Reporter Volume 25, No.19 March 3, 1994

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
Kerry Grant, dean of the UB Faculty of Arts and Letters, has announced
the appointment of Al Harris-Fernandez, head of the Center for
Research in Contemporary Art (CRCA) at the University of Texas,
Arlington, as director of the University Gallery in UB's new Fine Arts
Center.
	Harris-Fernandez, known professionally as Al Harris F., will
begin work at UB on  March 1. He is charged with establishing the
goals and direction of the new gallery, attracting artistic talent and
overseeing program implementation and day-to-day business operations.
He will work with major donors, manage and maintain the university's
permanent art collection and establish the gallery's visibility,
reputation and position in the Buffalo community.
Grant said the search attracted excellent candidates, many of whom
worked in important galleries, arts centers and leading museums
throughout the country.
"We had a particularly fine group from which to choose," Grant said.
"Despite this, Harris-Fernandez galvanized the support of the search
committee. The quality of the work he has done, his vision for the
arts and their place in higher education and his sympathy with, and
knowledge of, contemporary art and artists make him the ideal choice."
Prior to his three-year tenure at the University of Texas, Arlington
(UTA), Harris F. directed El Paso's Bridge Center for Contemporary Art
for five years. He helped develop it as a regional arts center,
increasing its funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts
eleven-fold and its NEA funding by 100 percent.
Harris F. says he expects to model UB gallery programs after those he
established at CRCA, a highly regarded intermedia research and
exhibition facility for the advanced study of the visual arts within
the UTA Department of Art and Art History.
	During his tenure at the center, Harris F. brought faculty
into the gallery program by seeking their input and incorporating
their ideas into its short- and long-term goals. He encouraged and
promoted interdisciplinary faculty research through involvement in
curated exhibitions and publications, initiated cooperative projects
with community organizations and began a contemporary art networking
organization for area curators and arts center directors 
Instead of presenting its work in exhibition catalogues, CRCA
exhibitions and related activities were documented through critical
essays, photographs and reproductions interspersed with relevant
references from poetic, political and philosophical sources. These
were published by the gallery as critical observations of the artwork
in its multiple contexts.
Harris F. expects the UB gallery to play a similar role on campus and
in the larger community. He says the gallery will support research
efforts that examine controversial issues arising from various art
forms. The discussion generated will be documented in a journal that
presents gallery activities in a regional and national context.
UTA Art Department Chair Kenda North describes CRCA's program under
Harris as "incredible."
"Al brought our gallery into both the regional and national spotlight
by presenting important regional artists in a national context," she
said. "He was also intent upon providing critical writings in
contemporary art--meaningful records that gave the artists and the
public something to hang on to once the exhibit was gone. I have a
great deal of respect for Al and, on top of that, he's great fun to
work with."
Janet Tyson, art critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, called
CRCA's programming "rigorous, highly conceptual, very theoretically
driven, very cutting edge, like Al himself.
"He's a very hardworking artist with a rigorous work ethic; an
intellectual with a good feel for people and quite catholic tastes,"
she said. "He broadened the base of support for the gallery, operating
on the premise that innovative, socially responsible art can provide
useful models for understanding complex social issues.
"He brought in exhibitions with a sensual appeal by many different
kinds of artists," she said, "and expanded and formalized the lecture
and discussion programs, involving many kinds of people--literary
types, philosophers, political scientists, filmmakers. He managed to
do this without compromising the quality of the artwork."
Under Harris F., CRCA programs covered an intriguing variety of topics
and frequently married the work of regional artists to those of
national reputation.
 One show presented during his tenure examined aspects of domestic
violence through, among other things, an unsettling exhibition of
clothing marked with victims' birth and death dates. Another, titled
"Border Issues: Negotiations and Identity," addressed issues related
to the U.S.-Mexican border and to an individual's identity within a
culture. Images, texts, panel discussions and talks by several
Southwest Texas artists of distinctly different ethnic backgrounds and
sensibilities made up the exhibition program.
A third featured sculptural constructions by Bill Lundberg, an artist
said by critic Tom Moody to have "a showman's knack for creating drama
with scant props and abundant atmosphere." His exhibit was described
by Moody as "a kind of Zen vaudeville using materials that might have
been scrounged on a few trips to the hardware store."
Harris F. also has presented "Back to Life," a series of video
installations by Laurie McDonald; a dual-site exhibition of work by UT
faculty co-hosted by the Arlington Museum of Art; an exhibit featuring
sculpture, prints and paintings by artists exploring "the gestural
impulse and the expressiveness of mark making," and a show of both
classic and contemporary examples of journalistic photomontage.
The UB gallery will be more adequately staffed and funded than the
CRCA, Harris F. said, and he expects his work here to cover more
ground.
"We are excited and completely confident in the leadership he will
provide for this new gallery," Grant said, calling Harris "a new and
exciting artistic voice for Buffalo and the region."
Harris F. holds a master of fine arts degree in painting from Stephen
F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and a master of arts
degree in painting from New Mexico State University. He has taught at
UTA; the University of Texas, El Paso, and El Paso Community College.
He also has served on a number of boards and panels for Texas arts
organizations, as well as a panelist for several NEA overview and
special projects committees.
In addition to his work as an administrator and curator, his own work
has continued to be featured in group and solo exhibitions, and he has
been represented by several Texas galleries.
His wife, Karen Emenhiser, art critic for the weekly Dallas Observer,
has written for Detour magazine and other publications. She plans to
complete a master's degree in humanities at UB in art history and art
criticism.