Museum of Art to premiere "Final Wisdom I," a digital video collaboration

MUNCIE, Ind. - "Final Wisdom I," a digital video collaboration between Ball State University art professor John Fillwalk and two internationally renowned artists will be premiered March 1-7 at the Ball State Museum of Art.

To create the piece, Fillwalk worked with art critic and poet Donald Kuspit and intermedia artist Hans Breder, distinguished professor emeritus of art from the University of Iowa. The work was inspired by a poem written by Kuspit; the footage was shot by Breder in Iowa City; and the DVD was composited and edited by Fillwalk.

""Final Wisdom I" interprets a poem of the same title written by Kuspit, who was inspired to compose it after viewing a series of digital photographs by Hans," Fillwalk said. "The poem itself deals with the notion of finding and being granted wisdom and issues of human vulnerability."

Fillwalk, artist in residence at Ball State"s Center for Media Design (CMD), is an intermedia artist who works primarily in digital video and installation art. His current projects include an HDTV work entitled "Íígháán" shot on a Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona and Utah. He is also working on an interactive video and sound installation in collaboration with Keith Kothman, director of Ball State"s music engineering technology program, premiering at iMOCA: Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art this spring.

Breder is known for experimenting with many forms of art including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation art, performance art, photography and electro-acoustic technologies. Breder has exhibited work in three Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in many museums and galleries around the world.

Kuspit, an internationally renowned art critic and professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, writes for several journals including Art Criticism, Artforum, New Art Examiner, and Sculpture and Centennial Review. He has written numerous articles and more than 20 books and is well known for his work on the current movement of neo-expressionism.

These events are co-sponsored by the CMD and have been made possible through the "Building the Four-Year Commitment" grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. The $3.5 million grant will be used to help students make a stronger commitment to stay in school and graduate.

Collaborating with high-profile, internationally renowned artists serves as a recruitment and retention tool in establishing the art department as a vibrant institution, Fillwalk said.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Fillwalk at jfillwalk@bsu.edu or (765) 285-2642. For more stories visit the Ball State University News Center at www.bsu.edu/news.)

Layne Cameron

2/27/04