Providence, RI – Providence College will host Robert Wilson – the multifaceted contemporary artist internationally renowned for his theatrical productions, drawings, sculptures, and artistic vision – at a public performance on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 at 7:30 p.m. in the Angell Blackfriars Theatre of the Smith Center for the Arts, located on the College’s East Campus.

An Evening with Robert Wilson will feature the artist in a performance/discussion venue. It also will mark the opening of “The Proscenium Eye: Drawings and Sculptures by Robert Wilson,” a select exhibit of  Wilson's drawings and objects, in the Reilly Art Gallery, also located in the Smith Center for the Arts.

Wilson's  artistic style combines architecture, sculpture, landscape, design, sounds, and light to create a participatory experience. A native of Waco, Texas, Wilson first attended the University of Texas and then the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He studied painting with George McNeil in Paris and served as an apprentice to the architect Paolo Solari in Arizona . During the 1960s, while living and working in New York, Wilson became fascinated with experimental dance and formed friendships with some of the leading choreographers of the time. He presented several major theatrical productions, some as collaborations with other leading avant-garde artists, including Jerome Robbins and Lou Reed.

In addition to his theatrical enterprises, Wilson has exhibited his drawings, paintings, and sculptures in major museums worldwide. Major solo and group exhibitions of his work have been mounted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston; the Instituto de Valencia de Arte Moderno; and the Massachusetts Museum of  Contemporary Art.

Wilson's  works also are held in private collections and museums all over the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

Wilson has received a multitude of awards including the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the Golden Lion for Sculpture of the Venice Biennale, the Harvard Excellence in Design Award, and the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Smithsonian Institution, among many others. In 2000, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1986, was the sole nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for The Civil WarS (sic).

An Evening with Robert Wilson is free and open to the public. However, reservations are required and can be made by calling (401) 865-1188.

“The Proscenium Eye: Drawings and Sculptures by Robert Wilson,” exhibit will continue in the Reilly Gallery from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the following dates: May 4 through May 6; and May 9 through May 14. The exhibit will be open for the final time on Thursday, May 19 from 5-9 p.m. as part of the Gallery Night circuit in Providence .

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Museum of Art , Rhode Island School of Design will screen Video 50, by  Wilson. First broadcast in 1978, this video sketchbook of a 100 half-minute dramatic vignettes will run continuously in the RISD Museum stairwell gallery through May 29, 2005 as part of its Videos in Progress series.

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