By Keri Hayes

Arizona Daily Wildcat

While students have anxiously been preparing for another year of engrossing academic challenge, University of Arizona campus museums have been busy as well, planning and installing new exhibits to bring in the Fall 1994 semester.

The University of Arizona Museum of Art will begin the academic year with its "1994 Art Faculty Exhibition." This year the museum plans to feature works by 29 members of the UA Art Department faculty, including Luis Jimenez, Rosemarie Bernardi and Harmony Hammond.

Barbara Rogers, the exhibition's featured artist, will fill the south gallery with an overview of her work, dating back to the 1970s. Rogers captures themes of mystical gardens from lands far away in her large early paintings, while her more recent work is influenced by extraordinary natural events she has witnessed. A visit to a woman's unique garden in Santa Barbara, Calif., shifted Rogers' work again in 1990, as she embarked on a project to study and create art from women's gardens. Rogers has been exhibited internationally, with an impressive list of one-person shows recently, including one this summer at The Museum of Botany and the Arts in Sarasota, Fla.

The "1994 Art Faculty Exhibition" will begin with an opening reception from 2-4 p.m. on Aug. 28; the exhibit will run through Sept. 21. On Sept. 7, Andrew Polk, art department head, will discuss the work of faculty members at 12:15 p.m. and on Sept. 14, Rogers will discuss her own work, also at 12:15 p.m. The UA Museum of Art is located on the southeast corner of Speedway Boulevard and Park Avenue and is open from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.

The Center for Creative Photography features an exploration of the Hollywood brand of Western mythology with "The Wild West: Photographs by David Levinthal," on display through Sept. 11.

Influenced by the Western movies of his '50s childhood, Levinthal contructed scenes using toy cowboys and Indians. With filtered lighting and a little irony, Levinthal photographed the scenes with one of the largest cameras in the world Ä a 20-by-24 inch Polariod Land Camera. Levinthal's monumental photographs are humorous, yet they say something about culture and America's romanticized vision of that era. The pictures themselves represent a warped vision of America's Western mythology.

Levinthal was honored last May with a 10-year retrospective exhibition in London at The Photographer's Gallery. His work has also appeared in numerous solo exhibitions.

In conjunction with Levinthal's exhibition, the Center for Creative Photography has planned a series of gallery talks. At 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 31 David Pagel, a Los Angeles art critic who writes about contemporary art for numerous publications, will present his lecture, "David Levinthal and Little Worlds." Levinthal himself will lecture at a reception for the artist on Sept. 1, from 5-7 p.m.

Admission to the Center for Creative Photography is free and hours are Monday -Friday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday from noon-5 p.m. The Center is located on Olive Road, north of Second Street.

The Arizona State Museum's permanent exhibit, "Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest," continues this semester, with its second half scheduled for installation on Jan. 28, 1994. The exhibit examines the origins, history and life today of ten Southwest tribes, focusing on their cultural diversity.

"Paths of Life" was put together with the help of a panel of Native American advisers, a relatively new technique in the treatment of indigenous art.

The State Museum is also planning a new exhibit, "Mexican Masks: Faces of the Fiesta," which will open Sept. 30. The Arizona State Museum is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturdays. The museum is located on the corner of Park Avenue and University Boulevard. Admission is free.

The Joseph Gross Gallery will feature a new show, "Natural Selection: The Rest of the Story," from Aug. 26-Sept. 22. The exhibition will include works by 20 UA graduate students, providing an opportunity to view what the artists have been doing in their studios all year long. This will be the first time that the graduate exhibition coincides with the faculty exhibition, providing an interesting comparison. The exhibition will begin with an opening reception on Aug. 26 from 5-8 p.m. The Joseph Gross Gallery is located in the UA Art Building and is open from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

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