Upcoming Events:

PANEL: GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM

Wednesday - May 15 @ 5:30 pm

History of Art and Architecture Professor Sherwin Simmons and students Sarah Hwang, Megan Cekander, and Ashlee Marshall, who have researched the prints in the exhibition, will discuss the paintings and prints, showing additional images that help to situate the styles and subjects of the exhibited works within the larger field of German Expressionist art and literature.

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM CONFERENCE

Saturday - May 18 @ 9:00 am - 5:15 pm

LOCATION: GERLINGER LOUNGE

The Department of the History of Art and Architecture hosts a conference on German Expressionism featuring guest speakers:

Mark Haxthausen, Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History, Williams College
Rainer Rumold, Professor Emeritus, Department of German, Northwestern University
Naomi Hume, Associate Professor of Art History, Seattle University
Kimberly Smith, Professor of Art History, Southwestern University

For more information visit http://arthistory.uoregon.edu/node/266

PANEL: GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM

Wednesday - May 18 @ 5:30 pm

History of Art and Architecture Professor Sherwin Simmons and students Sarah Hwang, Megan Cekander, and Ashlee Marshall, who have researched the prints in the exhibition, will discuss the paintings and prints, showing additional images that help to situate the styles and subjects of the exhibited works within the larger field of German Expressionist art and literature.

Artful Animals Inspire a Free Family Day at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Saturday - May 18 @ 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm and includes two cheetahs visiting from Wildlife Safari

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will take you on a safari at “Artful Animals,” a free family day of activities on Saturday, May 18 from noon to 3 p.m. Sponsored by Kendall Auto Group, visitors will get free admission to the museum on a day full of family-friendly performances, art activities, and animals.

“We are very excited to welcome cheetahs from Wildlife Safari to our family day,” says Lisa Abia-Smith, JSMA education director. “Our family days provide a chance for families to explore the museum, create art, and now, with these special furry guests, experience endangered animals’ in-person.”

Children can craft their own animal masks to wear on a gallery scavenger hunt seeking animals found in artwork throughout the museum’s galleries. Animal prints will inspire young artists to create paintings featuring their favorite animals.

At 12:15 and 12:45, the JSMA’s Dragon Puppet Theatre will entertain audiences with two performances of a classic tale of Japanese animals in “Kintaro.” And two special guests, the teaching cheetahs from Wildlife Safari, will be on hand between 1:15 and 2:15 p.m.

Prior to Family Day, a closing reception for “NewArt Northwest Kids” exhibition will celebrate the artists and teachers who participated in the 6th annual show. The reception begins at 11 a.m. and is free to attend. Language Arts is the theme for the exhibition, on view through June 2, 2013. More than 40 works submitted by area K-12 students will be on view in the Education Corridor Galleries.

SCHEDULE
11 am-12 pm: “NewArt Northwest Kids” reception
12:15 & 12:45 pm: Dragon Puppet Theatre performances
1:15-2:15 pm: Wildlife Safari
12-3 pm: Free art activities

“Light Journey: An Odyssey in Paint”

May 28 – July 28

Retrospective Exhibition of the Art of Su Kwak Makes West Coast Debut at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon presents the West Coast premiere of “Light Journey: An Odyssey in Paint,” a retrospective exhibition of the art of Su Kwak. Organized by the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University and curated by Dr. Jungsil Lee, “Light Journey” is on view May 28-July 28, 2013 in the JSMA’s Focus Gallery.

The exhibition opens with a free, public reception on Friday, May 31, 6-8 p.m. Kwak will lead an artist’s talk on Saturday, June 1, at 2 p.m.

The exhibition brings together 31 pieces of work that affirm the artist’s distinctive use of light and color to capture her spiritual life. Her sculptural canvases visually equate the light that gives definition to objects with an inner light that gives purpose and meaning.

“Viewers find that they can feel Kwak’s paintings as much as see them with their eyes; surfaces appeal to the sense of touch with their folds, tears, gestures, and textures,” says Gregg Hertzlieb, Brauer Museum of Art director and exhibition curator, in the foreword of the exhibition catalog. “Acrylic paint enhances and encases areas in her pieces, acknowledging the artifice of art but also transforming what we know into something entirely new that engages us with its inventiveness.”

