Post by deanna on Feb 1, 2013 9:55:27 GMT -7
IN THE WAKE OF JUAREZ:
THE DRAWINGS OF ALICE LEORA BRIGGS
Alice Leora Briggs, Death of a Virgin, 2007-08, Sgraffito on wood panel with acrylic and acrylic ink.
On loan from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Scott Baker
The La Familia cartel exploded onto the scene in 2006 with the brutal murders of five men in Michoacán. The sign left at the scene said, “La Familia doesn’t kill for money, it doesn’t kill women, it doesn’t kill innocent people — only those who deserve to die. Everyone should know: this is divine justice.”
That a drug cartel thinks its brutal business is a form of divine justice is, to say the least, surreal. But such a contradiction gives us an idea of the kind of atmosphere that Texas artist Alice Leora Briggs aims for in her portrayals of the violence in Juárez. With expressionist bravado and technical cool, Briggs’ remarkable sgraffito (literally “scratch”) drawings capture the Inferno that the city has become. Freely appropriating Renaissance prints and paintings of the Last Judgment, the Crucifixion and other martyrdoms, public executions, tortures, and works by artists from Holbein to van der Weyden, and immersing herself in the literature of Dante and Cormac McCarthy, Briggs merges old world fears with present-day realities to create a disturbing yet compelling picture of the human condition.
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BOUND TOGETHER:
SEEKING PLEASURE IN BOOKS
Enrique Chagoya, Les Aventures des Cannibales Moderniste, 1999, Eight panel accordion fold codex
Lithograph, woodcut, chine collé, edition 18 of 30, Purchased with funds from the Friends of Art
On February 8, the UNM Art Museum will open Bound Together: Seeking Pleasure in Books, an exhibition that celebrates the book, from 19th-century photographic albums to limited edition and unique artist books, illustrated literary works, unusual pop-up books, mediaeval manuscript facsimiles and architectural folios, to name just some of the objects in the exhibition. Though the digital age is very much upon us, carrying with it many publishing casualties, books continue to be produced and cherished as they have for millennia. The dichotomy that books present is that they are simultaneously private objects meant to be held in one’s hands, often read in private, yet are also objects mass produced, available to large audiences, viewed and or read in very public arenas. Some of the works include Henri Matisse’s Le Florilege des Amours, Some Memories of Drawing by Georgia O’Keeffe, a first edition of An Autobiog raphy by Frank Lloyd Wright and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, illustrated by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and printed at Kelmscott press by William Morris. Contemporary artists in the exhibition who have used the book as a vehicle of expression include Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha, Barbara de Genevieve, Julie Chen and Enrique Chagoya.
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MARTIN STUPICH:
REMNANTS OF THE FIRST WORLD
Martin Stupich , Bridge over canal, Venice, California, 1974, Pigment inkjet print, Courtesy of the Artist
We build and shape our landscapes and terrains—gardens, bridges, truck stops, quarries, canals and dams—to suit both our physical and emotional desires. Yet this is not without consequences. This exhibition presents a selection of potent images from a larger body of work that Martin Stupich has explored and recorded since the 1970s. These images of some of our most ambitious, often permanent structures are breathtaking to behold yet also pose questions about what it is we are leaving behind as the “remnants” of our culture and time. Stupich clearly works within a historical sphere which harks back to the nineteenth-century and includes some of the great camera artists of that era such as Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins and Darius Kinsey.
UNM Art Museum | MSC04 2570 l 1 University of New Mexico l Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001
artmuse@unm.edu | 505.277.4001 | www.unm.edu/~artmuse/
THE DRAWINGS OF ALICE LEORA BRIGGS
Alice Leora Briggs, Death of a Virgin, 2007-08, Sgraffito on wood panel with acrylic and acrylic ink.
On loan from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Scott Baker
The La Familia cartel exploded onto the scene in 2006 with the brutal murders of five men in Michoacán. The sign left at the scene said, “La Familia doesn’t kill for money, it doesn’t kill women, it doesn’t kill innocent people — only those who deserve to die. Everyone should know: this is divine justice.”
That a drug cartel thinks its brutal business is a form of divine justice is, to say the least, surreal. But such a contradiction gives us an idea of the kind of atmosphere that Texas artist Alice Leora Briggs aims for in her portrayals of the violence in Juárez. With expressionist bravado and technical cool, Briggs’ remarkable sgraffito (literally “scratch”) drawings capture the Inferno that the city has become. Freely appropriating Renaissance prints and paintings of the Last Judgment, the Crucifixion and other martyrdoms, public executions, tortures, and works by artists from Holbein to van der Weyden, and immersing herself in the literature of Dante and Cormac McCarthy, Briggs merges old world fears with present-day realities to create a disturbing yet compelling picture of the human condition.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOUND TOGETHER:
SEEKING PLEASURE IN BOOKS
Enrique Chagoya, Les Aventures des Cannibales Moderniste, 1999, Eight panel accordion fold codex
Lithograph, woodcut, chine collé, edition 18 of 30, Purchased with funds from the Friends of Art
On February 8, the UNM Art Museum will open Bound Together: Seeking Pleasure in Books, an exhibition that celebrates the book, from 19th-century photographic albums to limited edition and unique artist books, illustrated literary works, unusual pop-up books, mediaeval manuscript facsimiles and architectural folios, to name just some of the objects in the exhibition. Though the digital age is very much upon us, carrying with it many publishing casualties, books continue to be produced and cherished as they have for millennia. The dichotomy that books present is that they are simultaneously private objects meant to be held in one’s hands, often read in private, yet are also objects mass produced, available to large audiences, viewed and or read in very public arenas. Some of the works include Henri Matisse’s Le Florilege des Amours, Some Memories of Drawing by Georgia O’Keeffe, a first edition of An Autobiog raphy by Frank Lloyd Wright and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, illustrated by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and printed at Kelmscott press by William Morris. Contemporary artists in the exhibition who have used the book as a vehicle of expression include Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha, Barbara de Genevieve, Julie Chen and Enrique Chagoya.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARTIN STUPICH:
REMNANTS OF THE FIRST WORLD
Martin Stupich , Bridge over canal, Venice, California, 1974, Pigment inkjet print, Courtesy of the Artist
We build and shape our landscapes and terrains—gardens, bridges, truck stops, quarries, canals and dams—to suit both our physical and emotional desires. Yet this is not without consequences. This exhibition presents a selection of potent images from a larger body of work that Martin Stupich has explored and recorded since the 1970s. These images of some of our most ambitious, often permanent structures are breathtaking to behold yet also pose questions about what it is we are leaving behind as the “remnants” of our culture and time. Stupich clearly works within a historical sphere which harks back to the nineteenth-century and includes some of the great camera artists of that era such as Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins and Darius Kinsey.
UNM Art Museum | MSC04 2570 l 1 University of New Mexico l Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001
artmuse@unm.edu | 505.277.4001 | www.unm.edu/~artmuse/