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Current Exhibitions Harri Kallio - Dodo and Mauritius Island - Imaginary Encounters Still I Rise OPTIC NERVE: Perceptual Art of the 1960s Related Exhibitions On View at the Riffe Gallery Upcoming Exhibitions Currents: Evan Penny Along Water Street: New Work by Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library In Monet's Garden: The Lure of Giverny Edna Boies Hopkins Eye Spy: Adventures in Art
Harri Kallio - Dodo and Mauritius Island - Imaginary Encounters Finnish photographer Harri Kallio brings the famed, extinct Dodo back to life in this exhibition of some thirty large-scale color works. Prior to extinction in the seventeenth century, the Dodo thrived in its unspoiled, Edenic home on the island of Mauritius. In Imaginary Encounters the Dodo appears alive and well as it meanders through lush landscape, near rivers, and on mountains, either in pairs or in flocks. With a deft hand and high-tech wizardry, Kallio creates the illusion that these fascinating, comical creatures still roam the world. The photographs, some in panoramic scale to mimic expansive island vistas, are accompanied by a full history of the Dodo, complete with eyewitness accounts.
Still I Rise Still I Rise: African American Art from the Collection, which is titled after a famed poem by Maya Angelou, is comprised of paintings, photographs, drawings, and prints from the MuseumÕs permanent collection. This exhibition is presented in celebration of Black History Month and features modern masters such as Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden alongside contemporary artists like Kerry James Marshall, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and local favorite Gilda Edwards.
OPTIC NERVE: Perceptual Art of the 1960s The first major museum survey in the United States of Op Art in more than twenty-five years, OPTIC NERVE will provide a valuable historical overview and critical reassessment of this influential movement. The exhibition will explore the dynamic abstractions of Op Art, which stimulate diverse visual, psychological, and physiological responses, in the context of the shifting scientific, cultural, and aesthetic values of the 1960s. Showcasing the work of more than fifty international artists, OPTIC NERVE will examine the central role played by American painters, particularly Polish-born, Cleveland artist Julian Stanczak, whose 1964 exhibition Optical Paintings provided the movement with its name. Other key figures discussed in depth include Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Larry Poons, Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto, Frank Stella, Tadasky, and Victor Vasarely. In addition to painting, sculpture, and electronic media, OPTIC NERVE will include fashion and design objects that illustrate the movement's influence on popular culture of the period.
On View at the Riffe Gallery
For more information, please visit www.riffegallery.org.
Currents: Evan Penny Toronto sculptor Evan Penny creates hyperrealistic figural sculptures of unnatural proportions. Enlarged, stretched, and skewed, his manipulated portraits inhabit the fluid dimensions of the virtual world. Penny expands upon the legacy of superreal sculpture, beginning in the 1960s with Duane Hanson and John D'Andrea and revived by recent artists such as Ron Mueck and Maurizio Cattelan. Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, Penny's work calls the act of vision into question, distorting the viewer's own sense of spatial perception. Penny's highly illusionistic works appear to result from 3-D body scanning and digital distortion of real subjects. They are, in fact, imagined portraits handcrafted without the use of computer technology. The precise modeling, pigmented silicone skin, and natural hair fibers impart Penny's non-people with an eerie presence. Even at twice to ten times life-size, they have the uncanny appearance of living subjects. Penny's figures build upon the tradition of portraiture within the historical collection. More importantly, the perceptual dynamics of the work signals the current cultural moment in which space, time and the body are reconsidered as malleable and reconfigurable by new technologies.
Along Water Street: New Work by Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Columbus artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson has created a series of twenty rag paintings that are layered with meaning as well as fabrics and buttons given to the artist by friends and acquaintances from Columbus and places she has visited. Based on the stories her Uncle Alvin told her as she was growing up as well as on old maps she studied at the library, these works on paper document the community that bordered the Scioto River in downtown Columbus before the monumental 1913 flood . The artist describes the series as "going back and forth in history" and including references to early Native-American and African inhabitants who populated the area hundreds of years ago as well as more recent nineteenth- and twentieth-century communities. Robinson is a 2004 recipient of the prestigious MacArthur award and was the subject of a major 2003 retrospective exhibition organized by the Columbus Museum of Art.
