbook drawings and watercolors by one of America’s most historically important and recognized African-American and Social Realist artists. His work is included in the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum and many more well respected institutions. 

The Arts Council of Fayetteville and Cumberland County has included several African-American artists who use recycled materials in their annual recycle exhibit titled Recycle: The Art of Transformation. The student exhibits are in three gallery spaces: Gallery 208, Gallery 116 and the Rudolf Jones Student Center at Fayetteville State University. 

Schedule of Gallery Crawl Openings on Friday, Nov. 4:

Rudolph Jones Student Center at FSU (Student Exhibit, FSU): 3:30-5:30 p.m. 

Rosenthal Gallery, FSU   (HBCU Faculty and Alumni Exhibit, FSU): 4:30 - 8 p.m. 

Gallery 208 (Student Exhibit, 208 Rowan Street): 5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Gallery 116 (Student Exhibit, 116 Anderson Street): 5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Arts Council of Fayetteville and Cumberland County (301 Hay Street, Recycle: the Art of Transformation includes several African-American artists who recycle): 5:30 – 8 p.m. 

Ellington White Contemporary Gallery (113 Gillespie Street, Charles White Sketchbook Exhibit): 5:30 - 8 p.m.  

The gallery openings are free to everyone, but there is a $50 fee to attend the 16th NAAHBCU and 54th NCA conferences. The theme for the conference and its presenters at Fayetteville State University is Into the New Millennium: New Media Abstractions and Identity Politics.

Conference events begin in the FSU Rudolph Jones Student Center on Friday, Nov. 4 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and continue on Saturday, Nov. 5, in Seabrook Auditorium and FSU Rosenthal Building (classrooms and the recital hall) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The featured conference speakers will include: 

Dr. Regenia A. Perry, a retired Virginia Commonwealth University Professor of African-American Art History, is the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Art History. She is also the foremost expert in African-American folk art. 

Lisa Farrington, chair of the Art Department at John Jay College CUNY and is a curator, author and art historian specializing in Haitian, African-American and women’s art. She has published widely, including Common Goals, Common Struggles: Women of the Harlem Renaissance (University of Mississippi, forthcoming), Creating Their Own Image: the History of African-American Women Artists (Oxford University, 2005), and two monographs on artist Faith Ringgold. 

Dr. Jeffery C. Stewart, a Professor in the Black Studies Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has an extensive list of publications and essays. His most important research has been on the Harlem Renaissance, the black arts movement of the 1920s, and his specialty has been the work of black philosopher Alain Locke. 

Willis “Bing” Davis, is the Founder and Director of the EbonNia Gallery in Dayton, Ohio. He has served as past President of the National Conference of Artists and has had a distinguished career as a curator and an artist who exhibits in galleries and museums in America, as well as West Africa and Germany.

Dr. Leo Twiggs, is widely seen as the country’s main pioneer of batik as a modern art form. He is an important and noted South Carolinian artist since the 1960s. The subject of his art is about issues and people close to his Southern upbringing. 

Although all the exhibits will be up a month, the night of the official opening is a gallery crawl to visit each Fayetteville gallery participating in the exhibition as part of the conference between the hours of 3:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 4, and the public is invited. For information on the conference events and times, contact the conference coordinator: Dwight Smith, Assistant Professor of Art, at 672-1795. 

For conference details and events, go to the FSU Department of Performing and Fine Arts, click on Fine Arts Series website: http://fsuarts.com/event/national-alliance-of-artists-from-hbcus-exhibition/