SALVATORE SCALORA
Associate Professor
University of Connecticut

Salvatore Scalora is an Associate Professor of Art and the Director of the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut. His curatorial and writing pursuits have taken him on trips to Mexico to observe the Day of the Dead celebration and to Haiti to research the Vodou religion and collect ceremonial flags. Professor Scalora's articles on these subjects and contemporary Outsider Art have appeared in Aperture, Americas, Raw Vision, Kunstforum International, Art Papers, and Art New England. Most recently, his essay on El Dia de los Muertos traditions on Janitizio Island was published in the book Home Altars of Mexico by photographer Dan Salvo.
Home Altars of Mexico


Education:
MFA in sculpture, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976
BFA in sculpture, University of Connecticut, 1971

Academic Career:
  • Director, William Benton Museum of Art, 1998-present
  • Acting Director, William Benton Museum of Art, 1997-98
  • Director of the Atrium Gallery, The University of Connecticut Department of Art and Art History, Adjunct 1983-87, Assistant Professor 1988-94, Associate Professor 1995-99.

Selected Exhibitions:
  • Altar for Anne Rice, Hawley Armory, University of Connecticut.
  • University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, solo exhibit in conjunction with the Elvis and the Sacred South conference.
  • Family Values: Rhetoric vs. Reality, Vermont College of Norwich University, Montpelier, VT.
  • Icons and Altars, The New Art Center in Newton, Newtonville, MA.
  • Gifts for the 21st Century, Artspace, New Haven, CT.
  • Open to the Public: Drawings, Artspace, New Haven, CT.
  • RAW Space-Invitational Installations, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT.
  • Connecticut Open, juried show, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT.
  • All Elvis Show, Tabula Rasa Gallery, Chicago, IL.
  • Challenging Utopia, 14 Sculptors Gallery, NYC.

Honors and Awards:
  • Recipient of the President's 1996 Award for Promoting Muticulturalism.
  • Wampler Professorship of Art, Resident Visiting Artist at the James Madison University, Harrisburg, VA, January 1995.
  • University of Connecticut Research Foundation Grants, 1995, 1994, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988.
  • Yale-Mellon Visiting Fellowship, 1990 academic year, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Selected Curated Exhibits:
  • Vision, Voice, Remembrance: The Hartford AIDS Memorial Exhibit
  • Saluting the Spirits: Voodoo Flags of Haiti
  • The Holocaust: Wall Hangings by Judith Weinshall Liberman
  • Resurrections: Object with New Souls
  • The Fantastic Posters of Franciszek Starowieyski
  • The Bride Unveiled
  • Spiritual Cargo: Shamanistic Manifestations
  • Haiti: Flesh of Politics/Spirit of Vodun
  • Gifted Visions: African American Artists

Selected Publications:
  • "Flowers and Sugar Skulls for the Dead," essay for Home Altars of Mexico: Photographs by Dana Salvo, University of New Mexico Press, 1997.
  • "Janitzio Lights the Way for the Spirits," Americas magazine, Sept/Oct 1995.
  • "Mexico: Days of the Dead/ Art of the Calavera," Raw Vision magazine, Summer 1995.
  • "Prophet Royal Robertson: Incarcerated in the Delirium of Adell," Art Papers, Sept/Oct 1994.
  • "Creating an Exhibition/ Resurrections: Objects with New Souls," Art New England, Aug/Sept 1994.
  • "W.C. Rice: The Cross Man," Folk Art Messenger, Summer 1993.
  • "A Salute to the Spirits/ Vodun Flags Artists Pay Tribute to the Traditional Gods of Haiti," Americas magazine, March/April 1993.
  • "White Darkness/ Black Dreamings," Aperture magazine, Winter 1992.


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