JAN 25-MARCH 12, 2023
KAPLAN GALLERY, VISARTS
With over 750 military bases in about 80 countries around the world, the US military challenges our notions of “American soil.” As the largest contributor towards climate change, its global impacts are difficult to see and measure. Through video, audio, and sculpture, Sound of Fire contemplates the effects, rhetoric, and narratives of “US military,” proposing listening and other sensorial engagements as a way of “seeing.” Works in this exhibition rely on speculative fiction to conjure new understandings of what it means to occupy and what it means to resist and reclaim.
Artists: Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Jonathan Perez, Eric Rivera Barbeito, Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez and Joshua Roca Gonzalez, Jess Shane and Katie Mathews, in collaboration with Mansoor Adayfi, John Dominic Colón
Sound of Fire is a part of an ongoing research project examining artist responses to the impacts of US military from a transnational approach. Departing from a focus on Puerto Rico—an island long occupied by the US and still feeling the impacts of US military use—the project encompasses art historical research and curatorial projects that bring attention to the bodies, lands, and waters that both absorb and resist military occupation around the globe. While most of the artists whose works are on display are Puerto Rican, the presence and impact of US military is examined on and beyond the island: in Vieques (an island off the coast of Puerto Rico), nearby Cuba, within the continental US, globally, and in the internal world of memory. The US military, as an (inter)national power, remains under-examined especially through critical lenses. The artists here take on the task of trying to make sense of a highly concealed, globalized, multi-pronged national project with attention to nuance and what remains unseen. In many of the works, sound and transmission are utilized as mechanisms for seeing when direct observation is not available. Others appropriate the operations of military such as exercise (play), masking, construction, and destruction to reveal and (deconstruct) a complex bureaucratic system with global presence. The exhibition asks the viewer to consider how this institution and its rhetorics play out domestically and abroad.
RINGGOLD | SAAR: MEETING ON THE MATRIX
JAN 26-MAY 22, 2023
DAVID C. DRISKELL CENTER
For decades, Faith Ringgold (b. 1930) and Betye Saar (b. 1926) have incorporated printmaking as a vital component of their multidisciplinary practices, yet their mutual connection to printmaking remains underrecognized. RINGGOLD | SAAR: Meeting on the Matrix highlights the print work of these two landmark artists, providing a window into the material and conceptual explorations at play in their distinct practices. Both artists have uniquely utilized the matrix—the printmaking surface which transfers ink onto paper or fabric—as a site of possibilities for experimentation, storytelling, and activism.
Through this unique and multivalent medium, two legacies meet and continue to inspire. RINGGOLD | SAAR: Meeting on the Matrix places the prints of these two artists in thematic and formal conversation to cast each other's work in a new, dynamic light while simultaneously emphasizing the singular power of each artist's contributions to the medium.
This exhibition was collaboratively curated by graduate students in the University of Maryland Department of Art History and Archaeology, including: Maura Callahan, Ashley Cope, Montia Daniels, Joohee Kim, Caroline Kipp, Cléa Massiani, Maggie Mastrandrea, Dominic Pearson, Gabrielle Tillenburg, with support from Dr. Jordana Moore Saggese and the Driskell Center staff.
RE•CAST: SCULPTURAL WORKS FROM THE ART MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAS
SEP 9-DEC 2, 2022
UMD ART GALLERY
Culled from the exceptional modern and contemporary art collection of the Art Museum of the Americas, Re•Cast: Sculptural Works from the Art Museum of the Americas highlights rare and seldom seen sculptural works by prominent Latin American artists. The exhibtion celebrates the multifaceted qualities of this medium by initiating distinct conversations on sculpture in modern and contemporary Latin American art. In addition, the exhibition suggests new containers—theoretical, formal, and visual—through which to initiate conversations about the practice of sculpture in the Americas.
Re•Cast is organized by UMD Department of Art History and Archaeology Graduate Students Marco Polo Juárez Cruz, Cléa Massiani, and Gabrielle Tillenburg, under the direction of Associate Professor Abigail McEwen. Supplementary support provided by Undergraduate Students Maura Callahan, Magdalena Mastrandrea, Hannah Prescott, and Melissa San Miguel. Major support is provided by the Dorothy and Nicholas Orem Exhibition Fund. Generous support is provided by the Maryland State Arts Council. Additional support, by way of a Faculty-Student Research Award, is provided by The Graduate School. This exhibition is in association with University of Maryland's Arts for All initiative.
Press: Washington Post, In the galleries: A celebration of Latin American sculpture
SERENA FAYE FEINGOLD, ASHLEY M. FREEBY, BEN ILUZUDA, AND ALANNA REEVES
JAN 16–MARCH 13, 2021
STRATHMORE
In Past Process, four artists craft personal narratives by turning to the past, referencing memories, heritage, and traditions. By utilizing traditional motifs, family photographs, historical craft techniques, and images drafted from memory, the artists connect to the past. Objects, places, and stories passed down through generations tie the work to varying times and places, transcending our typical linear way of accounting time.
The resulting artwork is not documentary, artifact, or historical account, but rather a way of understanding and representing personal narratives as they relate to the past and present. Together, the work asks the question: how does our understanding of the past make us who we are?
Virtual Curator's Talk and Reception: FEB 18, 7:00 pm
SASHA BASKIN, VERNÓNICA CASADO HERNÁNDEZ, LESLIE HOLT, ALANNA REEVES
NOV 9 - DEC 2, 2018
WILLOW STREET GALLERY
Soft Serve examines the use of fiber arts to explore hard experiences unique to identities commonly pigeonholed with ‘soft’ qualities. Societal notions of femininity have the ability to influence ways of being. Expectations of the feminine to encompass agreeability, grace, and warmth are also met with stereotypes of weakness and fragility. When facing difficulty, these qualities, whether learned or rejected, inform our response, for better or for worse. Being that fiber arts have a history of being labeled as “women’s work,” are literally soft, and are also associated with the use of fiber to care for the body (warmth and coverage), the medium offers a unique approach to exploring these topics.
Each artist explores a difficult experience at a different stage of life. Alanna Reeves explores the effects of cultural stereotypes encountered in early childhood through an interactive piece inspired by paper dolls. Sasha Baskin adopts imagery from the reality-TV show The Bachelor for her weavings studying ways in which rejection in the pursuit of love are commodified for public consumption. Verónica Casado Hernández utilizes embroidery to examine the married lives of women under fascist regimes, drawing parallels between oppression and prescribed gender roles. Leslie Holt incorporates embroidered images of women from Picasso’s Guernica and other artworks, both tender and in despair. She presents the duality of the beauty and inelegance of mortality and grief. Together, the works ask the question - what does it mean to be soft in a hard position?
Community Event: DEC 1, 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Weaving and Grieving invites the public for a group discussion and weaving activity. Participants will have the opportunity to share stories and sentiments on their own grief, or grief in general, how it is symbolically woven into our daily lives, and how gender socialization influences our own grieving processes while creating a unique weaving to contribute to a group work. All materials will be provided and participants are welcome to bring any personal yarn they'd like to use. All events are free and open to the public.
