University Open Air: Nature's Double: A Glimpse into Urban Landscapes Through the Lens of Improvisational Music

Sun, Sep 22 2024
12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Prospect Park Boathouse

BPL Presents humanities and art music University Open Air


This three-hour course offers a unique exploration of the interplay between human creativity, nature, and urban landscapes through a hybrid approach combining pastoral dialogue, plein air drawing, and improvisational music music. Participants will investigate how both landscapes and music reflect and obscure human intentions, exploring the complex relationship between nature and culture in urban settings. The course incorporates dynamic listening sessions of free jazz and avant-garde compositions, drawing inspiration from historical and contemporary figures who have redefined our understanding of urban environments.

CD Wu received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wu has exhibited in several group shows both nationally and internationally. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

Tom McGrath is an artist who lives and works in New York. He holds a BFA from Cooper Union and an MFA from Columbia University, and has exhibited his work nationally and internationally since 2002. His work deals with landscape painting as alternately a verb, a perceptually unstable clarifying obstacle, and location device of triangulating between narrative, historical and contemporary cultural significance.

His public work consists of a permanent ceiling installation at the Jim and Alexis Pugh Theater at DPAC, Orlando. He has had solo shows at Sue Scott Gallery in New York; Maruani-Noirhomme, Knokke, Belgium; Lia Rumma, Naples, Italy; and Zach Feuer/LFL ,NY, and two-person exhibitions at Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles and David Castillo, Miami.

Permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale Gallery of Art, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art,  the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Orlando Museum of Art, among others. 

His work has been discussed or reviewed in Artforum, Bomb/blog, The Paris Review, Tema Celeste, Time Out New York, and The Los Angeles Times, among others. McGrath has written essays or reviews for numerous publications and artist's catalogs, and has taught at schools such as RISD, Brooklyn College, Columbia, Brandeis, University of Tennessee and SMfa. He has been a guest critic, workshopped or talked at many programs including Bard/ICP, MICA, Rutgers, Boston University, Yale Norfolk, MassArt, and Hunter. 

Check out all of this semester's UOA programs here.

*In cases of rain, classes will be either moved to the Prospect Park Boathouse or canceled. Registered patrons will be notified by email on the morning of each course day and are also encouraged to check the UOA webpage and BPL Presents’ Facebook and Twitter pages for updates.

University Open Air is generously supported by The Morris & Alma Schapiro Fund.

Prospect Park Boathouse
101 East Drive
Brooklyn, NY 11225

Add to My Calendar 09/22/2024 12:00 pm 09/22/2024 03:00 pm America/New_York University Open Air: Nature's Double: A Glimpse into Urban Landscapes Through the Lens of Improvisational Music

This three-hour course offers a unique exploration of the interplay between human creativity, nature, and urban landscapes through a hybrid approach combining pastoral dialogue, plein air drawing, and improvisational music music. Participants will investigate how both landscapes and music reflect and obscure human intentions, exploring the complex relationship between nature and culture in urban settings. The course incorporates dynamic listening sessions of free jazz and avant-garde compositions, drawing inspiration from historical and contemporary figures who have redefined our understanding of urban environments.

Brooklyn Public Library - Central Library MM/DD/YYYY 60

Registration is closed.