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Our thanks to all volunteers and sponsors who helped make Artists & Models: STIMULUS such a successful and fun event. Visit our page to see some images and videos and read some reviews.
Myles Slatin
March 3, 1924—May 9, 2010

Myles Slatin, Ph.D., of Buffalo, retired UB English professor and long-time member and supporter of Hallwalls, died on May 9, 2010, after a long illness. He was 86.

Born in Queens, Myles attended Flushing High and Queens College and served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, learning Japanese as part of a team that cracked enemy codes. After the War he earned his doctorate at Yale University with a study on Ezra Pound, then moved to Buffalo in 1952 when he became an associate professor in the University of Buffalo English Department, where he taught Romantic and modern poetry and was an early proponent of women writers and feminist activists. He also explored contemporary authors and popular fiction in his classes, which are fondly remembered by generations of students. As an associate dean in the 1960s, Myles was active in the University of Buffalo's transition into the SUNY system, recruiting numerous faculty members and participating in the recruitment of then UC Berkeley Chancellor Martin Meyerson as UB's new President. Myles was director of Lockwood Library from 1969 to 1973, during a period of student protests when the library experienced vandalism, including numerous small bombings. He retired from the UB faculty in 1994 after 42 years.

Long an avid art collector, tireless gallerygoer, and patron of local artists, Myles focused almost entirely on visual art after he retired from teaching literature, taking drawing and painting classes at UB and renting a studio on Buffalo's West Side to pursue his own art. He and his wife of 57 years, Diana Bluestein Slatin, a distinguished fine artist and fashion illustrator, were deeply involved with Hallwalls on both its Visual Artists Committee and Board of Directors. When Diana died in 2003, Myles generously invited friends who were so inclined to make donations in Diana's memory to Hallwalls, as many did. In the same spirit, Myles's surviving son Peter and other family members have indicated that memorial gifts in Myles's name may be made to either Hallwalls or Jewish Family Services of Buffalo.

Gifts to Hallwalls in Memory of our admired friend Myles Slatin will be acknowledged individually as well as publicly here, and we thank his family for their thoughtfulness in making this suggestion. As of June 9th, generous gifts in Myles's memory have been gratefully received from Nancy A. Hamilton, John M. Jablonski, and Harvey J. & Deborah Breverman.
341 DELAWARE AVE.
BUFFALO, NY 14202
t: 716-854-1694
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IN THE GALLERY:
From Jul. 30, 2010
through Aug. 31, 2010

Gallery hours:
Tues.—Fri. 11-6
Sat. 11-2
Sun. & Mon. closed

Hallwalls Members Exhibition: Faster Pussycat, Spill! Spill!

Fri., Jan. 15, 2010 — Fri., Feb. 26, 2010
Jillian Mcdonald
Redrum
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Jillian Mcdonald examines the ways film genres and archetypes affect their audiences and the fan sub-cultures that fuel the film industry. Whereas earlier work centered on celebrity fan obsession, Mcdonald's current work concentrates on the manufacturing of fear as entertainment that the horror film genre accomplishes. Unlike contemporary horror films, her work offers no extreme violence, little gore, no character development, and zero plot. These are stripped away in order to highlight the protagonists and their dilemmas. Her recent collaboration with Lilith Performance Studio in Malmö, Sweden, Undead in the Night, features 75 mostly non-professional local actors cast as vampires, zombies, and victims in 18 beautiful and chilling scenarios set along a 3km path in the Swedish forest. Audience members, 8 at a time, are led through the forest to encounter a living horror film in complete darkness.

In her video The Screaming, Mcdonald trespasses digitally into popular horror films such as Hallowe'en and Friday the 13th screaming at the monsters to scare them away or blow them to smithereens. Zombie Loop is a two-channel video in which projections on two opposing walls position the viewer in the center of a visual loop, wherein a gruesome zombie endlessly pursues a running survivor. On screen, the artist plays both zombie and survivor.

In public works, she engages an audience comprised of a very general public that is not necessarily expecting art or gathered in established arts venues. She interrupts the flow of daily public exchange, inviting strangers into momentary relationships. Zombies in Condoland is a large-scale performance commissioned for Nuit Blanche Toronto where passersby are invited to play a part in the spectacle of a low budget horror film shoot: instantly cast as actors complete with makeup, costumes, lights, camera, and action scenes. In Horror Makeup, Mcdonald applies makeup on a daily subway commute, transforming herself into a ghoul rather than beautifying her face.

Red Rum, its title a reference to The Shining where a boy predicts "redrum" (murder) before a hotel elevator bursts with blood and all hell breaks loose, is a video with a haunted horror theme. The scenes take us through a cavernous home where blood - a predominant prop in horror films—drips from faucets, runs down mirrors, pools on stairs, and seeps from cupboards. This blood appears disembodied until the camera slowly reveals it's haunted source. Meanwhile the camera visits many neighbouring houses that also drip with blood, suggesting a murderous streak. Red Rum, filmed on location in Buffalo during the artist's residency in September 2009, features local actors, students, musicians, and homes.

www.jillianmcdonald.net
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