
Claudia Widdiss, Hearing Impaired , 1984, 48” x 30”. Gift of the estate of Hope Drury Goddard in honor of Elizabeth A. Goddard, Director of the Newport Art Museum, 2008-2015.
Reinterpreting artwork from the past is a tricky business! “Call and Response” is an invitational exhibition by 15 Newport regional artists who were given access to the Newport Art Museum’s collection. Each artist chose one work to interpret in any style, thus the apt title. The result is a joyous puzzle with many surprises and great diversity of solutions to the problem of interpretation. Basically, two approaches are employed; one a “literal” interpretation; the second, an antithesis, almost rejection, of the museum-owned work’s media and content…