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Richmond Curator to Give Talk on New Staniar Gallery Exhibit

Emily Smith, the director of 1708 Gallery in Richmond, will give a public talk on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 5:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall at Washington and Lee’s Wilson Hall. The topic of the lecture will be the current exhibition at Staniar Gallery, Future Perfect, which was curated by Smith.

The exhibition, on view through February 7, features works by recent graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Graduate School of the Arts, one of the top-ranking graduate art programs in the country.

Working in a range of media, the artists selected for this exhibit each express an interest in the sublime and attention to the performative aspects of art making. This exhibition offers the exciting opportunity to see the work of talented young artists on the brink of their careers in the art world. Each of the artists is working at the leading edge of contemporary art, demonstrating an acute awareness of current art practices and ideas even as they push against these boundaries.  The exhibit includes works by Katie Baines, Genesis Chapman, Will Machin, Valerie Molnar, Matt Shelton, Sayaka Suzuki, Alina Tenser, Naoko Wowsugi.

Prior to assuming her position as director of 1708 Gallery, Smith was the curatorial fellow in modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where she worked from 2007 until 2010, the director of exhibitions at Piedmont Arts in Martinsville, Va., (2004-2007) and the assistant director at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Va., (2003-2004).

Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.