art seen
IU Northwest photo of David Klamen by Dominick Lopez
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fall 2016 www.umassd.edu
news from CVPA
New dean of CVPA feels “more at home with glass, concrete and steel” David Klamen, the new dean of the College of Visual & Performing Arts, is a distinguished artist and an experienced university administrator. His paintings are part of the permanent collections in a variety of prestigious museums: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and many others. An 18-foot-wide, multi-canvas installation of his hangs at the Langham Hotel in Chicago. Klamen has actively practiced his art while pursing his career in higher education. He most recently served as a Chancellor’s Professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Northwest. In that position, he supervised more than 250 full- and parttime faculty in a college that serves about 2,000 students in 35 degree programs. One of his proudest accomplishments at Indiana University Northwest is a $45 million arts building that will soon open on the campus. He successfully argued for the building as the only arts representative on a committee reviewing facilities. Klamen said UMassD’s broad commitment to the arts helped draw him East from his native Midwest. Also, his wife, Dianne Lauble, works in Providence as design director for the Girls Challenger Brands at Hasbro Toys. “We have absolutely amazing facilities, a truly gifted faculty, and a beautiful campus of great modern architecture,” he said. “I love the campus buildings—I feel more at home with glass, concrete, and steel.” He said he especially enjoys working across the disciplines, bringing art into the university’s wider academic direction. “There are so many modes of working in the arts that are explored on our campus—from animation to bronze sculpture, as well as music, art history, and art education,” he said. “UMass Dartmouth has an amazing capacity for interdisciplinary work and ideas that expand beyond the traditional expectation of the study of the arts.” Klamen received his BFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He plans to continue practicing his art in a studio in downtown New Bedford.