The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library Well respected for his ability to capture the spirit and character of American life in the early twentieth century, George Bellows's paintings and drawings convey the liveliness and sport of a society defining itself in a new century. From the boxing ring to the seashore, his drawings have a vibrancy of line and energetic spirit that bring the scenes and times to life. The drawings in this exhibition, from the esteemed collection of the Boston Public Library, were collected and donated to that institution by Albert H. Wiggin. They were last shown as a collection in the 1950s, and only a few sheets have been exhibited publicly since then. This collection of drawings comprises preparatory works for paintings and lithographs. Also included are finished works that were intended for publication in magazines and newspapers. Their subjects range from intimate studies of the artist's friends and family to public sporting events, social gatherings, and other candid snapshots of American life, many recorded on assignments for popular magazines such as Harper's Weekly and The Masses. The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library is organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions.
In Monet's Garden: The Lure of Giverny In a rare opportunity for the Museum's three curators (European, American, and Contemporary) to work together on an exhibition, In Monet's Garden examines the way in which Claude Monet's gardens at Giverny have impacted and affected subsequent generations of artists. With a core of ten Monet paintings, the exhibition will feature approximately ten works by American Impressionists who visited and worked at Giverny. Following a time between the two World Wars during which the gardens experienced virtual neglect, American artists such as Joan Mitchell and Ellsworth Kelly again visited Giverny and were influenced by the area's extraordinary sense of place and history. Artists continue to visit Monet's gardens, either through foundation grants and residency programs or individually. To complete this exhibition, twenty works by ten contemporary artists will demonstrate the enduring allure of these magnificent gardens. Presenting Sponsor
Edna Boies Hopkins Although she is best known locally and regionally as the wife of Ohio artist James Roy Hopkins, Edna Boies Hopkins was in her own right an artist of amazing talent and great sophistication. Trained at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and then with Arthur Wesley Dow in New York City, Hopkins became a color woodblock print maker. Moving to Paris in 1905, where they lived as expatriates until the outbreak of World War I, Edna and James each practiced an individual art form. Edna's success as a creator of floral studies and compositions grew rapidly, and she placed her works in numerous important collections. Traveling often between the United States and France, and with homes in New York, Columbus, Maine, and a studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Edna's international reputation became firmly established until her career was cut short by severe arthritis while she was in her early fifties. The Columbus Museum of Art is organizing an exhibition of fifty of Edna Hopkins's color woodblock prints covering from her entire career and featuring her best-known subjects: floral compositions, figural works, especially those produced in Appalachia, and landscapes made in Provincetown.
Eye Spy: Adventures in Art Eye Spy, an interactive exhibition for children and families, features important objects from the Museum's collections displayed in architectural settings that relate to the time and place they were made. The center features four areas where, through a variety of games, puzzles, computer stations, and "make and take" art projects, visitors take a behind-the-scenes look at museums, learn about Dutch paintings of the 1600s, the carvings of Elijah Pierce, and the life and art of George Bellows. |
Curated by Karen Shirley and Michael Jones of Shirley/Jones Gallery in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Far, Near, Here comprises works from the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art that have not been exhibited in more than five years. This exhibition showcases seldom-seen works of art in a wide range of media, including drawing, painting, prints, photographs, glass, ceramics, fiber, small scale sculpture in bronze and stone, and even a palm leaf. While the works included hail from diverse locations and cultures: Prehistoric American, China, Japan, Korea, India, Fiji, New Guinea, and France, the bulk are American works from the modern and contemporary era. The exhibition seeks, among other things, to show how contemporary art shares affinities with and is often informed by, artifacts from foreign cultures.
