The CU Art Museum will remain closed to the public through the fall semester while the university continues to monitor the impacts of COVID-19.
We miss you and are committed to bringing the museum into your home by examining artwork in the collection as seen through a variety of personal perspectives. Please check out our virtual Close Looking programs and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
This month Pedro Caceres, our exhibition preparator, discusses an artwork from our collection.
Of the many powers that any work of art can possess, one is the ability to instantly attract a lifelong admirer, often unexpectedly and sometimes inexplicably. The person being attracted may not even notice this pull at first; may not know that they’ve been irreversibly hooked.
This is the power that Patrocinio Barela’s sculpture The Bat has held over me since I first saw it when I started at CUAM in 2010. Even a decade later my thoughts can still orbit this object at various times, sweeping different angles. Perhaps I’ll be considering its aesthetic beauty or pondering its history and the life story of its maker. In those same moments, whilst trying to comprehend the magnetism Barela’s sculpture exerts on me, I’ll be enthralled by the allegory (whether real or imagined) of an Ouroboros encircling the head of a bat.
Some aspects of this attraction are easy for me to understand because of my personal preferences. My eyes and my heart have always been drawn to those objects that are “built”, or whose raw materiality is visible, particularly when hewn from wood. But there is much more than materiality at play here and looking into Patrocinio Barela’s life story will help today’s audience place The Bat’s creation into a context that is rich in the kinds of socio-cultural and socio-economic quagmires that frankly are still being wrestled with today.
I would encourage anyone interested to perform a quick online search for his name. One would learn that this “illiterate” and “uneducated” itinerant laborer discovered his talent later in life; that through the exposure created by his involvement with the Works Progress Administration (a federal New Deal program) he became the first Mexican-American artist to exhibit works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; that despite this success his life was a very hard one, mired deep in poverty and racism.
For me, knowing these things adds to its beauty. History imbues The Bat with the weight of Patrocinio’s lived experience and adds a richer texture to each chip carved out of that small block of juniper, which is now forever encircling the mysterious thoughts of his mind around my own.
Image credit: Patrocinio Barela, American (1900 - 1964), The Bat,1938, wood,11 1/4 x 8 x 3 1/2 inches, CU Art Museum, 40.01. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Program, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration Commissioned through the New Deal art projects
Virtual Activities
During our COVID-19 closure this summer we’ll be sharing artworks from our collection weekly so that you can do some close-looking exercises from wherever you are. Invite a friend and do it together (virtually or physically distanced) to spark conversation or do it by yourself for some relaxation.
Feel Good Fridays goes remote! You are invited to this weekly workshop to learn about a work of art and then participate in a related mindfulness practice. The powerful, guided meditation can undo stress, soothe the nervous system, and help you feel relaxed and revitalized. If practiced regularly, the meditation teaches a method for feeling calm, easeful, and resilient, even when facing life’s challenges. Meditations are open to students, faculty, staff, and the public. All are welcome and there is no need for past experience with meditation. Registration is required.
Become a Member
Our members take pride in knowing that their gift helps to sustain a dynamic learning environment rich in artistic inquiry. Your membership supports acquisitions, curatorial research, conservation and digitization of the collection, and the range of free programs offered to students, faculty and the public.
Invest in Our Mission
We develop individualized giving plans for donors who wish to invest in the CU Art Museum and its impact on the campus and community. In addition to discretionary support, annual giving can be directed to support exhibitions, acquisitions, educational programs and collection conservation.