Part of the exhibition includes the series “Beyond Light,” a series of fourteen works that correspond to the “14 Stations of the Cross,” the commemoration of the Passion and death of Jesus Christ. Kwak created abstract images of each station using acrylic paint on plaster and paper. Combining paint and paper, sometimes incorporating Bible pages into the work, Kwak uses different overlapping shapes to create a highly sculptural painting. The installation is meant to be viewed from the right to the left, analogous to writing Hebrew. In addition to their Christian connections, Kwak’s work also references spirituality, East and West, in a more general sense.

Born in Busan, a port city on the Southeastern tip of Korea, Su Kwak grew up near the seashore and the mountains of her native country. She moved to the United States in 1973, arriving with just one suitcase of belongings, to pursue her American dream. Settling first in Texas, Kwak became involved in an interdenominational church prior to attending the University of St. Thomas in Houston, where she majored in art. In 1979, she completed her MFA with honors at the University of Chicago, where she developed a semi-abstract landscape style.

Kwak is represented by the June Kelly Gallery in SoHo, New York, and the Sun Gallery in Seoul, Korea. Kwak’s paintings may be found in many museum and public collections including the prestigious National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art; Asian-American Arts Centre, New York, and the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Korea. In 2002, she published her memoir, “Light in the Heart: Art and Love.”

Su Kwak’s “Light Journey: An Odyssey in Paint” is organized by the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University and curated by Dr. Jungsil Lee. The exhibition is made possible at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art with funding from The Farwest Steel Korean Art Endowment.

EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION: LIVING LEGACIES

Friday - May 31 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Celebrate the opening of Living Legacies: JSMA @ 80 with a free public reception.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Celebrates 80 Year Anniversary with New Exhibitions and Installations

Friday - May 31 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon is about to turn eighty years old and will celebrate with multiple exhibitions, special loans, and the release its first online exhibition catalog. A free, public reception on Friday, May 31, from 6 to 8 p.m., begins a series of exciting exhibitions and programs.

“In honor of our eightieth anniversary,” says executive director Jill Hartz, “we’re honoring the community that has supported and appreciated this museum for eight decades. With its continued engagement, we look forward to another eighty years of providing high quality exhibitions and stimulating public programs that embrace our community’s interests and priorities.”

Hartz notes that “Living Legacies: The JSMA @ 80” celebrates the collectors and collections in our community that reflect the museum’s mission and vision for the future. Five years ago, the museum celebrated its seventy-fifth birthday with the special exhibition “Lasting Legacies,” which highlighted major works in the collection and the donors that had made them – and the museum – possible.

Planned as a companion exhibition, “Living Legacies” looks to the future. Even with more than 100 pieces of art on view in the Barker Gallery, from more than sixty collectors, “Living Legacies” just touches on the diversity of work present in our region. In addition to the Barker exhibition, the museum invites visitors to look for “JSMA @ 80” labels throughout the galleries, which identify works acquired by the museum in the past five years, reflecting a more expansive collecting practice.

On view June 1 – September 1, 2013, “Living Legacies” will also be available on the museum’s website through the JSMA’s first online exhibition catalog. The exhibition is made possible by the Coeta and Donald Barker Special Exhibitions Endowment and JSMA members.

In celebration of the museum’s 80th, the Schnitzer Gallery will feature “New American Acquisitions,” works acquired, through gift and purchase, over the last five years.. These include exciting works from the Americas and the Caribbean—including Central and South America and Cuba. The exhibition celebrates the museum’s commitment to building our already strong collection of work by Pacific Northwest artists and our more recent interest in collecting hemispherically.

The Focus Gallery features the West Coast premiere of “Light Journey: An Odyssey in Paint,” a retrospective exhibition of the art of Korean-born artist Su Kwak. The show brings together 31 pieces of work that affirm the artist’s distinctive use of light and color to capture her spiritual life. Her sculptural canvases visually equate the light that gives definition to objects with an inner light that gives purpose and meaning. Organized by the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University and curated by Dr. Jungsil Lee, “Light Journey” is on view May 28-July 28, 2013.

