The Collegian
Friday, March 29, 2024

University museums open new exhibits for spring

The University of Richmond museums are scheduled to open several new exhibits during the spring 2010 semester and will host programs in conjunction with many of the current and new displays.

The "John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures" exhibition will remain on display in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art and Print Study Center through April 7. Though the watercolors are not new this semester, there will be a concert, lectures and workshops in conjunction

with the exhibit throughout the term, according to the museum's program schedule. The "Zen Meditation Workshop," led by Zen Master Josho Pat Phelan, even calls for participants to bring their own pillows.

Also on display in the Harnett Museum is "Rincon Falls, Trinidad: A Print Series," by Chris Ofili. The prints, inspired by a waterfall on the north coast of Trinidad, are part of the Harnett Print Study Center's permanent collection.

"Chris Ofili likes to focus on African American art and cultural influences and makes [his work] into something memorable for himself," said Heather Campbell, curator of museum programs. "The waterfall really touched him."

Ofili's work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the world, Campbell said. The display will remain on view through Sept. 26.

Later during the semester, the museum will display more work from its collection with "Surface Tension: Pattern, Texture and Rhythm in Art." The exhibit will open March 20 and run through May 14.

"The exhibition features art in which pattern, texture and rhythm are the primary elements that generate energy and visual movement as well as emotional and aesthetic content," according to the press release. "Surface Tension" will also include a resource room where visitors can create their own art, such as paintings or collages. The room will give the public the opportunity to be hands-on and creative at the gallery, Campbell said.

The Independent Curators International (iCI) traveling exhibit, "Slightly Unbalanced," will not open until Jan. 26 at the Harnett Museum, but staff members are already working on its setup.

"Slightly Unbalanced" contains art that focuses on "psychological tendencies, including anxiety, obsessive behavior, depression and narcissism," according to the press release.

"It's not kid-friendly," Campbell said. "But for college- or even high-school-aged, sure."

The exhibit features sculptures, prints, photographs, videos and more by 20 nationally and internationally known artists including Cindy Sherman, Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson. A piece by Shelley and Paulson called "Archive" is a favorite of iCI Exhibitions Manager Fran Wu Giarratano.

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"I first saw this piece at a group show in Brooklyn," Giarratano wrote in an e-mail, "[I] was completely fascinated by the hundreds of cardboard archival boxes stacked high above my head, and each meticulously labeled with the boxes' imaginary content."

Some of that content includes unused secret powers and a perfect excuse for nearly every occasion, she said.

"The installation creates a maze of boxes, in which the viewer can get lost and in some cases start to feel physically claustrophobic, taking the experience beyond the simply visual," Giarratano said.

Going beyond the simply visual and gaining a sense of the way the artists use psychological subjects in contemporary art is something that curator Susan Hapgood, director of exhibitions at iCI, said she hoped the audience would take away from these pieces.

Campbell also said she hoped viewers would find an appreciation of the art and maybe even something deeper.

"It's an intriguing sort of subject that everyone knows a little something about," Campbell said. Everyone has a relation to this topic, she said.

Hapgood will also give a lecture in the Cousins Studio Theatre the evening of Jan. 25 before a preview of "Slightly Unbalanced," which will run through March 4.

Contact reporter Kate MacDonnell at kate.macdonnell@richmond.edu

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