Artist Dario Robleto to give talk, host DJ party Oct. 30

San-Antonio-based artist Dario Robleto will present an artist lecture at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. Following the lecture, Robleto will host a DJ dance party beginning at 10 p.m. For more information, call (518) 580-8080.

Robleto?s work is on view at the Tang through Jan. 25, 2009, in an exhibition titled Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love. The exhibition is a 10-year survey reflecting the artist?s wide-ranging interest in topics like science, music, popular culture, philosophy, war, and American history. Alloy of Love showcases Robleto?s ability to transform an array of disparate materials?melted vinyl records, battlefield artifacts, rare herbs, minerals, and even prehistoric fossils and human bones?into poetic works that create nuanced relationships between past, present, and potential future.

By melting, grinding, or otherwise irrevocably altering his original material, Robleto is able to radically reshape it into new, wholly unrecognizable forms. For example, in Sometimes Billie Is All That Holds Me Together (1998-99), several new buttons were crafted from melted Billie Holiday records to replace missing buttons on found, abandoned, or thrift-store clothing.

In other artworks, Robleto reclaims poignant artifacts and plumbs their dimensions. In No One Has a Monopoly Over Sorrow (2005), a lace-lined basket holds men?s wedding-ring finger-bones, coated in melted bullet lead from various American wars and carefully set out among wax-dipped vintage bridal bouquets and hair flowers braided by a Civil War widow. The role of language in the materials lists accompanying Robleto?s artworks is central, as are his titles; among the more evocative titles are If a Meteorite Falls on Your Head Then God Was Aiming (2002) and Not All Dead Rather Be Living (2001-02). His works have been described as sincere and emotional meditations on love, loss, spirituality, and healing.

Organized by guest curator Elizabeth Dunbar, in collaboration with the Tang Museum and the Frye Museum of Art in Seattle, Wash., Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love made its debut at the Frye May 17 and opened Sept. 27 at the Tang. The exhibition?s catalogue is available at the Tang Museum Store.