CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Krannert Art Museum will exhibit a wide variety of works from its permanent collection – many of which have not been displayed publicly in a long time – as the museum opens its new season Aug. 27.
Four exhibitions will open that evening, including a solo exhibition by acclaimed sculptor Nnenna Okore, current work by U. of I. faculty members, and two collection-based shows. A public reception will begin at 6 p.m.
Chicago-based artist Nnenna Okore will present a solo exhibition. “Nkata: An Installation by Nnenna Okore,” a centerpiece of the fall season, includes large-scale sculptural elements – burlap fiber the artist has deconstructed, frayed, dyed and placed onto wire structures to create large forms that hang from the gallery walls. A video projection that reflects Okore’s experiments with sound and light will be part of the installation.
“Fire and Water,” by David Wojnarowicz. 1991 lithograph.
Also opening Aug. 27 is “Attachment,” a thematic exhibition that uses art largely from the museum’s collection to examine the concept of attachment. The works will encourage visitors to think about, among other things, the psychoanalytic elements of attachment to mother, comfort and childhood memories; physical attachments such as appendages; attachment to materials and material objects; and practices of collecting, from personal collections of objects to the collecting done by museums.
“I’m really interested to learn from viewers’ responses after seeing many different types of works from the permanent collection installed together. People will make all kinds of connections that we haven’t yet,” said Amy Powell, the curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Krannert Art Museum, and the lead curator of the exhibition along with Allyson Purpura and Kathryn Koca Polite.
The work on display includes a resin cast of a woman by Frank Gallo; images by Hans Bellmer, a German surrealist who made dolls of disparate parts in strange combinations and photographed them in ambiguous domestic settings; photos by Danny Lyon, a self-taught photojournalist who embedded himself with motorcycle gangs in the 1960s, documenting the lifestyle of the Chicago Outlaws; and vibrant, colorful video art by contemporary French artist Isabelle Cornaro.
“Attachment” also will include the museum’s collection of tiny 19th-century Japanese figurines, called “netsuke,” that would have been worn attached to a belt; and pre-Colombian spindle whorls – clay pieces that held spindles while thread was being woven.
Visitors will have an opportunity to view a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois; three pieces by Annette Lemieux; and two works by Melissa Pokorny, a professor of sculpture and the associate director of the U. of I. School of Art and Design.
Pokorny’s work titled “Dead Objects” is an L-shaped, mirrored piece with a realistic-looking, mass-produced owl, lying broken on its back. Pokorny said the piece is about how we look at objects that are flawed, broken or out of context.
“Left Behind” is a series of four photographs Pokorny took in different places and times and is about “making connections between disparate events,” she said.
Related events are a gallery conversation on “Attachment” at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 1, and “November Dance,” in which faculty members and students from the U. of I. department of dance will also explore the theme of attachment, on the evenings of Nov. 12-14 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
Also opening is “Tamarind Institute and The Rebirth of Lithography,” highlighting a selection of the more than 500 lithographs created at the Tamarind Institute that are part of Krannert Art Museum’s permanent collection.
Lithography is a printing process in which an image is drawn on stone and then printed onto paper. The Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was founded in 1960 (originally in Los Angeles) to revive this art form and reaffirm the collaboration between artists and master printers.
Most of the works in the exhibition were printed in the 1970s, with a few from the 1980s, said Koca Polite, the assistant curator at Krannert Art Museum and curator of the exhibition.
Some of Koca Polite’s favorites are the “playful surrealistic quality” of two works by W.P. Eberhard Eggers that will be shown, the “quiet, subtle beauty” of Matsumi Kanemitsu’s “Za Zen (The Meditation),” and the technical skill of Kenneth Price’s prints, in which the bright colors seamlessly fade into each other.
“I tried to choose a variety of artists who experimented with different styles – whether it was abstract expressionism, pop and funk art, cubism or others – so that the viewer could visually comprehend how lithography works for a wide range of artists,” Koca Polite said. This year marks the 55th anniversary of the Tamarind Institute, now housed at the University of New Mexico.
This will be the 90th year that the faculty of the School of Art and Design will display new art and design work at the museum. It’s the primary opportunity for faculty members to showcase current research-driven painting, sculpture, video and multi-media projects, Pokorny said, which is critically important for students and the community to see.
“Many of us typically don’t show our work in Champaign-Urbana, so students may not often get to see it,” she said, adding that the exhibition is a teaching tool for faculty members to talk about the breadth of their work and how it is created. Pokorny will present in the exhibition a sculpture titled “Daisy Chain.”
The Art and Design Faculty Exhibition opens at the Aug. 27 reception and will be on display for the fall semester. It includes painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, photography, jewelry, metals, new media, graphic design and industrial design.
More information about these exhibitions and related events is available on the Krannert Art Museum website.
Editor’s note: For more information about Krannert Art Museum exhibitions, contact Julia Kelly at jkell@illinois.edu.
