Enchantment Checklist and Press Release

Royal Baby, 2009 by Jennifer Knaus

Are you curious about the artwork that will appear in “Enchantment”?  Well if you are, just click below to download a PDF exhibition checklist.  And just to make sure you’re properly informed, you can even download a PDF version of the exhibition’s press release.  Enjoy!

Checklist

Press Release

Announcing: Enchantment

Enchantment, this year’s Distinguished Artists Symposium and Exhibition, will take place from November 6, 2009 through January 17, 2010 at the Joseloff Gallery.

Enchantment will focus on Romanticism and the figure in academic art with paintings from the late nineteenth century alongside works by contemporary artists who utilize the genre to engage in wider themes.

Lectures will take place on Wednesday November 4 and Thursday November 5 , ending with a symposium panel discussion on Friday November 6, preceding the opening reception.  The exhibition will continue through January 17, 2010.

The exhibition will include painters and illustrators who are dedicated, to some degree or another, to the rigors of the academy, characterized by a formal process of copying prints from past masters, drawing from plaster casts, and drawing and painting from a nude model. Strictly speaking, drawing was the foundation of all academic painting; there was a hierarchy of subjects such as history and mythology, with emphasis on detail through an idealized lens.

Others in the exhibition use contemporary methods to embrace and subvert these themes.  This includes combining the subject from one masterpiece with the style from another; artists who mine the past to create paintings that reinterpret old themes in today’s visual language; use allegorical references to depict contemporary events; through photography, explore the transition between the authentic work of art and its reproduction; exaggerate the idealization of form and subject using humor and irony; depict recognizable contemporary figures as heroic icons from the past.

A goal of the Distinguished Artists program is to bring artists, historians, and critics to campus to engage in a dialogue with students, faculty and the community related to a particular topic through lectures and discussions held in the days leading up to the opening reception.

Lectures

Julie Heffernan
Wednesday November 4, 2009, 1:30-3:00pm, Wilde Auditorium

Julie Heffernan’s theatrical and opulent paintings reinterpret allegory, portraiture, history painting, and still life with a haunting mystery and ominous beauty.

Peter Trippi
Thursday November 5, 2009, 1:30-3:00pm, Wilde Auditorium

Peter Trippi is editor of Fine Art Connoisseur, a bimonthly magazine for collectors of representational painting, sculpture, drawings and prints — both historical and contemporary.  Trippi was director of the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York City between 2003 and 2006.

Symposium

Panel Discussion, “Enchantment Then and Now: Drawing Connections” moderated by Peter Trippi
Friday November 6, 2009, 1:30-3:00pm, Wilde Auditorium

This lively discussion will include a panels of participating artists including James Gurney, Alison Moritsugu, Graydon Parrish, and Patricia Watwood, and the director of the Dahesh Museum of Art, David Farmer.

Opening Reception

The opening of the Enchantment exhibition
Friday November 6, 2009, 5:00-7:00pm, Joseloff Gallery

Would you like a sneak peek of the work that will be in the Enchantment exhibition?  Visit our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/joseloffgallery

Faculty Show Sneak Peek

The work is pouring in and we’ve already had a mention on Courant.com which was quick to point out that we will be showing the work of nearly fifty faculty members.  Forty-four to be exact!  What a great show.  A crowded house of fantastic work.  Want to take a peek?

Hanging in progress, the gallery a mess.

New paintings by Cat Balco.

Another impressive egg tempera painting by Fred Wessel.

Our installers, hard at work.

A new piece by Jimmy Rhea.

Work by new adjunct – and recent graduate of the Illustration MFA program at Hartford Art School – Chuck Primeau, alongside a new painting by Dennis Nolan.

And there is so much more I haven’t shown you…  I hope you will join us next Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 5pm to see the finished product at the opening reception.  Visit our website for more information, or call the gallery at (860) 768-4090.

Summer Closure

The Nancy Graves crates are on their way out, leaving the gallery empty and dark for the remaining summer months.

The gallery will be closed for maintenance, repair, and our usual summer break from now until September 9th when the Hartford Art School Faculty Exhibition opens at 4:30pm.

Please check back for updates, visit our calendar page to plan your gallery visits for next year, and have a great summer!

