‘The Ultimate Show’: Art exhibition commemorates late VCU professor

LEAH LANDRY Contributing Writer

The diversity in the artwork of the late VCUarts professor Myron Helfgott is apparent in the space of the 1708 Gallery.

The gallery invites guests to view “Myron Helfgott: The Ultimate Show” until Dec. 4. The exhibition is curated by the gallery’s executive director Emily Smith and co-curated by Al Calderaro.

The title of the show came from Helfgott’s love of wordplay, Calderaro said. It started as a working title, but it stuck as time went on.

“As far as we know, this will be the last show in Richmond of Myron’s work,” Calderaro said. “It sort of implies, ‘This is it. You need to see this show.’”

The exhibition features 38 works of art, according to Calderaro. Helfgott was Calderaro’s professor while attending VCUarts graduate school for sculpture. Calderaro has curated exhibitions for Helfgott in the past.

“The biggest problem we had was there was so much great work that it was hard to pick,” Calderaro said. “That’s a good problem to have. That helped a lot.”

This is not the first time that Helfgott’s work has been featured at 1708 Gallery, according to his daughter Megan Helfgott. Megan Helfgott said Myron Helfgott was supportive of the gallery since its opening in 1978.

“It seemed like a good fit because of its history and because of the board and Emily’s willingness to have a show for Myron,” Megan Helfgott said. “Having Al [Calderaro] onboard was critical. I’m just behind the scenes.”

Myron Helfgott drew inspiration from a variety of sources, ranging from art history to Zen Buddhism, according to 1708 Gallery’s website. An untitled piece in the exhibition reflects Myron Helfgott’s interest in spirituality.

“There’s a portrait of Howard Risatti. There’s another figure behind it, and it’s Buddha lurking in the background,” Calderaro said. “It’s emblematic of Myron’s involvement with Zen Buddhism. It wasn’t like he was going around talking about it, but it was always in the background.”

Myron Helfgott was a professor in the

Department of Sculpture + Extended Media at VCU from 1968 to 2003, according to 1708 Gallery’s website. He served as the chairman of the department in his last two years of teaching.

“Like any professorship, being involved in your discipline allows you to bring things to the classroom,” Megan Helfgott said. “He really took his job seriously in all forms. He was going to continue to work as a scholar in his area, but also he was going to try to be the best teacher he could be.”

Matthew Brett, an adjunct professor at VCU and a graduate of the school’s sculpture program, was instrumental in the logistics of the exhibition. He was brought on with Shelia Gray and Katherine Lang by Megan Helfgott to document the artwork left in Myron Helfgott’s studio, according to Brett.

The first step was to clean and organize the artwork, according to Brett. The next step was to set up a studio with a backdrop to take photographs of each piece. The final step was to plug information into a database and store the artwork in preparation for the exhibition.

Although Brett only met Myron Helfgott once while he was a freshman, the process gave him a deeper knowledge of his artistry.

“Working on this project has been very interesting because there’s 30, 35 years of artwork in the studio and a lot of it’s very personal,” Brett said. “I feel like I came to have a pretty good understanding of him doing this job.”

Since she didn’t set up the show, Megan Helfgott said that seeing the art through Brett, Gray and Lang’s eyes was interesting. She said she hopes the younger generation of artists learn something new as they don’t get much exposure to this type of art.

“There would be times when they discovered things in the art. It was almost like through this process of the show and organizing the work, Dad’s able to be a teacher one more time,” Megan Helfgott said.