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2007
The Virgin, Saints, and Angels South American Paintings 1600–1825 from the Thoma Collection
January 29 – March 16, 2008
The Virgin, Saints, and Angels South American Paintings 1600–1825 from the Thoma Collection, is an exhibition comprised of 55 miraculous paintings from South America during the days of Spanish Colonialism. This internationally touring exhibition, drawn from a rare and precious private collection, shows how local artisans, centuries ago, transformed the religious and painting traditions of Spanish missionaries to create an artistry all their own. Gorgeously colored, richly detailed images of The Madonna, saints, and angels, replete with mystical symbolism, illustrate how the images of the Old World were transformed by the imagination of the New. The Virgin, Saints, and Angels: South American Paintings 1600–1825 from the Thoma Collection was organized by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, and has been made possible by generous support from the Clumeck Fund and from funds established by the late Drs. A. Jess and Ben Shenson.
Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy
December 15, 2007 – March 16, 2008
Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy will be the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition of one of Latin America's principal contemporary artists. Macchi, who created Argentina's pavilion at the 2005 Venice Bienale, produces work that is characterized by drawing poetic potential from everyday situations and materials. His artwork explores the intersection of presence and absence in structures such as music, maps, and language. The exhibition will showcase approximately 40 of Macchi's most important works, spanning 15 years of artistic production in a variety of media including video, installation, drawing, sculpture, and collage. Macchi has developed a significant reputation in his native Argentina and Europe, and the exhibition will give increased U.S. exposure to this artist whose reputation is on the rise. Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy is co–organized by the Blanton Museum of Art and the Fundação Bienal do Mercosul. Funding for the exhibition is provided by The Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation and the Susan Vaughan Foundation. Transportation provided by Continental Airlines. This project is also supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Curator: Gabriel Pérez–Barreiro, curator of Latin American art.
Workspace: Paul Ramirez Jonas
November 3 – February 3, 2008
The New York–based, Honduran/American, artist Paul Ramirez Jonas investigates failed utopia and the brief moments in history when believed success alters the interpretation of the concept of progress. For this WorkSpace at the Blanton, Ramirez Jonas will draw on the words of famous Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges using the following sentence as a point of departure: "El acto de leer es más creativo que el de escribir," (The act of reading is more creative than that of writing). The installation will bridge a conceptual study of the taxonomic relation between the written language and what holds it (be it books, tablets, or pedestals), along with the performative qualities of texts that address notions of history as a fiction and reality. For Ramirez Jonas, the public takes on a pivotal roll in the construction of meaning of the ideas he presents through his work. For example, one of the components of the installation is a lectern with a microphone and speaker where an engraved clay tablet rests with the oath, "Do you solemnly swear that you will consider all the evidence in this case, follow the instructions given to you, deliberate fairly and impartially and reach a fair verdict? So help you God." Here the audience is invited to activate the project by reading out loud the presented text and thus setting in motion Borges' words, as the act of reading a single text will indeed invite different interpretations that can awaken our imagination and create new meaning.
Curated by Ursula Davila–Villa, assistant curator of Latin American art
Mike's World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and other collaborators)
September 11 – December 30, 2007
Congratulations to Michael Smith, recently selected for the 2008 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
This fall, the Blanton Museum of Art will be home to Mike's World, the first major retrospective of internationally renowned performance/video/installation artist Michael Smith and his New York-based collaborator, director/artist Joshua White. This extraordinary exhibition features some 30 years of videos, installation environments, and other performance-related materials detailing the adventures of “Mike,” a sweet but hapless Everyman character created by Smith, and his hilariously awkward and ineffectual search for a piece of the American Dream. Following its debut in Austin, Mike's World will travel to the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia (April 24 - August 3, 2008).
“The Blanton is pleased to organize and present this first survey exhibition of Michael Smith's impressive body of work,” said Blanton Director Jessie Otto Hite. “Not only does this show allow us to showcase the work of one of the university's finest artists, it also affirms one of the new Blanton's strengths as a major presenter of contemporary art. Smith's work speaks to issues that touch all our lives–depersonalization, isolation, failure, fear of failure, and the rapid pace of change. Michael Smith, Joshua White, and the other collaborators of Mike's World illuminate timely challenges with poignancy and humor.”
About the Exhibition
Mike's World will take a tightly focused view of a single Michael Smith performance persona as it has developed over the course of many years and through innumerable presentation formats. The character “Mike” functions metaphorically as a kind of ever–hopeful Candide, adrift in a world of rapid technological advancement that he seems incapable of fully comprehending. Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, curator of American and contemporary art and organizer of the exhibition, explained, “Direct and accessible, Smith's exquisite use of humor as a strategy for empathy and identification is rooted in the artist/audience relationships of performance. Yet the work's amplification and variation owes much to its visual, conceptualist sources. Underscoring the hybrid nature of Smith's accomplishment, the works selected for the exhibition also will highlight the unusual collaborative creative process in which Smith has engaged over the years, including his most recent series of videos and installation collaborations with artist–director Joshua White.”
The exhibition has been designed by Michael Smith and Joshua White as a self–contained theatrical set. Two new commissions by the Blanton will serve as the introduction to the exhibition: a five–minute video by Smith and White reprising the story of “Mike,” and a three–dimensional timeline that introduces “Mike's world” to museum audiences and contextualizes it within recent “real world” historical and cultural events. Resembling the orientation center of a presidential library, the space will provide a sharp break from the rest of the museum and a challenging, quasi–theatrical experience for museum visitors.
Subsequent sections of the installation will be sequenced along a thematic and chronological route. Short video performances will be shown on monitors and flat screens within installation environments, while longer videos will be projected in a screening room. The videos surveyed include Down in the Rec Room, 1979/81; Secret Horror, 1980; It Starts at Home, 1982; Go For It, Mike, 1984; Mike Builds a Shelter, 1985; The World of Photography (a collaboration with William Wegman), 1986; Mike, 1987; Outstanding Young Men of America, 1996; Interstitial, 1999; Famous Quotes of Art History, 2001–03; and Portal Excursion, 2007.
The exhibition includes a number of fragments from early installations, and three key recent projects will be reconstructed in their entirety. MUSCO: 1969–97, 1997, the office, storage area and showroom of a theatrical lighting company forced into bankruptcy by “its astounding failure” to keep up with post–disco–ball times. The QuinQuag Arts and Wellness Centre, 2001, documentation of an invented art retirement colony being devoured by corporate patronage. Take Off Your Pants!, 2005, a revolving six–sided kiosk that offers carnivalesque elaborations of a Mike–designed board game. The show will also feature numerous drawings, notebooks, storyboards, and performance ephemera.
About the Artists
Michael Smith is on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin, and his 30–year artistic career includes live performance, video works, commercial and cable television skits, puppet shows, exhibition installations, comic publications, and drawings. Smith has an impressive exhibition and performance history that began in the late 1970s, with venues as varied as Franklin Furnace, The Kitchen, Randolph St. Gallery, DTW, Cinemax, the Whitney, the Corcoran, the New Museum, the Pompidou Center, and, in recent years, sites as far–flung as São Paolo, Copenhagen, Milan, London, and Cambridge.
Joshua White is a director and producer based in New York City. He made his mark as the creator and director of the legendary Joshua Light Show at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in the late 1960s. White went on to design psychedelic light shows for Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, among others. Later, he directed episodes of television programs such as Seinfeld, The Max Headroom Show, and Inside the Actors' Studio. White's lighting designs are currently included in the exhibition Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Mike's World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and other collaborators) is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Funding for the exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Melissa Jones, and Marlene Nathan Meyerson and by a grant from Houston Endowment Inc. in honor of Melissa Jones for the presentation of contemporary art at the Blanton. This project also is supported by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Albrecht Dürer: Prints from the Foundation of Lower Saxony and the Konrad Liebmann Foundation, Germany
September 8 – November 25, 2007
Albrecht Dürer: Prints from the Foundation of Lower Saxony and the Konrad Liebmann Foundation, Germany is a comprehensive survey of more than one hundred woodcuts and engravings by the German artist, providing extraordinary insight into his genius. Included in the exhibition are twenty impressions from the Blanton's notable holdings of European prints and drawings, as well as other local collections.
"Dürer practically invented the “fine print” by elevating techniques of relatively simple popular imagery and reproduction to the level of the highest art," said Jonathan Bober, the Blanton's curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings. "His inventiveness, mastery, and influence knew no bounds. The exhibition is a unique opportunity to experience this towering graphic personality and its development first–hand."
Along with Rembrandt and Goya, Dürer is considered by scholars and collectors one of the foremost creators of old master prints. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Dürer became known for his technical virtuosity in both his paintings and works on paper. In the early 1490s he visited northern Italy, where the works of such artists as Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini had a powerful impact on his artistic development. In 1495, Dürer opened his own workshop in Nuremberg, a wealthy center of trade. He took the radical step of producing high quality prints for an open market, and the first edition of his famous Apocalypse series of woodcuts was published in 1498.
Several complete series of woodcuts by the artist are featured in this exhibition, among them the Apocalypse (1498), Life of the Virgin (1511), and The Engraved Passion (1512). Also included are a number of famous single prints such as Adam and Eve (1504), Knight, Death, and the Devil (1512), Melancholia I (1514), and St. Jerome in His Study (1514). From the Blanton's collection, works by Dürer include Martyrdom of Saint Catherine (c. 1497–1498), Christ as the Man of Sorrows (c. 1500), and Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1526), as well as Christ Before Annas, Mocking of Christ, Christ Crowned with Thorns, and Descent from the Cross from The Small Passion woodcut series (1509–1511).
Albrecht Dürer: Prints from the Foundation of Lower Saxony and the Konrad Liebmann Foundation, Germany is organized by the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Foundation of Lower Saxony, and the Konrad Liebmann Foundation. The exhibition is organized at the Blanton by Jonathan Bober with the assistance of Joshua McConnell, graduate student intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
Curated by Jonathan Bober, curator of prints, drawings, and European Paintings, and Joshua McConnell, graduate student intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
Transactions
September 11 – November 18, 2007
Transactions focuses on artists who have adopted a radical approach to artistic production and distribution. In addition to showing at galleries and museums, these artists also operate within the public sphere, creating work for sites associated not with art, but with everyday life. Here viewers will see art originally made for newspapers and magazines, sculptures that are being sold over the Internet, hand–sewn articles of clothing that were surreptitiously dropped into retail stores, and zero–value currency created in unlimited editions and given away for free, among other provocative projects.
Insofar as they infiltrate alternative systems of exchange, the projects in Transactions constitute a new form of public art, one that challenges both the museum's and the gallery's monopoly over the presentation of art. The motivations behind them might be critical, mischievous, entrepreneurial, generous, or a combination of all four. Beyond raising questions about the value of art and its status as both commodity and private property, the artists in this exhibition solicit the viewer's input, action, and collaboration as well.
The exhibition features work by nine artists working in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America: Conrad Bakker, Daniel Bozhkov, Eugenio Dittborn, Christine Hill, Emily Jacir, Ben Kinmont, Cildo Meireles, Seth Price, and Zoë Sheehan Saldaña. Spanning the years 1974 to 2007, the content of the exhibition includes videos, sculptures, photographs, paintings, and a variety of printed material. While some of the works document interventions that have already come to a conclusion, others exist beyond the walls of the museum. These “living” or “performative” projects are not only completed by viewer participation, they also test our expectations for a museum exhibition.
Curated by Kelly Baum, assistant curator of American and contemporary art at the Blanton, and is accompanied by an illustrated 48-page catalogue. Copies of the catalogue can be purchased through the museum store. Please call (512) 475-6406 or e–mail aklossner@mail.utexas.edu for more information.
WorkSpace: Josefina Guilisasti
July 7 – October 21, 2007
Josefina Guilisasti is one of the leading contemporary artists working in Chile. Her work typically consists of multi-part painting installations that reflect on the history of art and issues surrounding representation in realist painting. For this WorkSpace, Guilisasti presents a major installation of eight canvases called Marfa/Puerto Viejo. This series was provoked by a trip the artist took to Marfa, Texas, in 2005. Looking at Donald Judd's large–scale geometrical works in the landscape, she was struck by how similar they were formally to the precarious summer homes erected by low–income families who live in the northern Chilean desert. Marfa/Puerto Viejo presents four pairs of images rendered in a delicate realist manner on large canvases. Each pair shows an almost identical scene taken from photographs, but it is virtually impossible to tell which corresponds to Judd's heavily–subsidized west Texan desert dream or to the tenuous illegal summer camps of Chile. The formal equivalence shown by the images, aided by the physical similarities between west Texas and northern Chile raises important questions about the context of artmaking, and the relationship between art and landscape.
Exhibition Brochure (pdf - download adobe reader.)
Curated by Gabriel Pérez–Barreiro, curator of Latin American art
The Happiest Day: Wedding Customs in Transition
April 20 – August 26, 2007
The mythology of marriage explored in art! A thematic approach to the material gives an historical perspective on a timely topic. Images of allegorical, religious, and royal weddings from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries will be presented as models for the ideal marriage with Abraham Bosse's wedding suites (Le mariage à la ville and Le mariage à la compagne) and William Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode serving as visual critiques on the subject.
Curated by Cheryl Snay, assistant curator of prints and drawings
Parmigianino: His Graphic Legacy
April 20 – August 26, 2007
The art of Francesco Parmigianino was the most stylized and elegant in sixteenth-century Italy. It was also tremendously influential, inspiring developments in Italy through the rest of the century, helping establish mannerism as an international style, and setting the standard of artistic refinement for the next two centuries.
Curated by Jonathan Bober, curator of prints, and drawings, and European Paintings
Bauhaus Portfolios
April 20 – August 26, 2007
Lithographs from two portfolios from the series New European Graphics published in 1921 and 1922 in Germany. Artists included in the portfolios are Wassily Kandinsky, George Grosz, Ernst Kirchner, Umberto Boccioni, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Oskar Kokoschka, and Max Beckman among others.
