Complexities

46 years Complexities the newsletter of the art complex museum at duxbury winter 2017 Culturally Unique for 46 Years! www.artcomplex.org BENGTZ GALLERY Wood as Muse May 7 – September 3, 2017 Guest Curators: Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein peaking about Wood as Muse, Curators Donna Dodson and Andy SMoerlein say, “Making art with wood is not an arbitrary decision. For the artists in this show, wood is their muse and the source of their inspiration. Each artist has an affection for wood that comes from a very personal place. In fine art, the mas- tery of materials and craft must serve the aesthetics of the work. We selected contemporary art for this exhibition that speaks through wood as its medium. We placed several different approaches to using wood in juxtaposition, bringing individual voices into focus. We see wood, as a medium, in the true sense of the word — an interven- ing substance or agency for transmitting or producing an effect. Each artist in the show approaches wood from a conceptual framework that yields surprising and diver- gent results.” Artists in the exhibition include: Amy Archambault, Thomas Beale, Donna Dodson, Breon Dunigan, Vanessa German, Pat Keck, Maskull Lasserre, Jennifer Andy Moerlein, Maynard, Massachusetts, Maestre, Jason Middlebrook, Andy Donna Dodson, Maynard Plume, 2016, red oak, plywood Moerlein, Martin Ulman and Mike Wright. Massachusetts, Hawkeye, 2016, cherry wood, pigment 2 A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR TOMITA – A Man of Import to the World of Art and to a Family Kojiro Tomita, born in 1890, came to the United States in Tomita at the time he was 1906 at the age of sixteen to scout out opportunities for the appointed Curator of Asian Japanese lacquer industry as it was used in the manufac- Arts ture of pianos. Kojiro’s father, Kohichi, was an important lacquerer who did business with the Japanese Imperial household. Kojiro was trained by his father as a lacquerer. Unfortunately, the climate in America was not good for the type of lacquer that was used in Japan, so Tomita became involved with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). They needed someone bi-lingual in the Japanese Department as well as a specialist in lacquer. Eventually he became Cura- tor of the Japanese Department. As interest in other Asian countries grew, he was named the Curator of Asian Arts. He worked for the MFA for fifty years, thirty as curator. Over the years, he worked with many luminaries in “expertise.” A friendship developed which included Tomita’s the collector and museum world such as Isabella Stewart wife, Harriet. In 1966, the Tomitas, my parents and younger Gardner, Edward Sylvester Morse, an important collector brother traveled to Japan. This resulted in the purchase of a of ceramics, and Okakura Kakuzo, Director of Chinese beautiful document shelf created by Tomita’s father, now a and Japanese Art at the MFA. Tomita was a protégé of part of the museum’s collection. Okakura, his mentor and friend. Also, during that visit, the idea of building a tea hut for Tomita also went against the mores of the time by marry- the museum developed. My mother, particularly, realized ing a western woman resulting in a successful marriage that that Chado or the Way of Tea was an important cultural lasted throughout their lives. He was very adaptable, adjust- aspect in Japan. Tomita helped arrange the construction of ing to a new culture, language barriers, occupations, and a tea hut, named Shofuan or Wind in the Pines, with his race relations (even during the hostility of World War II). In boyhood friend Gofu Sano, an artist. Sano designed the hut 1941, the MFA closed the galleries containing the Japanese to incorporate demonstrations of the tea ceremony for an collection “in the interest of public morale.” Though not able audience. Because of the importance of the influence of Mr. to move outside of Boston without authorization, Tomita and Mrs. Tomita, the hut was dedicated to the couple and supported Langdon Warner, well-known Asian scholar and was opened on October 4, 1975, forty-two years ago. Both teacher, in his efforts to prevent destruction of cultural sites in Tomitas attended the opening. Recently the tea hut has Japan during the war including Nara and Kyoto. been featured on television and in publications. Not much is known about Tomita in Japan and there is a When the couple passed away, they left much of their growing interest there to learn more about him. He was pre- estate including many wonderful items, books and writings sented with an Imperial citation, the Imperial Order of the to The Art Complex Museum. To read more about Tomita, Sacred Treasure, Third Class by the Japanese government see the catalogue in the museum library, titled Tribute to for his efforts to “introduce Japanese art and culture to the Kojiro Tomita: Asian Art from the Permanent Collection United States, and for promoting friendly relationships and written by William Thrasher, Curator and Researcher for understanding between