Indiana University's School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery will host "The School of Fine Arts Abroad: Overseas Study Exhibition," opening Dec. 1 (Tuesday), and a simultaneous Bachelor of Fine Arts Painting show. A separate Bachelor of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition will be Dec. 8-12 (Tuesday-Saturday).

The work of ceramic artist Christyl Boger, an assistant professor of ceramics in Indiana University's School of Fine Arts, is on display through Jan. 3, 2010, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Annunciation + Visitation, a unique musical performance exploring two vastly different expressions of female sexuality, stretches the boundaries of what defines opera.

Indiana University Bloomington holds more than 560,000 audio and video recordings and film reels, many of which are historically significant, all of which are actively deteriorating. And the window of time to save these materials is closing fast.

The School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery at Indiana University will present "Surface Structures," an exhibition of new work by Martha MacLeish, an IU professor of studio art, opening Friday, Oct. 16, and continuing through Friday, Nov. 20. The opening reception will be Oct. 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m., in the SoFA Gallery.

Indiana University's School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery will present "William Itter: A Retrospective Paintings and Drawings 1969-2009," an exhibition works by Itter, an IU professor emeritus who joined the faculty in 1969. The exhibition will open Friday, Oct. 16 and will continue through Friday, Nov. 20.

Activist art comes to Indiana University Bloomington in September when the School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery presents "The Canary Project: Works on Climate Change 2006-2009," a new exhibit that opens Friday, Sept. 4, and runs through Friday, Oct. 9. The Canary Project produces visual media and artworks about climate change.

Throughout the month of September, the work of 30 artists and creative writers from Indiana University and the surrounding community will be on display throughout downtown Bloomington. The collaborative art installation, titled "Interpreting the Square: Thirty Artists Explore Downtown Bloomington," will explore the cultural, social and economic complexity of Bloomington's thriving business district, said Kristin Carlson, a graduate student at IU's School of Fine Arts. Carlson is co-administrator of the project with SoFA graduate student Sara Brooks.

The Indiana University Art Museum will extend public visiting hours for the conservation of two panels of the famed Thomas Hart Benton murals. The IU Art Museum's conservation lab will be open to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, from now through the end of September. The public viewings have been extended by a month because of the tremendous public interest in the project said Joanna Davis, manager of external relations for the IU Art Museum.

Starting July 10, the sultry sounds of jazz will fill the air on four consecutive Friday nights throughout the month when the Indiana University Art Museum hosts its 19th annual Jazz in July summer concert series. Each of the free, open-to-the-public concerts will features some of the top jazz talent in the Midwest, including Offramp, Craig and the Crawdads, Jan Aldridge Clark, Monica Herzig, Carolyn Dutton and Tom Roznowski.

In honor of summer solstice, the shortest night of the year, the Indiana University Art Museum will host a special reception Thursday, June 18, from 7 to 9 p.m. From Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream to Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night, Midsummer Night (also known as summer solstice, which technically occurs June 21 in the northern hemisphere) has inspired artists, who are attracted to its associations with ancient rituals, lovers' escapades and nature's bounty.

The Indiana University Art Museum will celebrate "Limestone Month" with the work of noted Indiana artists in two special installations in the first floor Gallery of the Art of the Western World through the end of August. A rare series of four, large-scale watercolors depicting the quarrying of Indiana limestone by "Hoosier Group" painter Otto Stark are currently on public display for the first time.

From a blanket of hands descending upon a clay bust to an increasingly faded imprint in the sand, the work of four Indiana University graduate students in printmaking will be on display May 1and 2 in a two-day exhibition titled "False Impressions." The exhibition opens Friday, May 1, at 8 p.m. in the vacant storefront adjacent to Rachael's Café (300 E. Third St., southeast corner of Third and Lincoln streets), and the exhibition will be open for viewing Saturday, May 2, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Indiana University Associate Professor Osamu James Nakagawa was confirmed as a Guggenheim Fellow last week. This marks the 85th year for the annual competition, established to honor "stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment" to add to the "educational, literary, artistic and scientific power of this country, and also to provide for the cause of better international understanding," according to the organization's mission statement.

