The West Virginia Division of Culture and History (WVDCH) has installed two new exhibits in the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex in Charleston. Both exhibits will remain on display through Aug. 17. The shows are free and the public is invited to attend.
The Balcony Gallery features West Virginia Juried Exhibition 2007 Award Winners. The exhibit showcases 16 works that were award winners in the Division’s biennial exhibition, West Virginia Juried Exhibition. Artists received awards totaling $29,000 at an opening ceremony at the Parkersburg Art Center, where the show was on display, last Oct. 19.
Eight of these works were purchase awards, and at the close of the exhibition Feb. 8, 2008, became part of the West Virginia State Museum contemporary art collection. The awards money was made available through the West Virginia Commission on the Arts (WVCA) of the WVDCH from funds appropriated by the West Virginia Legislature. The awards constitute one of the largest endowments for any single juried exhibition in the country.
Historically, the West Virginia Juried Exhibition has been held at the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex in Charleston since its inception in 1979. One element of the extensive mission of the WVDCH is the promotion of the arts throughout West Virginia. In order to further this goal, the WVCA and the Division decided to have the exhibition travel to Parkersburg, sharing the best in art with yet another community in the Mountain State. This is the first time these 16 works have been on display at the Cultural Center.
Since the exhibition closed in Parkersburg, the award-winning pieces traveled to Arts Monongalia in Morgantown from Feb. 12 through May 14, the Cultural Center, and will be on display at Museum in the Park at Chief Logan State Park from Aug. 22 through Oct. 15, giving more West Virginians a chance to enjoy the best the state has to offer.
The other exhibition, Selections from the West Virginia State Museum Permanent Collection, is on display in the north wing of the Great Hall in the Cultural Center. This show consists of 14 works including prints, photographs, drawings and woodcuts. Much of the work is from Allied Artist shows from the 1960s and 1970s and previous West Virginia Juried Exhibitions.
The West Virginia State Museum preserves and exhibits more than 60,000 objects obtained through donations, purchases and transfers from other government agencies.
For more information about the two exhibitions, contact Charles Morris, director of collections and exhibitions for the Division, at (304) 558-0220, ext. 704.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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Photographs of the WVJE award winners can be downloaded from http://www.wvculture.org/museum/wvje2007/press.html
