The Hyde Collection joins the Albany Institute of History and Art and the University Art Museum (University at Albany) as the third collaborative sponsor of the oldest regional juried art show in the United States. Founded in 1936, this annual exhibition showcases contemporary art by living artists from the Upper Hudson and Mohawk River valleys. The exhibition rotates among the three organizations and will be hosted by The Hyde Collection in the fall of 2010. Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art at the Brooklyn Museum since 2005, will serve as guest juror. At the Museum, he has overseen major exhibitions of the work of Ron Mueck, Takashi Murakami, Hernan Bas, and others. Prior to his appointment in Brooklyn, he spent almost a decade as Director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. He was responsible for the widely hailed public, programmatic, and physical transformation of that institution, which culminated in a new building designed by architect Zaha Hadid. Desmarais was director of the Laguna Art Museum from 1988 to 1994. From 1981 to 1988 he directed the California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside, where he oversaw the creation of another award-winning building, designed by Stanley Saitowitz. In the past twenty-five years, Desmarais has organized more than fifty exhibitions, written numerous articles and books, and was awarded an Art Critics Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979. Information, entry guidelines, and the entry form are available in pdf format here.

See WGXC.org for more info about WGXC.