Art & Art History News - October 11, 2022

Recent New York Times review of Yiyun Li’s new novel, “The Book of Goose.”

Why Write? Yiyun Li’s New Novel Explores Our Urge to Invent.
“Isn’t it enough just to know a story? Why take the time to write it out?” wonders 13-year-old Agnès, one of two adolescent girls at the center of Yiyun Li’s new novel, “The Book of Goose.” The question drives not only the tale Agnès proceeds to tell us, but the entire course of literary history. What moves us to share our inner lives in this way? By inscribing them on the world, can we ever capture something enduring in our speck-of-dust-in-the-universe existence?

Read More. Link to the New York Times article

Two recent exhibitions:

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC) presents “Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean” on view Sept. 9, 2022–Jan. 29, 2023.

“Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean” features the work of twelve artists with connections to the Caribbean—including the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, and coastal Colombia. Artists included in the exhibition include Firelei Báez, Albert Chong, Andrea Chung, Maksaens Denis, Hulda Guzmán, Renluka Maharaj, Suchitra Mattai, Carlos Martiel, Javier Orfón, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, María Isabel Rueda, and Nyugen Smith.

The Museum of Modern Art on view through February 18, 2023
Just Above Midtown—or JAM—was an art gallery and self-described laboratory led by Linda Goode Bryant that foregrounded African American artists and artists of color. Open from 1974 until 1986, it was a place where Black art flourished and debate was cultivated. The gallery offered early opportunities for artists now recognized as pivotal figures in late-20th-century art, including David Hammons, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, and Howardena Pindell. Nengudi has described JAM’s energy as “vibrating,” a space where artists “were given carte blanche, and there were no restrictions.” This exhibition presents artists and artworks previously shown at JAM in a wide range of mediums, and archival material and artist interventions contextualize the experimental ethos that defined the gallery.

Link to New York Times Feature: "JAM, a Gate-Crashing Gallery, Expanded the Idea of Blackness"

Past, present come together: Marquee project recognizes Rough Riders

“I am coming.”

Those three words – sitting on a poster adorned with the face of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody – were all entertainment-seeking citizens in the late 1800s and early 1900s needed to know. If you saw those words, and that face, you knew you were in for something spectacular, said Yumi Roth, a sculpture and post-studio practice professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

But reality is more complex than a promotional poster, and the truth is no man – not even the great Buffalo Bill – is an island, Roth said. At its height, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show had as many as 500 cast members, according to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Read more about the project

Recently featured in Hyperallergic:
Marina Kassianidou Is Interested in the Leftovers
The artist’s work quietly asks: How do we read and write the world we live in?

Speaking with Kassianidou, it’s evident how much of her practice is grounded in a deep interest in, and even an emotional attachment to, her materials. She mentions the work of Susan Collis and Louise Hopkins, artists whose work derives significant meaning from the materials with which they work. Kassianidou uses textiles she’s found dumpster diving behind furnishing stores, extra vinyl flooring from her grandparents’ home renovation, fabric and interesting paper her friends pass along to her. “It isn’t the fact that it’s been thrown away,” she said. “I’m interested in the idea of the leftover. Things that were just left there. They become traces of someone’s existence or someone’s actions. I think of them as traces and link it back to mark-making. They have a history. How can I excavate that history and do something different with it?”

Link to the complete article

Cultivate
Center for Visual Art
Metropolitan State University of Denver | 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204

Artist Talk: October 13 at 6 PM (Register here)

Cultivate features the work of seven Colorado-based artists exploring food insecurity and access in Colorado. The exhibition was inspired by Sammy Lee’s paper-skin mural titled Bolt Down: our narrative of food insecurity and its representation of data collected by the Colorado Health Institute. Using her signature technique of felting and casting paper, Lee Illustrates the shocking lack of food security faced by Colorado residents, especially young adults.

Cultivate celebrates these local artists who examine our food systems with a critical eye and rally around a thoughtful approach to food production. Artists include DesertArtLAB (April Bojorquez and Matt Garcia), Tsehai Johnson (CU MFA Grad, Ceramics), Viviane Le Courtois, Sammy Lee, Heather Link-Bergman, Cherish Marquez, and Eileen Roscina (Current MFA grad in Film).

Link to article about the show in the Denver Post

Robin Wall Kimmerer, a scientist, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants” will speak in the Boulder Theater on Dec. 1. Doors open at 10.30 a.m. and the event begins at 11 a.m. 

The free event is part of the Buffs One Read, a campus-wide program produced by University Libraries and Student Affairs that builds community through the shared reading of one book. It is open to CU Boulder students, graduate students, staff, faculty, and alumni. A limited number of seats are available to community members. Advance registration is required.

More information