Starting Feb. 19 and continuing through March 1, Indiana University will present the 25th annual ArtsWeek, a winter festival showcasing an array of arts, entertainment and discussion surrounding the theme "Politics and the Arts."

As part of Indiana University's Arts Week (Feb. 19-March 1), IU's School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery will showcase award-winning photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson's images chronicling America's early battles in Iraq and leading up to the country's first national elections. The exhibition "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" contains 10 selected images from Gilbertson's book Whiskey, Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War.

A $500,000 grant to the Indiana University Art Museum from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help the museum strengthen its academic programs. The grant will be used over the next three and a half years to broaden curricular engagement with the museum's collections.

Born and raised in Bloomington, Meg Cabot majored in fine arts at IU and worked as an illustrator for years before taking a chance on a writing career. Years of rejection later, Cabot won a contract with St. Martin's Press, through which she eventually published The Princess Diaries, the young-adult novel that would spawn a book and film series and alter the course of her career. Cabot will be honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award at the 2008 College of Arts and Sciences Annual Recognition Banquet on Friday, Nov. 7.

Can't get the people into the gallery? A new show from the School of Fine Arts (SoFA) gallery at IU brings the gallery to the people, with a side of corn dogs. "HUB Phase I: A Collaboration of Art and Space" opened Sept. 5 and showcases sculptures created by three MFA students from IU's Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts as well the work of Rob Off, associate director of the SoFA Gallery. Through Sept. 27, the structures can be viewed in the SoFA Gallery. The artists will then reconfigure their work from the expansive gallery space for HUB Phase II (Oct. 3-4), to fit snugly inside four Penske moving trucks.

Can't get the people into the gallery? A new show from the School of Fine Arts (SoFA) gallery at Indiana University brings the gallery to the people, with a side of corn dogs. "HUB Phase I: A Collaboration of Art and Space," opening Sept. 5, will showcase sculptures created by three MFA students from IU's Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts as well the work of Rob Off, associate director of the SoFA Gallery. From Sept. 5-Sept. 27, the structures can be viewed in the SoFA Gallery. The artists will then reconfigure their work from the expansive gallery space for HUB Phase II (Oct. 3-4), to fit snugly inside of four Penske moving trucks that will be joined by a platform-like "hub" at the McCalla School at 10th Street and Indiana Avenue in the large field north of the building. A fifth truck will serve as a reception area and will contain information about the project.

The Grammy Award-winning, all-male chorus Chanticleer and internationally renowned quintet Canadian Brass -- both of which have strong ties to Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music -- will play at IU's Summer Music Festival July 27 and Aug. 3, respectively.

Thomas Hart Benton's Indiana murals have provoked strong public responses for 75 years, ever since the artist created them for the Indiana Hall at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. An April 25-26 conference at Indiana University Bloomington, where the murals have been displayed since 1940, will examine their artistic and cultural impact and their role as public art on a public university campus.

Indiana University doctoral candidates Lauren Cordes Tate and Jamie Warren have been awarded research fellowships by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which helps scholars conduct research in New York City.

An Indiana University project called "Writing on the Wall" turns to artists and to ordinary people for definitions of democracy in words, images and sound. The project, a signature event of ArtsWeek 2008, includes an exhibition that opens Tuesday, Feb. 19, at the School of Fine Arts Gallery and a Feb. 29 celebration of democracy and the arts, also at the SoFA Gallery.

A hectic schedule has paid off for Indiana University senior Claire Diedrich, winner of the 2008 Young Stage Manager Award from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology. Diedrich, a double major studying stage management through the Individualized Major Program and theatre with an emphasis in design, is the first person from IU to win the national USITT award.