Merriam Webster provides a primary and secondary definition of Indigenous: “produced, growing, living or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment” and “of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group.” Both definitions might be applied to the cultural foundations of two expansive exhibitions running concurrently at the Hood Museum in Hanover, New Hampshire. “Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined” and “Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala” embody the preservation and development of personal and artistic identity in the wake of occupying influence, and the enduring strength of cultural tradition. Born in Kyŏngsang Province in 1945, the year Japan surrendered its decades-long annexation of Korea, Park Dae Sung was five years old when he lost his … [Read more...] about AN INSPIRATIONAL PAIRING
Artscope Issues
FIRE IN THE ATHENEUM
A trend of social commentary has emerged among the latest generation of glass artists, a conceptual development evident in “Fired Up: Glass Today,” an exhibition curated by Brandy Culp, Richard Koopman Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. There are over 100 artworks by 57 artists in the exhibit. Included are works by luminaries of contemporary glass such as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra and others, that foundationally frame perspectives by a new generation of glass artists combining consciousness raising content with aesthetics and technical skill. I spoke recently with Aaron Schey, co-owner of Habatat Detroit Fine Art, which represents a number of artists in “Fired Up: Glass Today” (including UK artist Hannah Gibson whom I met at the exhibition’s press opening). Schey and I discussed the current of activism as a … [Read more...] about FIRE IN THE ATHENEUM
A BEEHIVE OF DUALITY
For every step forward, there are, in the case of the year 2022, a dozen steps backward. Call this the year of the tumbling dice. Where does the strange momentum backward in the realm of human rights lead? Some saw it coming. Most didn’t. There is a cost associated with divisiveness, with complete lack of empathy and understanding. Most of all, when the tide moves in a certain direction, the attempt to stifle basic autonomy and human rights affects every living being in its radius. Gender awareness, racial harmony, a woman’s right to control her own choices, the ongoing and building threat to the environment; all ascending accomplishments falling down into a miasma of de-evolution. Artists are acting with information from what they perceive around them. However, within the creative consciousness there is the ability to draw upon universal truths that are a constant within the rise and … [Read more...] about A BEEHIVE OF DUALITY
‘3,800 HIDDEN TREASURES’
“Sixty Years of Collecting,” a two-semester exhibition at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) at UMass Amherst, showcases 112 works from the museum’s permanent art collection. To some visitors, descending the concrete plazas, steps and ramps of 1960s Brutalist architecture leading to the Fine Arts Center’s entrance may recall academic fortresses and student protests. To younger ones, it’s a skateboard park. Although backpacks must stay outside, inside around the corner hangs Ryan McGinness’s silkscreened skateboard, lush with vegetation, and Keith Haring’s low-slung aluminum pyramid shimmers with teal and gold pictographs, beckoning to all ages. On an early October afternoon, moments of stillness and bursts of color draw me through the museum, past frequent doublings, folding, mirroring and reversals. Alison Saar’s sewn lithograph, a flip-flop image of an African and a … [Read more...] about ‘3,800 HIDDEN TREASURES’
WELCOME November/December 2022: FROM BRIAN GOSLOW
Dear Artscope reader, As we near the end of 2022, I look back at how we slowly regained our ability to get out and view art together – still carefully – and how we seem to have learned how much we appreciate what each of us does to contribute to the art community and life in general. We also learned how important it was to not be silent on issues important to us and how much we count on artists to interpret how we’re feeling about them through their work. In our final issue of the year, Marjorie Kaye shares her highlights of 2022, spotlighting shows and artists that addressed “Gender awareness, racial harmony, womens’ right to control their own choices, the ongoing and building threat to the environment” noting how in their creative consciousness, “there is the ability to draw upon universal truths.” She also writes about the “warmth and sustenance” of the “Mary Ann Unger: To Shape a … [Read more...] about WELCOME November/December 2022: FROM BRIAN GOSLOW
DISPATCH FROM ALASKA: ANCHORAGE MUSEUM GETS INDIGENOUS MESSAGES HEARD
I stand on the traditional homeland of the Eklutna Dena’ina, now known as Anchorage, on a temperate day in mid-June, about to enter the largest museum in the largest state in the United States. The Anchorage Museum is huge. As a point of comparison, at 247,000 square feet, it is almost 30,000 square feet larger than the Whitney Museum of American Art. This museum of art, history, ethnography, ecology and science is in this city of 5,000 only a few generations ago and now nearly 300,000 — 40% of the state’s population. Situated on the Cook Inlet in in the south central part of the state, the city is a cultural hub, and the museum is a center of art and culture, and one of the most visited destinations in the state, and for good reason. With significant collections, a dynamic exhibitions and programming schedule, a vision of the significance of the north now and in the future, and … [Read more...] about DISPATCH FROM ALASKA: ANCHORAGE MUSEUM GETS INDIGENOUS MESSAGES HEARD