Curated by Jonathan Bober, curator of of prints, drawings, and European paintings
Anselm Kiefer in Context: German Works on Paper from the 1960s and 1970s
April 20 – August 26, 2007
In 2006 the Blanton received an important gift: Anselm Kiefer's stunning Sternenfall [Falling Stars] from 1998. This monumental painting by one of the most highly regarded artists working today allows the Blanton to begin the process of creating a truly global collection of contemporary art. Kiefer currently lives in France and exhibits his work all over the world. However, he was deeply influenced by having grown up and studied in Germany in the late 1960s and 1970s. In an effort to provide insight into his origins and re–create something of the dynamic, fractured environment in which he was working at the time, Anselm Kiefer in Context assembles a group of prints by artists who were also active in Germany during this period. Associated with movements as diverse as Pop, Conceptualism, Fluxus, and Expressionism, these individuals form the cultural and historical context in which Kiefer came to maturity as an artist.
Curated by Kelly Baum, assistant curator of American and contemporary art, and Danielle Wells, curatorial intern
Sketches, Plans, and Proposals
April 20 – August 26, 2007
For centuries, artists have used paper to make sketches, jot down ideas, record fleeting impressions, or prepare for large–scale paintings, sculptures, and installations. Works on paper are thus indelibly associated with the artist's hand as well as his or her imagination, and they are typically described as more instinctive or immediate than “finished” works of art. The prints and drawings in Sketches, Plans, and Proposals conform to but also challenge many of these assumptions. Some of the pieces are indeed sketches for works that were later rendered in other media, but others detail projects so impractical, so idealistic, that they were either never realized or never intended to be realized in the first place. Works by Christo, Alfred Jensen, Gyula Kosice, Lee Lozano, Nam June Paik, César Paternosto, and James Turrell will be featured, among others.
Curated by Kelly Baum, assistant curator of American and contemporary art
Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery
June 1 – August 12, 2007
Continuing its Summer of Masterworks, the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to present Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery, on view through August 12, 2007. These important examples from Yale's distinguished drawings collection provide a compelling survey of European draftsmanship from the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The exhibition includes masterworks by such artists as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, François Boucher, Degas, Guercino, and Jean–Antoine Watteau, as well as a number of works never before seen by the public.
This exhibition is organized by the Yale University Art Gallery. The presentation of the exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art is made possible by the Inman Foundation.
A Century of Grace: 19th–Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York
May 18 – August 5, 2007
Celebrating the first anniversary of its new building with a summer of masterworks, the Blanton will host its first major exhibition of nineteenth–century European masterpieces. Drawn from a renowned collection known for its classically inspired art, the exhibition features works that explore the human figure in all its beauty, strength, and grace. The show provides an exceptional chance to view well known artwork from some of the superstars of the salon scene—beloved masters such as Bouguereau, Gérôme, Rosa Bonheur, and Alma–Tadema. Organized by New York's Dahesh Museum in collaboration with the Blanton, this lush exhibition features some 50 paintings, drawings, and sculptures.
This exhibition was organized by the Dahesh Museum of Art in collaboration with the Blanton Museum of Art. Presentation at the Blanton is made possible through the generosity of Blanton Museum members. Additional support provided by Stacie and David McDavid and Kit and Charlie Moncrief.
WorkSpace: Jedediah Caesar
April 7 – June 17, 2007
Caesar was born in Oakland in 1973 and received his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2001. His work has been featured in such group exhibitions as Thing: New Sculpture from Los Angeles (Hammer Museum, 2005) and Trace (Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, 2006). Caesar's project at the Blanton will be his first solo exhibition at a museum, and it will feature new work made specifically for this site.
Curated by Kelly Baum, assistant curator of American and contemporary art
WorkSpace: Matthew Day Jackson
January 13 – March 25, 2007
Raised on the West Coast and currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York, Matthew Day Jackson makes highly idiosyncratic objects and installations that combine natural, hand–crafted, and recycled materials with imagery and allusions that inspire wonder and surprise. Absorbed by legends of history and folklore, personal transformation through spiritual rites, the idealism of avant–garde aesthetics, and their possible conceptual intersections, Jackson mixes a heady and visceral blend that addresses the romanticization of America's past and environmental and political crises of the present moment. For the Blanton, he will create an installation featuring a suite of large and medium–scaled sculptures and photo-based works created in 2006 and 2007. Jackson has received critical acclaim for his works in the influential group exhibitions, Greater New York, 2005, PS1 Contemporary Art Center and the 2006 Whitney Biennial, Day for Night.
Curated by Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, curator of American and contemporary art
The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
February 20 – April 22, 2007
Journey through the vibrant cities of South America during the mid–twentieth century and witness the birth of Modernism in the Americas. Drawn from one of the world's leading collections of Latin American art, this exhibition examines the dynamic visual vocabulary of Geometric Abstraction that developed in the cosmopolitan art capitals of Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other South American cities from the 1930s through the 1970s. Featuring more than 125 works by more than 40 artists, The Geometry of Hope examines the complex history and rich creative ferment of one of the most fascinating artistic movements of the last century. A version of the exhibition will be on view at New York University's Grey Art Gallery in the fall of 2007.
The Geometry of Hope will be accompanied by a two-part symposium exploring the legacy of Latin American geometrical abstraction and the state of contemporary scholarship in the field. The first session will be held in Austin on February 17, 2007, and the second at New York University on October 5, 2007.
The Geometry of Hope Symposium
The Geometry of Hope: Interactive
Explore artworks from the exhibition
Order the catalogue (pdf - download adobe reader.)
Gallery Guide (pdf - download adobe reader.)
The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Generous funding for the exhibition is provided by the Eugene McDermott Foundation and Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Moncrief. The accompanying catalogue and symposium are made possible by the support of the Fundación Cisneros.
2006
Virtuoso Lithography
December 22, 2006 – April 8, 2007
Unlike earlier techniques of printmaking, lithography allows any artist to make and reproduce practically any size, shape, and character of mark. This versatility and faithfulness to the touch of the artist have often encouraged lithographs in which technique and graphic display tend to overshadow other meanings. Such works form a sub–tradition of what could be called “virtuoso lithography.” This exhibition brings together some two dozen spectacular examples from Delacroix and Whistler to Picasso and Jasper Johns.
Curated by Jonathan Bober, curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings and Kate Dempsey, curatorial intern
European Prints of Ornament, 1500–1700
December 22, 2006 – April 8, 2007
Presenting some 45 works from throughout Europe, this exhibition reveals a variety of inventive approaches to established ornamental motifs including geometric design, vegetal foliage, and grotesques, as well as fantastic objects and creatures.
Curated by Josh McConnell, graduate student, Art History, The University of Texas at Austin
Jusepe de Ribera, 1591–1652
December 22, 2006 – April 8, 2007
Sensitive to human expression and capable of rendering it convincingly, Ribera, known as a painter, is notable for extending seventeenth–century realism to printmaking. While he only created 18 prints in his life, this exhibition of his etchings and those of his followers, Filippo Liagno, Salvator Rosa, and Luca Giordano sheds light on this little–known aspect of his artistic production and the impact it had on later artists.
Curated by Jonathan Bober, curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings
Privilege of the King: 18th–Century Printmaking at the French Court
December 22, 2006 – April 8, 2007
The phrase “Avec privilege du roy” refers to the permission granted by the French government to a publisher to produce an edition. In this exhibition, it refers equally to the privileges of luxury, leisure, and elaborate rituals afforded to the king and his court in the eighteenth century that came to typify rococo excess and frivolity.
Curated by Cheryl Snay, assistant curator of prints and drawings
Luca Cambiaso, 1527–1585
September 19, 2006 – January 14, 2007
The first major U.S. exhibition of paintings by one of the principal figures of late–16th–century painting, Luca Cambiaso, is the first major international traveling exhibition hosted by the Blanton since the museum's opening in April. The Blanton is the exclusive U.S. venue for Luca Cambiaso, 1527–1585, providing a rare opportunity for the public to see first–hand over 120 works by a fascinating artist whose work has largely remained in his native Genoa. The range of works featured spans his entire development, showing the influence of Raphael and Michelangelo in his early years, the highly sophisticated and stylized Mannerism of his mature work, and the hints of early Baroque style that penetrate his later period. While drawings are displayed throughout the exhibition—including several of the startlingly modern, almost cubistic works which emerged in his later years—one section of the exhibition focuses on Cambiaso's influence as a draughtsman. The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to the work of Cambiaso's principal Genoese followers, demonstrating the artist's immediate influence and explaining the foundation of a distinctive school.
Order Cambiaso Catalogue (pdf - download adobe reader.)
Cambiaso Gallery Guide (pdf - download adobe reader.)
Luca Cambiaso, 1527 - 1585 is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art in partnership with the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy.
Presenting sponsor:
Additional generous funding is provided by Mr. and Mrs. Jack S. Blanton; Kurt and Alessandra Manning Dolnier in honor of Dr. William and Eugenia Suida and Robert and Bertina Suida Manning; Granduca, Luxury Residential Hotel, Houston; Eugene and Emily Grant; Kit and Charlie Moncrief; the National Italian American Foundation; Regina Rogers in appreciation of Jack S. Blanton; the William A. and Madeline Welder Smith Foundation; John H. and Carolyn J. Young; and anonymous donors. Funding for the accompanying exhibition catalogue is provided by Julie and Lawrence Salander, New York. Air transportation provided by Continental Airlines.
WorkSpace: Cristián Silva: Black Sun — Green Flamingo
October 13 – December 31, 2006
Trained in the field of printmaking in the late 1980s and part of the first generation of artists from Chile's post–dictatorship era, Cristián Silva has become a renowned artist on the Latin American contemporary art scene. Inspired by a wide range of subjects that are on one level deeply personal as well as part of the general culture, Silva creates wall paintings, sculptures, installations, videos and drawings that build together an allegorical environment richly embedded with sociopolitical quotes. Golf balls, plastic bottles, peach pits, chocolate bars, an oversized machete, discarded tartan clothes, potatoes or an old window blind, become part of Silva's symbolic alphabet, one that ambiguously negotiates with the never ending issues of post-colonial identity and class struggle in Latin America.
For the Blanton, Silva is creating Black Sun—Green Flamingo, a new, large-scale installation. Deeply concerned by the dramatic dynamics of frontier politics along the Rio Grande area, Silva looks to a legendary Texan local album cover of the early 1980s to comment on the dreams of the Promised Land held by people from both sides of the border. Based on this slightly kitschy and surreal image source, Silva elaborates on the poetics of migration.
Download the Black Sun — Green Flamingo brochure
(pdf - download adobe reader.)
Rembrandt's Etchings
August 4 – December 10, 2006
The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin joins other institutions around the world in commemorating the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth, with a special exhibition of his etchings. Rembrandt's Etchings will feature 23 examples of Rembrandt's work from the museum's collection. The exhibition will also feature 22 works by peers and later admirers of Rembrandt, illustrating his long–lasting impact on printmaking.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606–October 4, 1669) is considered one of the greatest painters of all time. He has also been called “the greatest master of etching,” and it is his experimentation and technical superiority with this medium that has given him this name. Although the number continues to be refined by art historians, the artist produced some 400 paintings, 300 etchings, and 2,000 drawings. The exhibition will feature 23 etchings by Rembrandt and 22 by his contemporaries or later artists whom he inspired.
WorkSpace: Carol Bove: "setting" for A. Pomodoro
July 21 – October 1, 2006
New York-based artist Carol Bove (pronounced Boh-VAY) creates elegant sculptural installations that explore the cultural, spiritual, social, and political preoccupations of the 1960s and 1970s. For her exhibition at the Blanton, Bove has merged her interests in history and sculpture by making two miniature “sculpture gardens.” In the larger of the two installations, a sculpture (c. 1963) by the Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro serves as the anchor for a history of 20th–century art narrated by an array of disparate objects: pieces of driftwood and steel, peacock feathers, railroad ties, and concrete cubes. These objects represent forms that are associated with the Surrealists and Constructivists of the early to mid–20th century but that influenced artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s as well. The smaller installation likewise serves as a “museum within a museum,” but it also recreates a specific celestial event. On March 2, 2006, at 9 PM, the canopy of bronze rods suspended over the “sculpture garden” aligned perfectly with the stars congregating over the ceiling of the Berlin gallery in which the work was then being exhibited. The installation is, literally, a horoscope: a view (“scope”) onto an hour (“hora”). The term also applies to Bove's work as a whole, which similarly provides a view onto time—in the case of the pieces displayed at the Blanton, a glimpse onto a slightly uncanny history of the 20th century.
Download Exhibition Brochure (pdf - download adobe reader.)
Paul Chan: Present Tense
April 30 – August 13, 2006
This exhibition will present new works by Paul Chan, one of the country's most provocative new media artists. Urgent, thoughtful, and compassionate, his works—which have been cited for their visual intensity and graphic flair—pose deeply philosophical questions in order to provoke awareness and debate. Born in Hong Kong, raised in Nebraska, and currently based in New York, Chan received his B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his M.F.A. from Bard College. The recipient of critical acclaim for his recent films, videos, and projected animations, in the past year Chan has presented his work in group shows/screenings at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the 54th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and the 8th Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, France. He has completed several solo projects at the Hammer Museum, UCLA and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among myriad other venues. This will be Chan's first solo museum exhibition.
WorkSpace: Daniel Joglar
April 30 – July 9, 2006
Daniel Joglar is one of the leading young artists working in Argentina today. He creates magical and evocative formal compositions out of everyday objects—post–it notes, rulers, and reams of paper. A typical work by Joglar consists of various objects spread across a tabletop; what at first glance appears to be a haphazard arrangement slowly reveals a complex and intentional web of formal connections. Joglar will create a site–specific work for the Blanton. This will be the artist's first major presentation outside Latin America.
Download the exhibition brochure (pdf - download adobe reader.)
New Now Next: The Contemporary Blanton
April 29 – August 13, 2006
New works by established and emerging artists working in the United States and Latin America are featured in this grand opening exhibition. Over the last five years the museum's contemporary collection has grown dramatically. See for yourself what is new, now, and next in the art world through these paintings, drawings, video projections, animations, sculptures, and multi–media works.
2004
Twister: Moving Through Color, 1965–1977
August 20 – December 23, 2004
Be swept up in a world where paintings seem to spin, shimmer and twist. This exhibition will captivate viewers with vibrant, colorful paintings from the Blanton's American and Latin American collections. Created in the 1960s and 1970s, when many claimed that painting was “dead,” the artists represented in Twister embraced the medium with conviction, confident that painting was just as relevant as video, sculpture, and performance.
The Blanton Builds: Your New Museum
August 20 – December 23, 2004
Showcasing the new Blanton museum complex and plaza currently under construction on the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and Congress Avenue, this exhibition features architectural plans, computer renderings, and a pictorial timeline of the building project. The new Blanton Museum will for the first time in the museum's history unite its collections, and exhibitions under one roof. Come by to get a preview of the next big thing for Austin and the University of Texas to open in early spring 2006.
500 Years of Prints and Drawings
August 20 – December 23, 2004
The Portable Museum: Renaissance Prints after Ancient Roman Sculpture
Titianus Invenit: Reproductive Prints after Titian
Gericault: First Master Lithographer
William Kentridge: Thinking in Water
This final installment of 500 Years of Prints and Drawings includes 16th–century reproductions of ancient sculpture; interpretations of Titian, one of the great Renaissance painters masterpieces; the debut of the Blanton's full of collection of the early modern lithographs of Theodore Gericault; and contemporary artist William Kentridge's compelling, sculptural “drawing” in paper, and represents the unique breadth and quality of the Blanton's collection.
Roz — A Video
August 20 – December 23, 2004
The Blanton joins Cinematexas in presenting Roz (2004) a work by prominent video artist Burt Barr. Compelling and emotionally fraught, Roz depicts a beautiful young woman (the performer Roz LeBlanc) standing in the shower, water pouring over her head and shoulders. The woman opens her mouth and begins to sing. Instead of her own voice, however, we hear the deep, resonant voice of veteran soul singer Otis Clay. Over the course of the next several minutes, the woman lip–synchs the lyrics to Clay's recording of the tragic ballad “The Banks of the Ohio,” which tells the tale of a man who murdered the woman he loved. "Roz is a mesmerizing video," Blanton Assistant Curator Kelly Baum explains. "Like the camera itself, we remain riveted, our attention never wavering from the woman's face." In a recent review in the New York Times (July 9, 2004) Ken Johnson called Roz, which is currently being shown at the Brent Sikkema Gallery, “moving” and described it as the only work in the exhibition that "gives you something to feel as well as to think about." Roz is part of Cinematexas' ninth international film festival to be held in Austin September 22–26, 2004. The video will run at the Blanton from August 20 to through December 2004.
Masterpieces of European Painting
Permanent installation
This selection of more than 40 paintings from the 15th through 18h centuries includes works by Jacopo da Empoli, Sebastiano del Piombo, Luca Cambiaso, Veronese, Guercino, Claude Lorrain, Peter Paul Rubens, Sebastiano Ricci, and many others. It features works from the Suida–Manning Collection, which, acquired by the Blanton in 1998, is widely recognized as one of the greatest privately assembled collections of Renaissance and Baroque art in the world.
Fishing in International Waters
January 30 – July 18, 2004
The past year has seen a remarkable growth in the Blanton's Latin American collection, aided by the generous donations of Fran Magee and Gallery 106, Cecilia Buzio de Torres, Robert Michael, and numerous others. Fishing in International Waters reaffirms the Blanton's commitment to expanding the Latin American collection by acquiring key historical works, commissioning new ones, and supporting emerging Latin American artists. The exhibition presents 30 recent commissions, purchases, and gifts in a range of media, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and video. Artists include Jose A. Toirac (Cuba), Cesar Paternosto (Argentina), Julio Alpuy (Uruguay), Victor Grippo (Argentina), Yoshua Okon (Mexico), Jorge Macchi (Argentina), and Raul Quintinilla (Nicaragua), among others. The exhibition also features the photographic documentation of Brazilian artist Katie van Scherpenberg's ephemeral, outdoor installations commissioned by the Blanton in November 2003 and Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuna's reconstruction of Precarious, displayed at the Blanton in 1987 in the seminal exhibition Latin American Artists in New York since 1970.
Five Hundred Years of Prints and Drawings
January 30 – July 18, 2004
With more than 15,000 works, the Blanton's collection of prints and drawings is the largest and most historically balanced of its kind in the southern and southwestern United States and one of the most significant in the country. The museum's ongoing series 500 Years of Prints and Drawings reveals the distinctive depth and quality of the Blanton's collection through groups of small exhibitions that examine critical moments and situations in the history of works on paper. Representing the 16th through 20th centuries, the exhibitions are divided by broad historical period, each exploring a different technique, subject, individual master, or other theme.
Heroines, Harlots, and Hussies: Old Testament Women in Renaissance and Baroque Prints
Eighteen Renaissance and Baroque prints portray the stories of Eve, Lot's daughters, Susanna, Potiphar's wife, and Judith. Among the prints are fine works by Jan Saenredam, Jacques Callot, Agostino Carraci, and Rembrandt.
Italian Drawings Since Suida–Manning
The acquisition of the Suida–Manning Collection in 1998 included 200 Italian Renaissance and Baroque drawings. This exhibition features eighteen Genoese, Lombard, Florentine, and Roman drawings acquired since the collection's arrival. These recent acquisitions both complement and fill gaps in the Suida–Manning Collection's distinguished holdings.
Court Life in the Age of the Sun King
In 1650, the Royal Edict of Saint Jean–de–Luz proclaimed engraving a “liberal” art, transforming printmakers from artisans into artists. Court patronage, innovative artists, and a public demand for images made the 17th century a high point in the history of French printmaking. This exhibition focuses on the patronage of the court of Louis XIV, from Israel Silvestre's views of Versailles to Robert Nanteuil's portraits of court luminaries.
“The Spiritual and the Technical”: Etchings by John Taylor Arms
For the first time in Austin, twenty newly donated etchings by John Taylor Arms will be featured, along with the Blanton's already representative collection of the artist's work. Probably the most distinctive exponent of the Etching Revival in this country, Arms was unrivalled in technical refinement and unique in his correlation of printmaking and transcendental values.
2003
Lo feo de este mundo: Images of the Grotesque
August 27, 2003 – January 4, 2004
The Blanton's new curator of Latin American art, Gabriel Perez–Barreiro, emerges this fall with his first major exhibition for the Blanton. Lo feo de este mundo investigates works by artists who reject ideas of beauty in favor of the ugly, deformed, and imperfect. The exhibition features more than 40 works by Latin American artists such as Jose Luis Cuevas, Antonio Berni, and Liliana Porter, who reveal a concern with the darker side of life and an implicit rejection of the progressive theories of modernity.
Transgressive Women
August 27, 2003 – January 4, 2004
Painted egg cartons, a drawing on a leaf, a written action statement, video documentation of nude “happenings” and a perforated canvas hung away from the wall play off more conventional works as the Blanton's curator of American and Contemporary art, Annete DiMeo Carlozzi, guides visitors through the artistic production of four maverick women artists active in the 1950s–1980s: Yayoi Kusama, Lee Lozano, Ana Mendieta, and Joan Semmel.
Prints from the Leo Steinberg Collection: Part 2
August 27, 2003 – January 4, 2004
Still only beginning to reveal the wealth and personality of the recently acquired Leo Steinberg Collection, the Blanton's curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings, Jonathan Bober, presents a second selection of 100 works, illustrating the history of prints and printmaking from the 16th through the 20th centuries. These range from rarities of Italian Mannerist engraving and the German “Little Masters,” to masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse.
Masterpieces of European Painting
Permanent installation
This selection of more than 40 paintings from the 15th through 18h centuries includes works by Jacopo da Empoli, Sebastiano del Piombo, Luca Cambiaso, Veronese, Guercino, Claude Lorrain, Peter Paul Rubens, Sebastiano Ricci, and many others. It features works from the Suida–Manning Collection, which, acquired by the Blanton in 1998, is widely recognized as one of the greatest privately assembled collections of Renaissance and Baroque art in the world.
European paintings at the Blanton
Difficult Daughters
August 27, 2003 – January 4, 2004
This final installment of the Projections series of contemporary film and video works, selected by the Blanton's assistant curator of American and Contemporary art, Kelly Baum, showcases videos and films by emerging and established women artists. The works provocatively challenge gender stereotypes, assert female empowerment, and reveal how women from a variety of backgrounds approach feminism.
Visualizing Identity
August 27, 2003 – January 4, 2004
This experimental exhibition presents four contemporary works of art that explore notions of personal, racial, and cultural identity. A key component of the Visualizing Identity project is the iTour—a handheld, multi-media device designed to enhance visitor learning by providing video, audio, and textual information as well as interactive experiences.
Masterpieces of European Painting
Permanent installation
This selection of more than 40 paintings from the 15th through 18h centuries showcases some works from the Suida–Manning Collection that have never before been on view to the general public. This fall also marks the return of many paintings that have been on view in a much–celebrated exhibition in Cremona, Italy. Several of these were beautifully cleaned and restored before their return to Austin. Acquired in 1998, the Suida–Manning Collection is widely recognized as one of the greatest privately assembled collections of Renaissance and Baroque art in the world.
Prints from the Leo Steinberg Collection, Part 1
January 24 – July 27, 2003
In July 2002 the Blanton Museum of Art acquired the print collection of noted art historian and critic Leo Steinberg, adding 3,200 prints to the Blanton's holdings and includes masterpieces by Marcantonio Raimondi, Albrecht Dürer, Parmigianino, Cornelis Cort, Hendrick Goltzius, Claude Lorrain, Rembrandt, and Francesco Piranesi, as well as William Blake, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Jasper Johns, and many other artists both known and unknown to contemporary scholars. This exhibition marks the first time these works have been on view to the public. It is the first in a two–part series of exhibitions revealing the many strengths of this exceptional collection, believed by many to have been one of the last great collections of prints in private hands.
In each installment, the full breadth of the collection is demonstrated in works illustrating the history of prints and printmaking from the 16th through the 20th centuries. The frontispiece of Prints from the Leo Steinberg Collection, Part I, Marcantonio Raimondi's so-called Stregozzo [The Witches' Procession], is one of the largest and most intriguing engravings of the High Renaissance. Superb reproductive prints of the works of Michelangelo include Giorgio Ghisi's first interpretations of figures from the Sistine Ceiling and Nicolas Beatrizet's Annunciation after the master's lost drawing. There are several exceptionally rare and fine etchings from the School of Fontainebleau, a stunning group of engravings by Hendrik Goltzius and his followers, and singular impressions of some of the major etchings of Italian Baroque. Grand–scale reproductive printmaking is represented at the beginning of the tradition by Hans Witdoeck's engraving of Rubens's Elevation of the Cross, and at the conclusion by Raphael Morghen's Last Supper after Leonardo da Vinci. Part I concludes with some especially delicate French landscape etchings, Picasso's Blind Minotaur from his Vollard Suite of 1933–34, and Jasper Johns' Ale Cans, the lithograph created as the cover illustration of Steinberg's seminal essay on the artist.
Painting Explosion: 1958-1963, Part I
January 24 – April 13, 2003
The late 1950s and early 1960s was a period of great transition in American art. Among American painters, especially those based in New York City, this time was one of intense experimentation and increased activity that resulted in a profusion of new modes of representation. Thanks to the foresight of Mari and James A. Michener and other donors, the Blanton's collection of 20th–century American paintings represents the period 1958–1963 in extraordinary depth and breadth. Painting Explosion features more than 40 works from the Blanton's collection that survey the wide spectrum of artistic styles and concerns prevalent during this historic era. The exhibition includes major works by Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Larry Rivers, Ellsworth Kelly, Helen Frankenthaler, and Adolph Gottlieb—signature paintings with which the Blanton's collection is often identified—as well as lesser known but important works by Robert Motherwell, Al Held, Robert Indiana, Yayoi Kusama, Ludwig Sander, Leon Golub, Norman Lewis and others.
Projections
January 24 – July 27, 2003
Visit the Blanton's screening room in the back of the downstairs gallery for a changing exhibition of projected videos and films by contemporary artists. Each installment brings together works by diverse artists exploring common themes in distinctly different ways.
February 13 – March 20
Projections: Elemental
Samantha Krukowski, Salt and Glue (2002)
Rivane Neuenschwander, id="Inventory of Small Deaths" (Blow) (2000)
Brian Fridge, Vault Sequence (1997)
March 21 – May 8
Projections: Dystopias
Willie Varela, His Hidden Presence (1998)
Maria Marshall, Once Up On (2000)
Jenny Stark, Did You Hear Something? (2002)
Enid Baxter Blader, Hometown Apocalypse or Something, from The Apocalypse Series (2001)
May 16 – June 19
Projections: Body Language
Brent Steen, It's okay....okay (2001)
Andr?a Caillouet, Swing (2003)
Kristina Spritzer, Meta, Metaphor, Metamorphosis (2002)
Alex Lopez, Shell Shocked: S.O.S.–Victory leads to progress (2002)
June 20 – July 27
Projections: Allegories of Cinema
Christian Marclay, Telephones (1995)
Bogdan Perzynski, Kindly (1999)
Duncan Ganley, Points of Entry (1999)
Fraser Stables, Terminal Portrait (Scott) II (2002)
Painting Explosion: 1958–1963, Part II
April 19 – July 27, 2003
Among American painters, the period 1958–1963 was a one of intense experimentation and increased activity that resulted in a profusion of new modes of representation. This exhibition is the second installment in an exploration of the burst of artistic activity that took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Blanton's collection of paintings from 1958–1963 is particularly rich, and Painting Explosion, Part II allows the public to become acquainted with an even broader cross–section of the museum's permanent collection. While many works from Part I will remain on view, others will be replaced by additional paintings from the Blanton's permanent collection, offering a fresh perspective on this historic period.
2002
500 Years of Prints and Drawings
September 13, 2002 – December 29, 2002
The Blanton continues its series of exhibitions revealing the many strengths of its collection of works on paper. Representing the 16th through 20th centuries, five focused presentations each explore a different, theme, technique, or artist from one century in the history of art.
Prints of Ornament from the Northern Renaissance
Prints of ornament form a critical, if under–appreciated, genre that found its highest expression in Northern Europe during the 16th century. Combining works already in the Blanton's collection with works from the newly acquired Leo Steinberg Collection, this exhibition showcases some of the best examples of ornament from this period. From the geometric pattern of Dürer's woodcut “knot” and the exquisite engravings of followers like Beham and Aldegrever, to the extravagant fantasies of the School at Fontainebleau and the Italianate inventions of the late–century Flemish, this selection encompasses the principal types and stages of ornament as it developed in the North.
Florentine Drawing in the Time of Empoli
Last spring the museum acquired an altarpiece by Jacopo Chimenti, called Empoli, a major figure in the transition of the Florentine school from Mannerism toward the Baroque. This exhibition presents 15 drawings by Empoli and his Florentine contemporaries: from followers of Vasari like Stradano, to complex intermediaries like Cigoli, to vibrant 17th–century decorators like Volteranno. These drawings reveal more of the personality, evoke more of the stylistic context, and describe something of the preparatory steps of the new altarpiece. At the same time, they convey the exceptional depth and interrelation of the Blanton's Old Master collection.
The Great Age of British Mezzotint
Developed in late 17th–century Holland, mezzotint is a laborious printmaking technique achieved through roughing, then selectively cleaning and burnishing the surface of a copper plate to create a matrix of extremely subtle and continuous variation. Mezzotints achieve extremely fine tonal gradation and incomparable fidelity to the appearance of texture. The technique attained its highest level in 18th-century Britain, above all as a means of reproducing portrait paintings. This exhibition unites the collection's finest examples of this great age, featuring splendid interpretations of the works of Reynolds, Romney, and Gainsborough, along with a celebrated narrative work by Earlom, an unusual original rendering by Frye, and rare proofs by Constable's collaborator, David Lucas.
Ferdinand Gaillard: Re-Discovered Master of Reproductive Printmaking
Béraldi, the leading connoisseur and cataloguer of 19th-century French prints, described Gaillard as "astonishingly... singular... one of the great engravers of his time." In Paris from the 1860s through the 1880s, his works commanded formidable prices, and even the important modernist critic Roger–Marx collected them avidly. Yet Ferdinand Gaillard never entered the history of art, and today his name is unfamiliar even to most print scholars. Featuring some of Gaillard's finest works, as well as rare proof impressions, this exhibition affirms his place as the last master of reproductive and portrait engraving, upholding French tradition in the face of the avant–garde and cultivating extraordinary technique in competition with photography.
Atelier 17 and Its American Influence
Atelier 17 was established in Paris in 1927 by Stanley William Hayter as a workshop where artists could share ideas, collaborate, and most importantly experiment with new techniques. Trained as a chemist, Hayter brought a scientific approach to printmaking, inventing the process of color viscosity printing and exploring it with great success in his own abstract works. At the onset of World War II Hayter relocated to New York, where he re–established Atelier 17, introducing American artists to color intaglio printmaking and providing a model for the modern printmaking studio. This exhibition features highlights from Hayter's later activity as well as prints by many of his American disciples, including Gabor Peterdi, Mauricio Lasansky, Krishna Reddy, and the Texan Dickson Reeder.
Routes toward Modernism: American Painting 1870–1950
September 13, 2002 – December 29, 2002
Throughout the period 1870–1950, American painters were struggling to synthesize the lessons of European masters while still creating images that were meaningful for their own place and time. Over decades of trial and error, an American–flavored modernist vision developed, and this exhibition, drawn from works in the Blanton's permanent collection, traces developments in American painting during this dramatic period of stylistic innovations and artistic breakthroughs. The exhibition begins with realist paintings by turn–of–the–century artists such as Thomas Eakins, Thomas Moran, John Twachtman, William Merritt Chase, and Robert Henri, whose figure studies, portraits and landscapes incorporate a wide range of responses to the American character. With the Armory Show of 1913, a groundbreaking exposition in New York of the latest experimental European and American works, a benchmark was established for the next generation. Routes toward Modernism next chronicles exposure to the Armory Show, as well as other first–hand encounters with the most avant–garde art of the time. Works by American modernists Max Weber, Stanton MacDonald–Wright, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and Stuart Davis, among others, demonstrate the experimentation with compositional structure, paint handling, and the representation of imagery taking place at this time. While these artists were exploring abstraction, another loosely affiliated group of American artists, including Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, Philip Evergood, Ben Shahn, Jacob Lawrence, and Karl Zerbe, were combining vanguard aspects of realism, cubism, and expressionism in largely narrative works. The convergence of these, vastly differing bodies of work— both abstract and representational— constitutes a particularly American strategy toward and interpretation of modernism, and sets the stage for an era of radical new artistic accomplishment that develops in the post-war years.
Surface and Subtext: Latin American Geometric Abstraction
September 13, 2002 – December 29, 2002
In the 1960s a group of Argentine artists, inspired by advances in technology and the Constructivist tradition in Latin America and in Europe, began experimenting with the depiction of perceived space and spatial relationships in non–representational paintings. Known as Arte Generativo artists, they manipulated the most basic artistic elements—color, line, and form—to create abstract, three–dimensional painted spaces on two–dimensional surfaces, challenging the traditional uses of perspective in representational painting. Surface and Subtext brings together paintings from the 1960s through the early 1980s by Ary Brizzi, Miguel Angel Vidal, and Eduardo Mac Entyre, along with works by Omar Rayo and Manuel Espinosa, who were not associated with Arte Generativo, although they similarly defied the limitations of the flat surface in their paintings. With works drawn entirely from the Blanton's permanent collection, this exhibition suggests the ideological, artistic, and social significance of geometric abstraction in Latin America during these decades.
Cartoon Noir: Four Contemporary Investigations
September 13, 2002 – December 29, 2002
Cartoon Noir presents a small selection of the Blanton's most recent acquisitions of contemporary art. The exhibition features brand–new mixed media works by Trenton Doyle Hancock, Arturo Herrera, and Jeremy Blake and a recent work by Ellen Gallagher, each of which obliquely cites the darker side of cartooning and animation traditions through imagery or story line.
time/frame
January 25 – July 28 2002
time/frame continues the Blanton's exploration of temporality in 20th–century art. The exhibition features works drawn primarily from the Museum–s significant contemporary American and Latin American collections, presenting important paintings, sculpture, installations, and other works side–by–side for the first time. Visitors have the opportunity to consider juxtapositions of large–scale paintings by Vernon Fisher and Liliana Porter; photo–based, mixed media works by Gonzalo Diaz, Glenn Ligon, and Eugenio Dittborn; architecturally scaled, painted constructions by Anselm Kiefer, Fabian Marcaccio, and Luis Frangella; multi–media installations by Shahzia Sikander and Bill Lundberg; and sculpture by Anne Chu, Richard Deacon, and Terry Adkins, among other thought–provoking works. Time and point of view are explored in time/frame through literal and metaphorical representations of duration, speed, simultaneity, transformation, continuity and discontinuity, and construction of cultural identity. The exhibition showcases a number of newly acquired works, as well as a select few on loan from Texas private collections, by artists as varied as Vito Acconci, Annette Lawrence, Manglano-Ovalle, David Reed, Leon Ferrari, John Valadez, Diana Thater, Ana Mendieta, and Tatsuo Miyajima.
500 Years of Prints and Drawings
January 25 – July 28 2002
Five intimate exhibitions that highlight the range and depth of the Blanton's collection of prints and drawings. Each of the five exhibitions can be enjoyed on its own as a thematic exploration of works from one specific century. Together, the exhibitions trace the history of art from the 15th through the 20th centuries, revealing the evolving techniques, uses, and developments of works on paper in Europe and the United States.
Saint Francis in the Counter–Reformation
In the late 16th–century the Church called for art that reflected the ideals of Catholicism and a purity of religious sentiment. Saint Francis was an ideal subject for this type of art and the eleven prints and drawings here, all by or after Italian artists, demonstrate the variety of ways in which his image was propagated during the Counter–Reformation. Organized by Erika Nelson, graduate intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
Labor and Leisure in Seventeenth–Century Dutch Prints
Drinking, gambling and merry–making are just a few of the most popular subjects explored in genre prints of 17th–century Holland. In portraying the labors, festivities, and pastimes of the lower classes, artists captured expressions of unbridled laughter, pure enjoyment, and feelings of contentment on the figures' faces and evoked both humor and moral consideration. Featured are fourteen prints by artists including Adriaen van Ostade, Rembrandt van Rijn, Wallerant Vaillant, and Cornelius Visscher. Organized by Laura Soete, graduate intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
Eighteenth–Century French Drawings
The Suida–Manning Collection is known for its representation of Renaissance and Baroque paintings and drawings, though it also includes a significant group of high quality drawings from eighteenth–century France. This exhibition is the first showing of some of these drawings, which are joined by several fine examples from the Blanton's previous holdings. Included are works by Watteau, Lancret, Natoire, Fragonard, and others. Organized by Jonathan Bober, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Paintings.
John Martin's Paradise Lost
Between 1825–1827 John Martin issued a set of twenty–four mezzotint plates illustrating Milton's classic epic tale, Paradise Lost, embodying in ink the sensation and drama that Milton captured in words. In this exhibition, the Blanton displays its very fine proof set for the first time. Martin's ability to manipulate this medium enabled him to use light and shade to balance the spectacular brilliance of heavenly light with the infinite darkness of hell. Organized by Laura Soete and Erika Nelson, graduate interns in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
German Expressionist Prints
Emotional interpretations of man's place in nature, his relationship with others, and the assimilation of current events, are the central themes of Expressionism. For artists working in Germany in the early 20th century, printmaking was a powerful medium for expressing these complex themes, revealing the mysteries of the soul in simplified forms and bold contrasts. This exhibition includes important works by Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, Erich Heckel, and Max Pechstein, among others. Organized by Rebekah Morin, Curatorial Associate in the Department of Prints and Drawings.
2001
500 Years of Prints and Drawings
August 29 – December 30, 2001
Last fall, the Blanton initiated a series entitled 500 Years of Prints and Drawings, which features groups of exhibitions that highlight the Blanton's encyclopedic collection of works on paper. With works of art representing the 15th through the 20th centuries, the series draws exclusively from the Museum's own collection to present focused inquiries into artists, techniques, processes, or artistic trends particular to a period of time in the history of Western art. The first five of these focused explorations were:
From Idea to Object in Italian Renaissance Drawings
An intimate exhibition of twenty drawings, From Idea to Object allows visitors to explore how drawing developed into a system for conceiving and preparing works of art in 16th–century Italy. Drawings by the same artist at different stages offer insight into the principal stages and function of this system. A recently acquired model for an altarpiece by Bernardino Campi is among the works on display.
Rubens and His Engravers
The Blanton explores the significant work of the group of engravers employed by Peter Paul Rubens in the 17th–century, illuminating how the engravers fostered the distribution of Rubens' work and brought reproductive printmaking to unprecedented heights. This exhibition includes the finest impressions of these large–scale, highly detailed works and includes prints by Bolswert, Pontius, Vorsterman, Lauwers, Van Sompel, and other major figures of the group.
Early Aquatint from Saint–Non to Goya
Through fifteen works, this focused exhibition illuminates the development of the aquatint technique, from its invention as a means of reproducing wash drawings, to its realization by Goya as an agent of distinctive expression. This exhibition provides a platform for exploring the late–18th–century evolution of aquatint into one of the most significant and lasting variations on the intaglio printmaking technique.
The Image of Nature in Nineteenth–Century French Prints
Featuring works by Corot, Daubigny, and other 19th–century French printmakers, this exhibition examines how artists responded to the explosion of industrialization and urbanization in 19th–century France. The prints in this exhibition demonstrate how nostalgia for a less complicated past fueled the rise of the landscape from a lesser category at the beginning of the century to the central artistic theme by its end, reflecting a desire to preserve, if not nature itself, at least its image.
The Image of the City in Interwar American Prints
Prints from the 1910s to 1930s highlight the shift in American printmaking from images of idyllic rural life and landscapes to the realities of the swiftly expanding city, its constantly changing skyline, and the new forces at work within it. The common man's experience of the urban landscape is revealed in prints by artists such as George Bellows, Howard Cook, and Louis Lozowick.
Past Present Future: Notions of Time in Twentieth-Century Art
August 29 – December 30, 2001
Past Present Future: Notions of Time in Twentieth–Century Art features works from the Blanton's renowned collections of twentieth–century American and Latin American art, exhibited together for the first time. Focusing on art created between 1915 and the early 1980s, the exhibition explores the multiple ways that artists have questioned, interpreted, and reflected temporality in their art. The exhibition's design and content provide an innovative framework for considering a range of artistic developments in Latin America and the United States.
Past Present Future encompasses eight thematic sections revealing both literal and metaphorical representations of time, with works from various artistic movements, cultural environments, and chronological histories interspersed within the sections. Works by Thomas Hart Benton, Dorothea Lang, and other Depression–era artists from across America reflect a distinct historical moment, depicting the varied social conditions of the 1930s and 1940s, while Latin Americans Sara Grilo, Antonio Berni and others captured the upheaval of their lives as expatriates in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast, Latin American kinetic artists incorporated actual and perceived movement and time in their experimental works of art, and mid–century American gestural painting and sculpture and stained canvases reveal the evolutionary process of their creation. Further, Max Weber and Joaquín Torres–García adopted the role of visionaries, seeking to reflect new realities and imagine future worlds through artistic investigations. Other twentieth–century painters, as varied in style and technique as Marsden Hartley, Armando Morales, Mark Rothko, and Fernando de Szyszlo, drew upon the past as inspiration, referencing history, mythology, nostalgia, memory, and the unconscious to inform their abstracted views of nature.
Past Present Future begins an exciting new series of thematic exhibitions that will extend over the next three years. Both brand–new and much beloved works from the Museum's permanent collection will be joined by works on loan from leading private and public collections in the region. Past Present Future presents an analogy to the current circumstances at the Blanton. As the Museum expands its collection in preparation for a new facility, the Blanton Museum of Art itself is enjoying a transition period that spans past, present, and future.
Past Present Future: Notions of Time in Twentieth–Century Art was organized by Blanton curatorial staff Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art; Christina Harrison, Interim Curator of Latin American Art; and Stephanie Hanor, Assistant Curator of American and Contemporary Art. A color brochure will accompany the exhibition.