CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Three exhibitions open Thursday (Jan. 26) at Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois.
"Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises" features the art of the multidisciplinary feminist who, beginning in the 1960s, used painting, photography, film, installation and performance art to ignite an exploration of sexuality, gender and social taboos. Schneemann will present a gallery conversation during the opening reception, beginning at 6 p.m.
Schneemann's art has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Her films, the best known of which are "Fuses" and "Meat Joy," have been shown at the National Film Theatre of London, San Francisco Cinematheque and the Anthology Film Archives in New York. The latest of her four books is "Correspondence Course: An Epistolary History of Carolee Schneemann and Her Circle," a collection of letters the artist exchanged with friends and colleagues over four decades. The book was edited by art historian Kristine Stiles.
This show is a revised version of an exhibition first organized by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and curated by Brian Wallace in 2010. Presented in partnership with the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery, the exhibition includes works spanning Schneemann's entire career.
Schneemann also will present a visual lecture, "Mysteries of the Iconographies," at 7:30 p.m. March 1 in the museum auditorium. The exhibition runs through April 1.
Also opening on Thursday is "Fifty Years: Contemporary American Glass From Illinois Collections," guest curated by Jon Liebman, a professor emeritus of environmental engineering at Illinois and long-time collector of contemporary glass sculpture. He will lead a tour of the exhibition at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 9, as well as a panel discussion in the auditorium on March 8 with Illinois State University art professor John Miller, U. of I. ceramics professor Amy Rueffert, collector Joy Thornton-Walter and artist Carmen Lozar.
All works in the exhibition are drawn from private collections of Illinois residents, and include not only blown glass but also cast, coldworked and hot-sculpted glass, most created in the past 25 years.
The artistic pedigree of many works in the exhibition can be traced to Harvey Littleton, who, in 1962, established a small glass furnace at the Toledo Museum of Art, setting off the American Studio Glass Movement. The exhibition includes works by his students Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Joel Philip Myers, and by artists trained by Littleton's students. The exhibition runs through April 29.
Works by Sam Francis, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Niki de Saint Phalle and Frank Stella, among others, will be shown in another retrospective, "After Abstract Expressionism" - the 1960s and '70s era in which artists emphasized social and political context, often addressing or incorporating pop culture into their work. This exhibition, curated by Kathryn Koca Polite, consists of works from the museum's permanent collection. The exhibition also runs through April 29.