view . summer 2010
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Justin Langlois Honours BA ’07, MFA ’09
Justin Langlois, executive director of the Arts Council Windsor
& Region and an instructor at the School of Visual Arts, is an
artist working in integrated media and social practice. His recent
major research project was situated in Broken City Lab, a creative
research group that focuses on engaging and interrupting the city,
its infrastructure and communities.
He puts UWindsor’s visual arts School at “the heart of Windsor’s
arts community,” whose generations of graduates actively
contribute to the arts both locally and around the world.
“For decades, the School of Visual Arts has remained engaged
throughout all levels of community,” he says, “and has become the
foundation upon which the exciting cultural future of Windsor-Essex
will continue to be built. The city and entire region is truly lucky
to have had the School of Visual Arts playing such a vital role in
fostering the ongoing artistic excellence and growth of the creative
community over the last 50 years.”
THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS’ INFLUENCE ON
ARTISTS CROSSES DISCIPLINES AND BORDERS.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS A SELECTION OF GRADUATES.
Celio Barreto BA ’99, BFA ’03
The SoHo Art Gallery that Celio Barreto owns in Osaka, Japan, is
a hybrid experimental and commercial art space. He organizes art
events and curates exhibitions of Japanese contemporary and pop
art, as well as cross-cultural works both on- and off-site.
“At LeBel, I was exposed to an incredible group of teachers that
taught me the value of art far beyond the market, and to re-think
and explore the role of art in other aspects of life outside the gallery
and the studio,” Barreto writes. “The projects that I’m engaged in
are a realization of many of these ideas and ideals, and commercial
success follows as a by-product of the application of the skills,
values and lessons learned at LeBel. I’m one very proud alumnus!”
Barry Franklin BFA ’75
A piece of UWindsor’s School of Visual Arts’ history and influence
is etched into the entrance of St. Joseph’s Secondary School in
Cornwall where alumnus Barry Franklin teaches visual arts.
The artwork Franklin created for the School’s 25th anniversary
includes a bonded bronze relief section that measures 36 inches by
58 inches, showing the figure of St. Joseph and modelled on photos
of Joseph DeLauro, the influential founder of UWindsor’s visual art
school. The work includes several symbols that refer to Italy and the
Renaissance.
“This was my tribute to a great artist and teacher,” says
Franklin who did his BFA painting thesis with Tony Doctor, another
pioneering professor of the visual arts program, and studied
sculpture with DeLauro.
He and his wife Martha also run the Franklin Arts Workshop
in the small village of Summerstown, Ontario, located east of
Cornwall on the St. Lawrence River.
A bonded bronze relief 36” x 58” (golden section) by Barry Franklin. The
figure of St. Joseph was modelled on photos of Joseph DeLauro, who founded
the School of Visual Arts.
Broken City Lab projected a series of messages from Windsor that were
visible across the border in Detroit in November 2009, as an interventionist
performance series based on the desperate need to communicate between these
two cities. Photo courtesy of Broken City Lab.
“Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation” is a project that calls on over
25 different artists, writers, designers, restauranteurs, musicians, architects,
archivists, and other interested parties to occupy a space in downtown
Windsor in June and July 2010 to attempt to intervene with the everyday
realities of skyrocketing vacancy rates, failing economic strategies, and a
place in need of new imagination. Courtesy of Broken City Lab.
