Jan Feb Mar Apr 2021 from the Director
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FROM THE DIRECTOR JAN FEB MAR APR 2021 FROM THE DIRECTOR Submit your story I am sure you would agree, let us put 2020 behind us and anticipate a better year in 2021. With this expectation in mind, your Art Center teams are moving ahead with major plans for the new year. Our exhibitions We continue to include The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s accept personal Stained-Glass Art; Justin Favela: Central American; stories in response and Louis Fratino: Tenderness revealed along with to Black Stories. Iowa Artists 2021: Olivia Valentine. An array of print gallery and permanent collections projects, including Enjoy this story an exhibition that showcases our newly conserved submission from painting by Francisco Goya, Don Manuel Garcia de Candace Williams. la Prada, 1811, and another that features our works by Claes Oldenburg, will augment and complement Seen. I felt seen as I walked these projects. The exhibitions will continue to through the Black Stories address our goals of being an inclusive and exhibition with my friend. welcoming institution, while adding to the scholarship As history and experiences of the field, engaging our local communities in were shared through art, meaningful ways, and providing a site for the I remembered my mom community to gather together, at least virtually taking my sister and I to (for now), to share ideas and perspectives. the California African- Our Black Stories project has done just this American Museum often. as we continue to receive personal stories from She would buy children’s the community for possible inclusion in a books written by Black publication. We are still accepting stories, so authors with illustrations please share your personal experience through our of Black characters. Also, website, or you can mail or email me directly at I remember when she [email protected]. took our family on a road Additionally, 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of trip to visit Allensworth, the Des Moines Art Center Print Club. (See story a historical Black town on page 14). This incredible milestone is something in California. I remember to shout about. The Print Club has been an active as a 5th grader, my mom participant in supporting our collections, our helped me dress up as conservation efforts, and educating its members, Bessie Coleman, the first while providing an arena to gather socially. I thank Black female aviator and the past and present members for all that they classmates thought I was have done and are doing to make this organization Amelia Earhart. My parents so significant in the lives of its members and our loved Black history, our community. If you would like additional information history, and they shared it about the Print Club, as well as our other member with me, and it’s cool to be groups, please visit our website for more information. here with my friend who is I look forward to the many things we have planned white and see her learning about us, caring about us. for the coming year. Let us hope that we can see View the exhibition more of each other soon. CANDACE WILLIAMS safely in person or through JEFF FLEMING | DIRECTOR virtual tours available on Black Stories installation in the the website. I. M. Pei building. Photo: Rick Lozier 2 | DES MOINES ART CENTER NEWS JAN FEB MAR APR 2021 | 3 UPCOMING EXHIBITION / FEBRUARY 13 –MAY 23, 2021 ORGANIZED BY CURATORIAL MANAGER LAURA BURKHALTER The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Stained-Glass Art The Path to Paradise is the first survey and major Human/Nature: scholarly assessment of this groundbreaking artist’s 37-year career. Organized by the Memorial An Exhibition Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, the Inspired by the Art exhibition is drawn from both private and institutional collections, The Path to Paradise will feature of Judith Schaechter approximately 45 of Judith Schaechter’s stained- FEBRUARY 8 – MAY 9, 2021 glass panels along with a selection of related drawings and process material. To accompany A Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Judith Schaechter (b. 1961) has stretched the Stained-Glass Art, artist Judith Schaechter worked with medium of stained glass into a potent and incisive Curatorial Manager Laura Burkhalter to choose work art form for the 21st century, boldly paving her path from the Art Center’s collection by artists who inspire her in the diverse arena of contemporary art. Her work is or which contains thematic connections to her masterful represented in over a dozen museums including the glass constructions. Following are the artist’s words Museum of Art and Design, Philadelphia Museum on the selections, which deftly sum up this unsettling, of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and beautiful, and challenging set of works. Toledo Museum of Art, and in major exhibitions around the world. In addition, through her extensive “The fascination with humans and teaching, she has furthered her influence on her animals is vast. We are