East and West,” a quote from Trib- the 1990 exhibition at the museum. ute to Kojiro Tomita by William Thrasher. Charles Weyerhaeuser, My parents developed an interest in Japanese art and Museum Director would take items of interest to the MFA, to use Tomita’s Staff List CHARLES WEYERHAEUSER, Museum Director SALLY DEAN MELLO, Education Coordinator SUE AYGARN-KOWALSKI, Preparator CHERYL O’NEILL, Art Librarian CRAIG BLOODGOOD, Contemporary Curator WILLIAM THOMAS, Grounds and Maintenance DORIS COLLINS, Community Coordinator/Education Assistant KYLE TURNER, Collections Assistant MARY CURRAN, Assistant to the Director MARY WALLACE, Bookkeeper LAURA DOHERTY, Communications Coordinator MAUREEN WENGLER, Collections Manager ALICE R. M. HYLAND, PhD, Asian Art Consultant 3 the collection: illuminations of Devotion Long before museums offered a place to experience art for the sake of art, leaders of the world’s religions utilized art as a tool or guide for deepening their followers’ faith. This was especially effective at a time when reading was a skill that generally only clergy had acquired prior to Gutenberg’s invention of a practical printing press in 1448. The Gutenberg Bible was the first mass-produced publication in Western Europe, revolutionizing European literacy and ultimately Western history. In 2016, Rotations Gallery presented a cross-section of religious art and artifacts from the museum’s hold- ings: Jain, Islamic, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist. For early 2017, collection choices will highlight the narrative aspect of religion to be accompanied by a variety of book forms and works on paper. Distinctive examples across several cultures coupled with prints, paintings, and artifacts related to learning will be rotated throughout the year. From the first century of the Roman Empire, Chris- tianity had become the principal religion and system of values for mankind. Over time, once Christian worship had been legalized in 313 by the Roman emperors, the Christian Church became the largest and most influential patron of the arts. The Christian artist had the oppor- Netherlands, St. Matthew Folio, from a Book of tunity to create something beyond basic illustration. He Hours, ca. 1440, Illuminated manuscript, ink could create pictorial symbols with his own aesthetic and paint on vellum, CU-3 assertions. During the Middle Ages (about 400–1400), Christian monks and clergy commissioned artists and craftsmen to late Middle Ages — the calligraphic and meticulously create the visual tools to teach the tenets and narratives decorated folios of teachings from the Christian Bible. of their creed. In order to garner influence and strengthen Illuminations were the original designs for Christian the people’s faith, clergy sought the highly skilled to create objects of devotion during the Renaissance. Replications icons, statues, paintings and glass. The churches and cathe- were often very exacting in both two and three dimen- drals, themselves, were built to be objects of inspiration. sions: statues, murals, altar paintings and architectural When considering the collecting themes on which Carl carvings. and Edith Weyerhaeuser focused, it seems that religion Gospels, psalms and prayers scribed by clergy and of any origin may have been coincidental in amassing a accentuated with hand-painted Biblical characters and significant number of objects across many cultures. This scenes were bound into the personalized and popular holds true particularly for objects from Italy and France Book of Hours. A small selection of illuminated manu- during the height of the Renaissance (about 1480 – script folios with Dutch and French origins will be exhib- 1520). Nevertheless, collecting religious themes was quite ited from February 5 through May. Although the pages intentional with Carl Weyerhaeuser, who read and col- had been extracted from their bindings and the images lected versions of the Bible and other books and manu- are miniature in size, they will offer a glimpse of the scripts. Edith Weyerhaeuser also had an active interest in inspirational archetypes for Christian objects of devotion. collecting Christian objects and art. Among her favorite Objects of devotion in any faith have yet to cease being works was The Engraved Passion by German printmaker, inspirational, both spiritually and artistically, regardless Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a series of sixteen images of origin or purpose. As French philosopher Victor Cous- depicting the events of Christ’s crucifixion. Its exhibition ins coined, “l’art pour l’art”– art for art’s sake. is planned for the summer of 2017. These church-sponsored creations had one direct Maureen Wengler, source of inspiration; illuminated manuscripts from the Collections Manager 4 the collection: From Sacred to Aesthetic Religion has provided a he proceeded to paint, finding magnificent spectrum of visual interesting if unusual subject language and can be largely matter in Tyrolese crucifixes credited for art’s initial exis- and graveyards.

Load more