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March Issue 2005
Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, Features Works by Jessica Stockholder
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, NC, is presenting the exhibition, Jessica Stockholder: Kissing the Wall, Works, 1988 - 2003, through May 8, 2005.
Jessica Stockholder is widely considered one of the most innovative artists working today. Her work does not just cross boundaries; it blows them wide open. Sculpture, painting, collage, assemblage, and installation wrap into, out of, and around one another, eliminating the need or possibility of considering any single genre independently. Her work not only connects the dots; it links colors, forms, lines, and spaces into always surprising relationships.
Stockholder has been largely known for her site-specific installations in this country and abroad. Throughout her career, however, she has balanced production of these monumental, multi-dimensional, and theatrical endeavors with self-contained works that reflect a more intimate, human scale. In 1988 Stockholder created Kissing the Wall - a "piece of furniture with paint wrapped around it and a light that was pointing at the wall" - initiating the smaller assembled works that are featured in this exhibition. Through these assemblages (in which the artist processes painterly and sculptural ideas that concern her) and collages and monotypes (intimate "sketches" in which she explores the pictorial tradition of framed space), we gain further insight into Stockholder's creative process.
Jessica Stockholder: Kissing the Wall includes twenty-two of her small and medium sized sculptures. She assembles commonplace found objects and raw materials - culled from the home and Home Depot - in such a way as to invite magic and possibility into items we normally perceive as having little aesthetic value. The resulting work is optimistic, energetic, fun, and as formally and intellectually rigorous as any to be seen today. With a keen historical awareness, Stockholder has looked to sources as diverse as Matisse, Cezanne, the Cubists and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as Minimalism, Allen Kaprow's 1960s "Happenings" and the post-minimal "scatter" art of Robert Smithson. Through her sharp conceptual lenses, Stockholder synthesizes these influences to produce highly original and intensely visual essays on the physical and perceptual experience of space.
The Museum has planned several events in conjunction with the exhibition including:
A workshops has been scheduled throughout the exhibition to provide teachers and young students up-close and interactive experience with the exhibition:
Assembly Required Workshop - On Mar. 29, from 2-3:30pm (ages 5 -7) and Mar. 30, from 10-11:30am (ages 8 to 10). Assembling common household objects in fun and creative ways is just one way artist Jessica Stockholder makes art. Take a close look at the Jessica Stockholder exhibition before designing and constructing unique table-top sculptures. Fee: $10 for WAM members; $15 for non-members.
Creative Drawing Workshop - On Mar. 31, from 2-3:30pm (ages 11 to 13). Working in the Jessica Stockholder exhibition, we'll explore how color, composition, and context fit into developing a creative and imaginative drawing. Fee: $10 for WAM members; $15 for non members.
To register for any of the above workshops, call 336/256-1448.
On Mar. 13 at 2pm, Museum docents will lead tours of the exhibit, free to the public.
On Mar. 31, at 7pm, Museum Director Nancy Doll will led a Gallery talk through the exhibition.
On Apr. 7, from 5-9pm, Weatherspoon Art Museum and the UNCG School of Music will present New Art/New Music, an evening of contemporary music, free to the public.
On Apr. 16, from 1-4pm, Weatherspoon will host Family Day. Join us for an afternoon of art activities, gallery tours, music, and fun for all ages, free to the public.
An illustrated, 96-page catalogue that accompanies the exhibition includes seventy-four color reproductions, essays contributed by Elspeth Carruthers and Miwon Kwon, an interview with the artist by Nancy Doll (Weatherspoon Art Museum) and Terrie Sultan (Blaffer Gallery), an annotated chronology and artist's biography.
For further info check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the Museum at 336/334-5770 or at (www.weatherspoon.uncg.edu).
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