Nancy Graves in the News

An article about  our upcoming Nancy Graves exhibition by Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant featuring the piece Cobwebbed Corners of the Sky, 1992 appeared on Courant.com on Friday. Check it out: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/events/hc-artweek0409.artapr09,0,1248931.story

Goldfarb Student Exhibition 2009

See all photos from the exhibition on our Flickr page.

Nancy Graves Exhibition Announced

Esthetic Dominance, 1989

We are pleased to announce an exhibition of sculpture, paintings, and drawings by the internationally acclaimed artist Nancy Graves (1939-1995).  This will be the first comprehensive overview of her work presented in the region.  The exhibition opens with a public reception on April 14, 2009 from 6-8pm, and continues through June 28, 2009.

Graves, who died of cancer in 1995, is considered to be one of the most innovative, inspired, and prolific artists of her generation.  She is best known for vibrantly painted sculpture collages that combine cast bronze elements inspired by the natural world with objects of every description.  Her technique, craftsmanship, and aesthetic vision result in complex and enigmatic structures of layered meaning and provocative beauty.

Paralleling her development as a sculptor are paintings, watercolors, and drawings that possess their own unique language while reflecting her constantly evolving preoccupation with various forms and subjects that resurface in her sculpture.

Equivalent, 1978

The Joseloff Gallery show will include significant examples of work from various phases of her career with sculpture dating from the early 1970s to 1992, over twenty drawings and watercolors, and several large-scale paintings.

Nancy Graves was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  She is a graduate of Vassar College and received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1964.  In the late 1960s, her interest in anthropology resulted in her acclaimed life-sized structures of camels and films shot in Morocco.

This exhibition is funded by the Kohn/Joseloff Foundation and is made possible by the Nancy Graves Foundation.

Please visit www.joseloffgallery.org for more information about the exhibition, and www.nancygravesfoundation.org for more information about the artist.

2008 Faculty Exhibition

September 17, 2008 through November 2, 2008

View the full set here: 2008 Faculty Exhibition

Beyond Green Links

Last night, the Hartford Art School design department hosted a lecture by graphic designer, University of Illinois assistant professor, and founder of the “green” graphic design resource site renourish, Eric Benson. The presentation was interesting and thought-provoking, as is the site renourish. I encourage everyone, not just graphic designers, to visit and look around.

And while I’m on the subject of linking, and since Mr. Benson put the idea in my head, below are links to the websites of the artists and artist groups that make up Beyond Green. Learn more about the artists, their projects, and how you can help out and go Beyond Green.

Allora & Calzadilla: http://www.gladstonegallery.com/allora_calzadilla.asp

Free Soil: http://www.free-soil.org/

JAM: http://www.noonsolar.com/ (Their spring line of solar bags will be coming out sometime this month!)

Learning Group: http://www.learningsite.info/

Brennan McGaffey: http://www.intermodseries.org/
Temporary Services: http://www.temporaryservices.org/

Nils Norman: http://www.dismalgarden.org/

People Powered: http://www.peoplepowered.org/

Dan Peterman: http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/dan-peterman/

Marjetica Potrc: http://www.potrc.org/

Michael Rakowitz: http://www.michaelrakowitz.com/

Frances Whitehead: http://www.lisasettegallery.com/artistsP-Z/Whitehead.htm

WochenKlausur: http://www.wochenklausur.at/index1.php?lang=en

Andrea Zittel: http://www.zittel.org/

And of course, the link that brought Beyond Green to the Joseloff Gallery, Independent Curators International. Thank you to iCI for making this traveling show possible.

Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art will be at the Joseloff Gallery through June 10, 2008.

Recycle! Go Green!

There’s no need to throw that Beyond Green announcement in the trash – why not make a few folds and turn it into a biodegradable seed planter?  Below are the steps for creating such recycled magic.  Be patient, sometimes origami instructions aren’t very easy to follow, but when you make that last fold and suddenly your once flat paper is turned into a seed planter, it will be worth all of the frustration.

There!  Now you’ve done it.  Congratulations.

A little tip: Before you fill your pot with dirt, you can either leave the flaps out like in the picture, or fold them inside the planter for a clean outside finish.