George Rouault:
Circus of the Shooting Star / Cirque De L'Etoile Filante
February 3 - May 13, 2012
Artist Georges Roualt was fascinated by the circus, a world where superficial brightness was underscored by overwhelming sadness. The images in his portfolio of etchings, Cirque de l'Etoile Filante (Circus of the Shooting Star), demonstrate Rouault's attempt to strip away the "spangles" of the clown's costume and reveal the "reflection of paradise lost." On loan to the UMFA from the Syracuse University Art Galleries, this exhibition comprises color etchings that introduce the portfolio and wood engravings illustrating Rouault's text. Begun in 1926 and published in 1938, the portfolio was the product of Rouault's collaboration with Parisian publisher and art dealer Ambrose Vollard. Their partnership proved to be one of the most productive in the history of printmaking.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fun-filled family guide and in-gallery activity.
salt 4: Xaviera Simmons
On view through February 26, 2012
salt 4: Xaviera Simmons is the fourth in the Museum's series of exhibitions featuring innovative art from around the world. New York-based Xaviera Simmons uses photography, as well as other mediums including installation and performance, to construct multivalent narratives of collective and personal histories. Simmons's work often references traditions of American landscape painting, exploring depictions of the individual in nature. In her large-format photographs, scenery becomes a central character, harboring the stories of immigrants and migrants. Archetypal figures, like sages and nomads, serve as conduits for open-ended narratives embedded in the land, allowing entrance into, in the artist's words, "other characters, narratives, and geographies." In addition to photography, the exhibition includes a sculptural installation made of hand-lettered, locally found wooden scraps—materials chosen for their ubiquitous use in vernacular signage—affixed directly to the gallery wall. This tangled matrix of text gleaned from notes, conversation, news articles, folklore, poetry, and literature, forms its own kind of lyrical landscape, imbued with historical and personal memory.
|
|
Georges Rouault, La petite Ecuyere, 1935, color etching and aqua, courtesy of the Syracuse University Art Collection. On view in Georges Rouault: Circus of the Shooting Star.
 Xaviera Simmons, Maps, 2010, detail, color photograph. On view in salt 4: Xaviera Simmons.
|
