Art21 themes

Click here for the Art21 season 6 trailer.

Contemporary artists featured this season include:

Marina Abramovic, Ai Weiwei, David Altmejd, El Anatsui, assume vivid astro focus, Lynda Benglis, Rackstraw Downes, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mangold, Catherine Opie, Mary Reid Kelley, Sarah Sze, and Tabaimo.

To view past seasons of Art in the Twenty-First Century, click here.

Themes explored in past seasons include:
Season 1 (2001): consumption, identity, place, spirituality
Season 2 (2003): humor, loss & desire, stories, time
Season 3 (2005): memory, play, power, structures
Season 4 (2007): ecology, paradox, protest, romance
Season 5 (2009): compassion, fantasy, systems, transformation
Season 6 (April 2012): change, balance, history, boundaries

First artWorks show

The opening for this exhibit will be Monday, January 16, from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Due to the MLK, Jr. holiday, there will also be an opening for the show on Tuesday, January 17, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Come out and support JMU student artists!

Dheepan Rhamanan
Dheepan Rhamanan creates works through pen and ink as well as paintings which are a representation of combined mental processes of physical phenomena and the creative imagination. These works are part of a mental process seeking to better understand the world, personal identity, as to arrive at a conception of truth.

Sharon Ke
The ceramic, sculpture, print and painting work displayed by Yi Hsuan (Sharon) Ke represent her explorations of self, family, and nationality. Her vision for her artwork is sourced from her journey with her family from Taiwan to the United States

Emilia LeBlanc
Emilia LeBlanc explores themes of vulnerability and human emotion through painting and drawing. She aims to capture the expressive moment in a time that solely belongs to the individual.

Matthew Tiemann
Matthew Tiemann creates character driven narrative painting work that seeks to reach out into the environment that it inhabits, blurring the lines between art and reality.

Spring 2012 shows in Sawhill Gallery

Dates / artists for exhibits in Sawhill Gallery this semester are as follows:

February 20 - March 1, 2012: Carrie Spencer
March 12 - March 22, 2012: Colleen Pendry
March 26 - April 5, 2012: Dymph DeWild
April 9 - 19, 2012: Jason Anderson

These artists are all current JMU MFA graduate students.

Divergent Visions show

***Potential Gallery Review Opportunity...

Support your JMU studio professors at an exhibit of their work at the Staunton Augusta Art Center.
The show is entitled Divergent Visions: The Graduate Art Faculty of James Madison University. It will run January 13-February 19, 2012.

The opening reception is Friday, January 13, from 5-7 p.m.

Professors whose work is included in the exhibit are:
Sukjin Choi
Corinne Diop 
Gary Freeburg 
Rebecca Silberman
Greg Stewart 
Ken Szmagaj
Allyson Mellberg Taylor 
Lisa Tubach 
Cole Welter 
Susan Zurbrigg

Gallery Review: Tristin Lowe's Mocha Dick

As I perused the VMFA website for current and upcoming shows, I ran across an image of a large-scale white whale sculpture by Tristin Lowe, entitled Mocha Dick. I was intrigued, and since we were driving through Richmond on the way to VA Beach for the holidays, I decided to pay a visit to Mocha Dick. My husband and I hadn’t been to VMFA since its reconstruction project, so we enjoyed walking around the outside gardens prior to entering the museum. 

Mocha Dick was constructed in 2009. It is a 52 foot life size model of a sperm whale. The work was made of industrial wool felt, an inflatable armature, vinyl-coated fabric, with an internal fan. It was created in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, and on loan from the West Collection, Philadelphia. The wall text for the piece informs viewers that Lowe stitched clusters of barnacles on the whale’s body, as well as surface zigzag stitching, giving the appearance of scarring on the body. The details given to the stitching creates a narrative, showing the harsh reality of navigating the sea.

The gallery space that contained Mocha Dick was busting at the seams with the oversized whale sculpture. Walking down the hallway toward the exhibit, the first glimpse of Mocha Dick was catching sight of a small section of his tail. Once arriving at the tail, it was clear that the intention was for visitors to walk around Mocha Dick and view from all sides. It was really difficult to keep from touching the giant whale. Obviously, this was assumed, and the museum had a sample piece of Mocha Dick’s “skin” posted on the wall for visitors to touch. There were two guards assigned to Mocha Dick, which my husband referred to as “the keepers of the whale.”

Mocha Dick appears to be a realization of the description of the giant creature from Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby Dick. The scale of the massive creature is overwhelming; standing next to it, one cannot help but feel tiny and contemplate the fragility of life. I also found myself feeling sorry for the whale, viewing him as a specimen in a museum. Perhaps the artist wants to convey to his audience the magnitude, resilience and beauty of the whale through this artistic representation, and encourage viewers to connect the work to the literature from which he based his art.

I feel that Mocha Dick is successful for many reasons. Lowe chose a subject matter that is accessible to the public because of its connection to the classic literature. The ways in which the artist manipulated the material and put so much care into the outer stitching creates a sort of empathy and emotional connection with the viewer. This piece could be utilized for educational connections between art, language arts, and science. Audiences that might particularly appreciate this work would be fabric artists, educators, and those that are interested in marine biology. It seems that Mocha Dick would excite new audiences if exhibited in science centers and aquariums.

Tristin Lowe: Mocha Dick

Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA

Dates of exhibit: through January 29, 2012

Date visited: December 23, 2011

spring 2012 art exhibits (local & regional)

Check out the Exhibitions page for Smithsonian Museums in Washington, D. C. to get the latest information on dates of exhibits at their museums, including the following art museums:
Hirshhorn, Sackler, Portrait Gallery, American Art, Freer, American Indian, National Design, Renwick, African Art, Ripley Center, among others.

When considering shows for your gallery reviews, check in advance to make sure there are contemporary pieces in the show (created within the past 5 years).
Also check the museum or gallery website in advance to see if there is a museum entry fee (Smithsonian museums are typically free admittance) or if there is a special exhibition fee.

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. (fee)

30 Americans show up through February 12, 2012

30 Americans showcases works by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. This provocative exhibition focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture while exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy and community across generations.

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro: Are We There Yet? show up through March 11, 2012

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro: Are We There Yet? is the first exhibition in the United States of the Australian artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. Commissioned by and created especially for the Corcoran, the exhibition is the third exhibition in the NOW at the Corcoran series, a program dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Exploring the aspirations of space exploration and the physical realities of food consumption, the exhibition draws from American history, literature, pop culture, and current affairs.

Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C. (fee)

Intersections is a new series of contemporary art projects that explores—as the title suggests—the intriguing intersections between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and museum spaces and artistic interventions. Whether engaging with the permanent collection or diverse spaces in the museum, the projects suggest new relationships with their own surprises.
Many of the projects also riff on the nontraditional nature of the museum's galleries, sometimes activating spaces that are not typical exhibition areas with art produced specifically for those locations.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (free)

Tristin Lowe: Mocha Dick show up through January 29, 2012

Tristin Lowe’s colossal sculpture Mocha Dick is a fifty-two-feet-long recreation of the real-life albino sperm whale that terrorized early 19th-century whaling vessels near Mocha Island in the South Pacific. Mocha Dick, described in appearance as “white as wool,” engaged in battle with numerous whaling expeditions and inspired Herman Melville’s epic Moby-Dick (1851). Lowe worked with the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia to make the sculpture: a large-scale vinyl inflatable understructure sheathed in white industrial felt.