February Issue 2001
Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, Presents Exhibition by Robert Lewis
The Main Gallery of the Guilford College Art Gallery, located in the Hege Library at Guilford College, in Greensboro, NC, is presenting the exhibition, Divine Humility: Jesus Icons in Contemporary Mexico, Robert Lewis Photographs, through Feb. 20.
The exhibition features sixty-three vivid color photographs depicting varied representations of Christ in church sanctuaries and cemeteries, which are, in the words of the artist, Robert Lewis, "intended to preserve a timely view of the religious exuberance and expressiveness within Mexican spiritual life at the end of the twentieth century." This exhibition was organized by The Ewing Gallery at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the Art Museum at the University of Memphis.
Jesus is alive in Mexico. That's not a tabloid headline; it's a fact of everyday reality visible in churches, cemeteries, homes, shops, and Robert Lewis' new photographic series, Divine Humility. While completing a long-term study of the changing consumer environment in Mexico, Lewis, Professor of Art at the University of Memphis, escaped from a bustling street market into a quiet church, and while resting he witnessed a man in intimate conversation with a battered figure of Christ. He realized that for the man this figure was far more than a church-worn representation of a divinity; it was a caring, compassionate, and helpful mentor and friend.
Lewis began to photograph Jesus figures in churches throughout Mexico, and, along the way, he started to visit cemeteries where people maintain family graves and crypts. Unlike European and North American cemeteries where angels and effigies are immobilized in marble as if for eternity, the Jesus icons are often made of cement or similarly frangible material. Exposure to the elements and seasons leaves its pitiless trace on the statues, and homely patches and touch-ups provide their own marks of time. Painted, decorated for holidays, surrounded by memorabilia of the dear departed, and bits of contemporary consumer culture, these images are active participants in the continuous lives and afterlives of Mexicans.
An illustrated color catalogue with an essay by Salvatore Scalora, Director of the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, and contributing editor of Home Altars of Mexico: Photographs by Dana Salvo (University of New Mexico Press, 1997), accompanies the exhibition.
Guilford College Art Gallery, located in Hege
Library on the college campus, opened in 1990 with over 3,500
square feet devoted to exhibiting the college's permanent art
collection and occasional temporary exhibitions. Admission to
the gallery is free and open to the public. The building is fully
accessible and a wheelchair is available for the use of gallery
visitors.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings
or call Theresa N. Hammond, Director and Curator of Guilford College
Art Gallery at 336/316-2438 or at (http://www.guilford.edu/artgallery).
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