HUNTOPIA Gallery Guide WEB

HUNTOPIA October 24, 2019 - March 29, 2020 Hunt Slonem (American, born 1951), Abraham Lincoln, 2019, Oil on canvas, 48 x48 in., Courtesy of the Artist

Hunt Slonem’s HUNTOPIA is a world An ode to Slonem’s passion for comprised of nearly a dozen “Collectorating”—the artist’s term extravagant vignettes from the for his signature style of collecting internationally renowned painter and curating—HUNTOPIA is an and installation artist. Inhabiting two amalgam of Victorian-era paintings sizeable galleries, this exhibition and antique furniture alongside a delves into Slonem’s artwork and survey of Slonem’s own exuberant textiles, culling from local paintings dating from 1983 to institutions, museums, and private present day. Much like Andy collections to fully explore Slonem’s Warhol’s Raid the Icebox I exhibition broader installation sensibility, at the Rhode Island School of Design evolving out of Slonem’s practice of in 1969, Slonem expounds on the acquiring and restoring national artist-as-curator concept. In the historic properties, which he saves words of art collector Dominique de from neglect and fills with wild Menil, “Sunday visitors roam combinations of his artwork and museum galleries lost and bored.... If 19th-century antique collections. critics and scholars can open many doors, only seers and prophets open At first sight of the galleries, visitors the royal gates.... For what is encounter an enormous gold wall beautiful to the artist, becomes populated by black bunnies, beautiful.” wallpaper from Slonem’s line of textiles. The artist’s paintings and Born in 1951 in Kittery, Maine, Hunt designs are notoriously Slonem was the son of a Naval overwhelmed by bunnies, the origin ocer, whose frequent relocations of which can be traced back to gave young Hunt a great love of paintings such as Jesus Christ from travel. Hunt spent his formative 1989 which resides in the Taubman years in Hawaii, and his studies and Museum of Art’s permanent expeditions have spirited him from collection and is on display in the eastern United States, to Central HUNTOPIA. The artist begins each and South America, the Carribean, day with painting exercises reflective South Asia, and beyond. Ultimately of chants or mantras, in which he alighting in New York City, Slonem gesturally populates several maintains a studio in Brooklyn, with 8x10-inch canvases one bunny at a seven restored homes in Louisiana, time. Two walls in HUNTOPIA are Pennsylvania, and New York state. dedicated to over fifty of these bunnies. Slonem’s experiences with the customs, religions, flora, and fauna The exhibition’s scenes include a of the world have led him to use the dining room, parlor, bedroom, and term “exotica” in reference to his several intimate nooks, punctuated work. His lush artistic visions are as by a bright red séance room multifaceted as his travels, dedicated to Slonem’s muse, seamlessly interweaving hundreds Abraham Lincoln. Decked with top of bunnies, some sprinkled with hats, candles, and a crystal scrying diamond dust, and thick ball, Slonem’s séance room pays black-and-white graphic stripes homage to the practice of spirituality allied with undulating swarms of in the mid-19th century, which was butterflies and birds. Slonem’s observed in the Red Room of the deities and muses range from White House by Mr. and Mrs. mystical countesses to stoic Lincoln. American presidents communing with gentle-faced saints and Small treasures abound throughout Buddhas ensconced in flowers and the exhibit, including Asian ceramics surrounded by animals. The form generously gifted to the Taubman most beloved of all, “Animalia,” Museum of Art by the Estate of infuses every element of Hunt’s Peggy Macdowell Thomas, niece of world, sometimes subtly seen famed American painter Thomas pressed into velvety fabric or Eakins. Joining the array of artworks obscured among hundreds of are Slonem paintings from the hatching marks in paintings. Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, wood-and-glass arched structure Olin Hall Galleries at Roanoke courtesy of Black Dog Salvage. Once College, and the private collections a stately bank entrance, it now of David R. and Susan S. Goode and serves as a grandiose walkway from John and Kate Turbyfill. The one gallery of HUNTOPIA to the decadent scenes are structured by next. furniture sourced from the History Museum of Western Virginia, Salem With nods to the exotic birds of Museum & Historical Society, and Hawaii, gilded frames of the the private collections of Sam Victorian era, Pop art as mantra, and Krisch, Julie Lawrence, and Rudy and the dewy romance of Louisiana, Ellen van Thiel. From his own Hunt Slonem wants most of all to furniture collection, Slonem features impart some measure of joy to each a Neo-Gothic bench upholstered visitor—“Upliftment, peace, and with his turtle shell fabric and a awareness of the magnificent Rococo Revival mantel carved from natural world”—along with his great Italian Carrara marble, among aection for the Roanoke several other striking pieces from community, whose camaraderie and Slonem’s personal collection. The contributions have made the world structural centerpiece is a massive of HUNTOPIA real.

Hunt Slonem (American, born 1951), Untitled, 2016, Oil on canvas, 77 x 101 in., Courtesy of the Artist Courtesy of Marco Ricca and Marc Tousignant Above: Courtesy of Marco Ricca and Marc Tousignant

HUNTOPIA is co-curated by the artist Hunt Slonem and Eva Thornton, Assistant Curator of the Taubman Museum of Art, and is on view October 24, 2019–March 29, 2020, in the Medical Facilities of America Gallery and Temporary Exhibition Gallery.

Presented by the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc., the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas, and Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo.