Gray Center to continue bold collaborations between artists, scholars

In its first three years, the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry has made possible everything from a conference featuring the world's leading cartoonists in dialogue with each other and a cross-section of faculty; to a monthlong alternate reality game involving students, a professor of English and an experimental phenomenologist from Montreal; to a yearlong collaborative exploration of low-level light undertaken by a distinguished physicist and an award-winning architect. The tradition of fearless experimentation will continue at the Gray Center in years to come, thanks to the reappointment of David Levin as director and a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Levin , a dramaturg and scholar of German literature, opera, film and performance, has led the collaborative, arts-focused center since its founding in 2011 . The Gray Center is named for prominent Chicago philanthropists Richard and Mary L. Gray in recognition of their $5 million gift to the University to found the experimental center that bears their name. "In just three years, the Gray Center has redefined the ways artists and scholars collaborate at the University of Chicago," said Provost Eric Isaacs. "David Levin's vision has been essential to the program's success, and his reappointment will allow the Gray Center to continue to grow and experiment in interesting and exciting ways for years to come." Levin's reappointment comes on the heels of another major milestone for the center.