Contact: Merry Michael Sullivan
Regional photographs by Columbus newspaper editor Birney Imes III and a chronicle of modern European school architecture currently are sharing space at Mississippi State's Giles Hall Gallery.
Located at the intersection of Barr Avenue and Collegeview Street, Giles Hall is home of the university's School of Architecture.
Exhibits of Imes' Juke Joint series, which concludes March 20, and the New Schoolhouse in Vienna 1990-96 series, whose final day is April 16, may be viewed at no charge. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-10 p.m., Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Fridays.
Working in both black-and-white and color, Imes' images of Southern "juke joints" and dilapidated restaurants reveal what one observer has called the "strange and marvelous qualities of these local gathering spots."
A self-taught photographer, Imes has produced three artistic books of regional scenes over more than two decades. His photographs have been displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and Art Institute of Chicago.
The New Schoolhouse exhibit includes some two dozen chronological documentations of the School Building Project 2000, an internationally praised endeavor by the City of Vienna, Austria. The architectural plans and designs that preceded construction of the buildings accompany color images of completed projects.
After opening to wide acclaim in Vienna last year, the New Schoolhouse exhibit now is touring the United States through the effort and support of the Austrian Cultural Institute of New York.
For more information about the exhibitions, telephone John Jay Miller at (662) 325-2202 or visit http://www.sarc.msstate.edu/events/exhibitions-00-01.html.