Art & Art History

On Thursday, February 8, 2018 A New Subjectivity: Figurative Painting After 2000, an exhibition composed entirely of paintings by women and attempting to categorize Expressionism in new terms, featured works by Gina Beavers, Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, Jackie Gendel, Liz Markus, and Rose Wylie. Referencing cartoons, fashion spreads, and personal narratives, the artists addressed the fragmentation of individual subjectivity in a technological world. The new figuration is thereby performative, rather than prescriptive, and both absurd and sincere approaches to the subject matter were embraced by the artists.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 seven Wesleyan University students in the class “Advanced Themes in 20th Century Afro-American Art”, taught by Professor of Art History Peter Mark, organized the exhibition “Reclaiming the Gaze” from the Davison Art Center collection. The show highlighted 42 prints and photographs by African American artists from 1930 to the present day, including works by Lyle Ashton Harris ’88, Romare Bearden, Glenn Ligon ’82 DFA ’12, Robert Pruitt, Betye Saar, and Kara Walker. Professor of Art History Peter Mark and Rielly Wieners ’18, one of the student curators of the exhibition, gave a gallery talk.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

On Wednesday, November 15, 2017 Black Pulp! exhibition artist, Laylah Ali, gave a talk at the Ring Family Performing Arts Hall. She is best known for her paintings of meticulously drawn, colorful allegorical figures, including her long running “Greenheads Series” and her newest work “The Acephalous Series.”

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

On Wednesday, November 1, 2017 a panel discussion was held, discussing social and political changes in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades. Speakers included Sophie Pinkham, author of Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016); Sasha Rudensky, Assistant Professor of Art; Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, and Professor of Government, of the College of Social Studies, and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REES); Victoria Smolkin, Assistant Professor of History, the College of Social Studies, and REES; and was moderated by Clare Rogan, Curator, Davison Art Center, and Susanne Fusso, Chair and Professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, UP IN ARMS presented a number of perspectives on the image and impact of guns in contemporary culture, though none endorsed them as a means to an end. Works by fourteen artists touched upon a host of issues surrounding access to and the use of firearms, examining and representing the role that guns continue to play in our national mythologies and pathologies, suicide and homicide rates, domestic violence, and mass media.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

On Tuesday, September 19, 2017 the Three in 30 gallery tour brought three Wesleyan faculty members—Professor of History Demetrius L. Eudell, Assistant Professor of Sociology Courtney Patterson-Faye, and Associate Professor of English and American Studies Amy Cynthia Tang—into Zilkha Gallery to discuss a selected work from the Black Pulp! exhibition with Guest Curator William Villalongo for ten minutes each.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.