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"All cannot live on the piazza... July 28, 2004FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE"Natural Light and the Italian Piazza" Exhibition Open In Performing Arts Center July 21 through November 30, 2004 SAN LUIS OBISPO -- An international exhibition of photographs documenting the dynamics of natural light, architecture and people in the Italian piazze (town squares) -- opened in the Performing Arts Center on the Cal Poly campus July 21st. "Natural Light and the Italian Piazza" is the work of Cal Poly Architecture Professor Sandra Davis Lakeman. Over 160 images are in place throughout a series of installations in the lobbies on all four levels of the Performing Arts Center. The exhibition is scheduled to run through Nov. 30 and will be open to the public during a series of receptions and special events to take place at the PAC as follows:
The first showing of this work was in the prestigious town hall of Siena, Italy in 1992. Attilio Botarelli, writer for one of Siena's foremost newspapers described the exhibition, "The stupendous photographs, exhibited for over a month, have enchanted the visiting public with their originality and accomplishment . . . the exhibition is a striking success . . . a precious jewel . . . putting the piazza in relation to the play of natural light and shadow . . . the result: a series of evocative images forming an exhibition unique in the world." The largest and only other US showing to date was in Portland sponsored by the Portland Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "Whether as a clear green light coming through fresh young olive leaves, or transferring its rays through crackling thin ice breaking over freshly planted winter wheat, light is the subject," Lakeman said. "Light and the physical landscape or light and architectural form are frequently captured 'contra la luce,' shooting into the light. This assures that light is seen as an entity, not the form and then the effect of the light, but actual light." Massimo Biliorsi, wrote in La Nazione about this exhibition, "When images go beyond words . . . images rarely speak so well." Themes of time and timelessness, permanence and impermanence run through the photographs, which were shot over a twelve year period in Siena's Piazza del Campo and other locations in Tuscany with major support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Skaggs Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Comune di Siena, and Cal Poly. "To improve the quality of our lives, our sight, our photography or building designs, we must make a conscious effort to become aware of light," Lakeman said. "For designers and architects it is important to think and to design with light foremost in their minds." Renowned Architecture scholar and critic Kenneth Frampton called the images "both aesthetically beautiful and extremely instructive." Harvard University's William M.C. Lam, a specialist in designing with light, said, "The collection should appeal to a very wide audience and communicate an awareness of natural light and its properties." Sandra Lakeman is Professor Emeritus at Cal Poly joining the faculty in 1981. Lakeman, who has practiced architecture since 1956, received a Master of Architecture degree in 1977 from the University of Oregon and is a registered architect in Oregon. The exhibition catalogue, posters and cards will be available at the PAC. For the latest information or to arrange private tours for groups and organizations, receptions or lectures during the exhibition please visit www.sandralakeman.com. |