September Issue 2000
Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, Presents Survey of Art at End of Century
The Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, is proud to announce the exhibition, art @ the end of the.century on view through Nov. 5. This exhibit surveys the last two decades of European and American art through twenty-six contemporary masterworks drawn from the outstanding collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to showcase these works of art, not previously shown in NC, and offer residents and visitors the opportunity to view first hand the range of voices and styles that have occupied the limelight in the arts in the last twenty years.
Assembling a show to represent the last two decades of the 20th century posed a challenge few Museum collections could meet. Asheville Art Museum Director, Pamela Myers said, "Over the last few years the Asheville Art Museum has been proud to bring outstanding works of 20th century art to Western North Carolina through exhibitions such as In the City: Urban Visions 1900-1940, and Abstraction 1940-1970. The exhibit "art @ the end of the.century" brings us to the present by exploring the vibrant, exploratory and provocative currents in art since 1980, a time many of us remember well." The Milwaukee Art Museum, while closed for renovation has generously allowed Asheville to show selections from their near encyclopedic holdings of contemporary art.
This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view artworks that normally do not travel, such as Robert Kushner's enormous Port au Prince and William Wiley's fragile multi media work Harpoon for the Dreamer II.
Selections chosen for this exhibit echo American society's movement away from the melting pot and toward an acceptance of cultural diversity. Artists who initially gained fame in earlier decades, such as Jasper Johns, Philip Guston, Nancy Graves and Elizabeth Murray are included in this exhibition because their later work has continued to challenge and influence younger artists.
Many artists who emerged in the 1980's produced work that fell into two very different camps. This exhibition clearly contrasts the energetic, paint and emotion-laden canvases of neo-expressionists Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, George Baselitz and Francesco Clemente with the cooler, ironic, conceptually-based works by Jenny Holzer, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Christopher Wool. Surprisingly, the human figure also remains an important subject as is seen in John Ahearn's plaster busts of residents of his Bronx neighborhood and Robert Arneson's satiric self portrait bust Desolatus both included in art @ the end of the.century.
One of several themes emerging in the art of the last two decades is the influence and discussion of mass media, according to Dean Sobel, former Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum. This can be seen in Jenny Holzer's work from her Survival Series (1983-84) created using electronic LED sign panels and in Ed Paschke's painting, Pedifem (1987) which suggests an image that has be transmitted through an off-key video projector.
Other works in the exhibition refer to earlier art, as in Gerhard Richter's Atem (Breath) (1989) and Peter Halley's textured painting, Two Cells (1989) both styled after abstract forms of the 1950's and the 1960's. Another prevalent theme in the exhibition focuses on social or political statements as in Ross Bleckner's response to the AIDS crisis in his painting, Outstanding European (1989) and Felix Gonzalez-Torres's paper stack Untitled (Veterans Day Sale) (1989) which questions consumerism, in particular the treatment of holidays as shopping opportunities.
If one work in the exhibition sums up art in the last two decades, it might be David Salle's painting Within Sleep (1985) with its multiple images and meanings. A variety of representational styles and painting techniques are presented in conjunction with commercially printed fabric and appropriated images. Salle raises questions shared with many other artists such as: is there a future for handmade art in a post-industrial society? Should artists build on the past or negate it, if they can? It remains to be seen if the doubt and uncertainty Salle brings to light will continue into the next century or be replaced with a more holistic, optimistic view.
This exhibition was organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and represents a portion of that museum's Contemporary art collection. Milwaukee Art Museum Director, Russell Bowman will be the special guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Asheville Art Museum to be held in the Diana Wortham Theater at Pack Place on Sept. 28. Bowman will speak about Collecting Contemporary Art. The presentation is open to all Museum members and to the public with paid admission.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings or call the Museum at 828/253-3227.
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