interested in peers and younger generations of artists. Her awards include two NEA Visual Artists’ Fellowships, a Louis our own behavior and would probably Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, a Joan Mitchell gape at every chance to witness our Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant Award, species at its best, worst and everything a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, a USA Artists in between. We are equally fascinated Rockefeller Fellow, and an American Craft Council by our appearance—never missing College of Fellows Award. an opportunity to really examine a “I have been an admirer of Judith’s work for many years and I’m thrilled that the Art Center is part of person’s face or body. Social custom this exhibition’s tour, and the community can see this discourages this, but if we could, we beautiful — and often surprising — art in person,” would indulge. This extends to our said Curatorial Manager Laura Burkhalter. fascination with animals and even plants—who serve as our proxies or as a reflection of our nature. We are amazed All images by Judith Schaechter at the similarities to us, and quick to OPPOSITE The Birth of Eve, 2013 point out the differences. We are utterly Stained-glass panel, 57 x 31 inches Smithsonian American Art Museum, amazed at how alien and strange we are Gift of the James Renwick Alliance. to ourselves and how familiar animals Image courtesy of Judith Schaechter can seem. PAGES 6–7 Beached Whale, 2018 Courtesy Claire Oliver Gallery, Harlem, and the artist. Image courtesy of Judith Schaechter Art is a safe place to stare.” JUDITH SCHAECHTER 4 | DES MOINES ART CENTER NEWS JAN FEB MAR APR 2021 | 5 6 | DES MOINES ART CENTER NEWS JAN FEB MAR APR 2021 | 7 favella UPCOMING EXHIBITION UPCOMING EXHIBITION MARCH 12– MAY 16, 2021 JULY 17 – OCTOBER 24, 2021 ORGANIZED BY ASSOCIATE CURATOR ORGANIZED BY CURATORIAL MANAGER JARED LEDESMA LAURA BURKHALTER iowa artists 2021: Justin Favela: Olivia Valentine Central American UPCOMING EXHIBITION This exhibition presents two bodies of work by JULY 17 – OCTOBER 24, 2021 Olivia Valentine. Valentine is recognized for her work in ORGANIZED BY CURATORIAL MANAGER textile construction, drawing, and sculpture, as well as LAURA BURKHALTER textile installations that interface with architecture. For this project, Valentine presents Mediate/Equivocate Justin Favela’s exuberant art is inspired by Latinx and The shadow is my body. culture, art history, and food rendered in layer upon The Richard Meier building will feature Mediate/ layer of vibrant strips of paper. Favela’s technique Equivocate, a large-scale installation generated recalls piñatas and party decorations — ephemeral in response to Meier’s deliberate, gridded design. forms that signify joy and celebration. Embedded within the three-story wall in the building’s The exhibition’s subtitle, Central American, atrium are a series of ropes. Viewed from a distance, contains multiple meanings, suggesting the artist’s the ropes appear to be woven into the wall, in heritage, Iowa’s place in the middle of America, and a pattern that is responsive to its surroundings. the strong presence of Central Americans in our Additionally, the ropes drape over the top of the third Louis Fratino state and within the agricultural industry upon which Waking up first, hard morning light, 2020 story wall, cascade into the atrium space, and collect our economy depends. Oil on canvas / 90 x 70 inches Photo: Jason Wyche on the ground floor. This entanglement suggests Olivia Valentine / Interruptions (Shadow Study), 2020 All of the work in the exhibition will be created © Louis Fratino, courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Ciaccia Graphite and watercolor on paper / 10 x 7 inches the transformation of the wall from an indiscernible Levi, Paris. Photo: Olivia Valentine on site by Favela, including a large-scale installation, architectural element to an active, three-dimensional © Olivia Valentine wall and floor sculptures, and a paper chandelier for component of the building. Joining the site-responsive the Meier building’s atrium. Due to the COVID-19 installation will be four watercolor drawings on paper, given a sneak peek at her ambitious pandemic, this exhibition was moved from 2020 to installed in discreet locations. the slate of 2021 exhibitions. Louis Fratino: Across the museum in the I. M. Pei building’s lower plans for the Meier atrium. Viewers gallery, The shadow is my body consists of low relief, are promised a beautiful and eloquent small-scale plaster sculptures whose flat surfaces intervention of the Des Moines Tenderness revealed support watercolor drawings that resemble spilt liquid. Art Center’s architecture.” Together, Mediate/Equivocat The shadow is NOVEMBER 6, 2021–FEBRUARY 6, 2022 e and JARED LEDESMA my body emphasize overlooked elements of the ORGANIZED BY ASSOCIATE CURATOR Des Moines Art Center’s architecture: the verticality JARED LEDESMA The exhibition will be accompanied by a unique Louis Fratino creates paintings and drawings that of the Meier building and horizontality of the I.