Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Exhibition opening: Thursday, April 8 5:30 pm

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art invites the public to attend the opening of "NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration" on Thursday, April 8. The exhibition was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in cooperation with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The opening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a lecture by Tom Crouch, Senior Curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. A reception will follow at 6:30 p.m. with music provided by The JC Jazz Combo, a 7-piece ensemble under the direction of JCJC instructor Jeff Brown.

Since 1974, Crouch has served both the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of American History in a variety of curatorial and administrative posts. He holds a Ph.D. in American history from Ohio State University, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Wright State University, and has won several major writing awards. In the fall of 2000, President Clinton appointed him chairman of the First Flight Centennial Federal Advisory Board.

Crouch is the author or editor of more than a dozen books and many articles for both magazines and scholarly journals. His leading books include "The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright" (1989); "Dream of Wings: American and the Airplane, 1875-1905" (1981); "Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America" (1983); and "Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age" (2003).

NASA|ART will be on display at LRMA through June 27 and features nearly five decades of creations by artists as diverse as Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, and William Wegman.

Local exhibition sponsors are Cellular South Foundation, Southern Metals Company of Mississippi, The Pruet Companies, RAPAD Drilling and Well Service, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, Jefferson Medical, Merrill Lynch, and Robison Tire Company.

No comments: