New Year's Eve @ NBAM
Curator's Talk / artMOBILE for kids
December 31 | 5 ~ 9 p.m.
On New Year's Eve AHA! will be a venue of First Night, holding special free programming on Purchase Street between Union and William streets. The AHA! programming will be called Fire & Ice. The Museum will be open for free from 5 to 9 p.m. with a Curator's Talk by Tom Puryear as well as artMOBILE activities for kids on the lower level.
Reclaimed & Rejuvinated: Discards Into Art
Curated by Tom Puryear & Richard Kellaway
Gemini
Steve Bradford
This exhibit originated from a proposal made by a regional artist on behalf of a small group of fellow artists who felt their work had a major ingredient in common — that each re-employed objects and materials that society would agree had been rejected, thrown away, used up and cast off.
Museum curators Richard Kellaway and Tom Puryear have chosen to include some of those artists, along with others who have more direct ties to the SouthCoast.
NoNu Portable Shelter
Jon Taylor
Work by the following 10 artists is included in Reclaimed & Rejuvenated, Discards Into Art: Steve Bradford (Portland, ME); Martha Friend (Somerville, MA); Paul Gray (Cambridge, MA); Tim Lazure (Greenville, NC); Lucy Mitchell (Martha’s Vineyard, MA); Derek Sober (Brooklyn, NY); Marcella Stasa (Upton, MA); Jon Taylor (New Bedford, MA); Karl Unnasch (Chatfield, MN); and Gerald Weckesser (San Diego, CA).
Balancing Act
Tim Lazure
The ultimate result of working with reclaimed materials may be art that is aesthetically pleasing, sometimes exhibiting the artist’s good humor and provoking a laugh, often presenting objects and juxtapositions that speak to us from a forgotten past, and even sometimes providing lessons for us in the associations they call forth from our own storehouses of memory.
A composition often speaks louder than its parts and these demonstrate the artists’ manipulation of recycled and non-traditional materials.
NBAM takes pleasure in the leaps of associations they have accomplished.
New Work by Stephen Whittlesey: Tables & Shelves
Curated by David B. Boyce
A selection of sculptural work by this well-known
wood artist and UMD educator.
Museum Talk by the artist on Thursday, Nov. 8, from 4 to 5 p.m.
Infinite Shelves
Stephen Whittlesey
NBAM is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Stephen Whittlesey, an artist who both straddles and confounds the traditional, purist definitions of studio craft and fine art.
Since the early 1960’s, when he began making studio furniture/sculpture from found and reclaimed materials, then in the late 1980’s began exhibiting his work as a member of the second generation of nationally recognized studio furniture makers, Whittlesey’s work has appeared in numerous galleries and museums across the nation, earning both prestige and critical acclaim. He is regarded as a master of this genre.
With regard to his most recent work, Whittlesey states: “My current body of work is in part about the nature and properties of wood itself — the material has a leading role in both structural and surface design. I wish to celebrate and reveal the potential of the material, its incredible endurance and beauty, even when it seems like its most useful days have long gone by. Very much a part of my thinking in this work are my questions about what constitutes value and importance when it comes to the objects I live with. Making work out of implausible and surprising and essentially worthless materials, and stretching the limits of both material and function, is how I try to answer those questions.”
Professor of Woodworking and Furniture in the Program in Artisanry at UMass Dartmouth since 1992, Whittlesey’s newest body of work concentrates on new conceptualizations for the traditional forms of tables and shelves, challenging and stretching our views of these types of functional furniture with exaggeration, high wit, and exceptional creativity.
Curated by David B. Boyce, the exhibit will provoke viewers to question their ideas about what shelves or a table could be, while enjoying Whittlesey’s vision, humor, artistry and technical expertise.
9.29.2007 ~ 12.31.2007
Vault Series: Alan Johnston (Scotland)
Curated by Joan Backes
It is with great pleasure that this Vault Series exhibit concentrates on the work of Alan Johnston who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Johnston has created site specific work in many countries and over time has taken inspiration from nature and from artists ranging from Edvard Munch and Casper David Friedrich to Ad Reinhardt, among others.
His installations respond to the space and the architecture surrounding the site where they are created. They are wall drawings made of repetitive graphite marks that are revealed to the viewer in a quiet and contemplative, and at once surprising and provocative way.
In fact, Johnston has been influenced by Zen Buddhism, and by the 15th century Japanese artist, Sesshu, and has worked in Japan numerous times since 1985.
Johnston’s practice includes painting and sculpture, as well as commissioned large permanent installations. It must be said that Johnston’s heritage figures into his oeuvre profoundly, and this is evident in any conversation with the artist.
Alan Johnston’s work has been shown internationally at such venues as the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Inverleith House and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Hayward Gallery, London; the Jack Tilton Gallery and the Whitney Museum, NYC; the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; and the DIA Genese Foundation, Dusseldorf, Germany, among many others.
Annual artMOBILE and Youth Education Exhibition
Curated by Museum Staff & Junior Docents
A special reception will be held for the artMOBILE & Youth Education Exhibition during AHA! Night on October 11 from 5 ~ 7 p.m.