A selection of Japanese art acquisitions from the Wadsworth Collection, a recent gift of more than 150 contemporary Japanese prints, is on display in the Preble/Murphy Gallery. Also on view as part of “Living Legacies” are a series of woodblock prints, on loan from collector Lee Michels, featuring firemen.

As a permanent marker of the JSMA’s 80th anniversary, the museum invites the public to help it acquire “Order (The Red Guards),” a provocative work from the 2011 exhibition “Xiaoze Xie: Amplified Moments (1993-2008),” on view in the Soreng Gallery. Xiaoze Xie is one of China’s most prominent contemporary artists and is currently the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University.

Beginning June 15, the Artist Project Space features “Celebrating Oregon Artists,” a display of works created since the 1980s that represent the museum’s commitment to exhibiting works by living artists from our state and community. Featured are works in a range of media by noted Oregon artists Rick Bartow, Michael Brophy, Tom Cramer, Mel Katz, Whitney Nye, Lucinda Parker, Dan Powell, Jim Riswold, and Gary Tepfer. “Celebrating Oregon Artists” will be on view until September 15, 2013.

Ongoing Showings:

Piero Dorazio & the Responsive Eye

April 09, 2013 to July 21, 2013.

In conjunction with the American Association of Italian Studies Conference, held in Eugene April 11–14, this special exhibition presents a series of nearly twenty experimental Op (Optical) art color aquatints and lithographs by the influential Italian artist Piero Dorazio (1927-2005). Dorazio co-founded the important group of Italian abstract artists, “Forma 1,” in 1947 and published one of the first books on international modern art to appear in Italy, La Fantasia Dell-Arte Nella Vita Moderna, in 1955.

West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977

February 09, 2013 to April 28, 2013 - Barker Gallery

In the heady and hallucinogenic days of the 1960s and ’70s, a diverse range of artists and creative individuals based in the American West – from the Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest – broke the barriers between art and lifestyle and embraced the new, hybrid sensibilities of the countercultural movement.

JACK FULTON, Zomeworks Bus (1973), 2011, Chromogenic print, 21 x 14 4/5 in, Courtesy the artist

ROGER ARVID ANDERSON, Johnny, 1972, Archival pigment print, 18 x 27 in, Courtesy the artist

German Expressionism

February 05, 2013 to May 19, 2013 - Focus Gallery

This exhibition of German Expressionist works, including prints by Wassily Kandinsky, Käthe Kollwitz, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde and features the recently restored double-sided painting Ballet Dancers (recto)/Two Women in Lamplight (verso), which the artist Max Pechstein painted in 1912.

Max Pechstein (German, 1881–1955), Ballet Dancers (recto). 1912, Oil on canvas, 19 x 21 1/2 inches, Widmer Fund Purchase. 1967:3.3

Morris Graves: Effort to Bloom

March 23, 2013 to June 02, 2013

This intimate exhibition honors the publication of Morris Graves: Selected Letters, edited by Lawrence Fong, former curator of American and regional art at the JSMA, and Vicki Halper, an independent curator and art historian, and former associate curator of modern art at the Seattle Art Museum. Created between 1938 and 1962, many of these works are discussed in detail in Graves’ correspondence.

Two other exhibitions also support the new book of letters: Morris Graves: Painting and Drawings, 1931-1996, at White Lotus Gallery, a selection of works for sale from the Morris Graves Foundation, through May 25; and Art and Nature An Exhibit of the Life of Morris Graves, on view at Knight Library’s Special Collections and University Archives through May 31. The latter presentation also celebrates the gift of the Morris Graves Archive to the library.

NewArt Northwest Kids: Language Arts

February 26, 2013 to June 02, 2013

Language Arts is the theme for the Sixth Annual “New Art Northwest Kids” exhibition. More than 40 works submitted by area K-12 students will be on view in the Education Corridor Galleries. The art on view focuses on the integration of writing and visual art, and was inspired by the JSMA’s fall exhibitions “Lesley Dill’s Poetic Visions: From Shimmer to Sister Gertrude Morgan” and “Good Grief: A Selection of Original Art from Fifty Years of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts.” The JSMA received over 200 submissions that were juried by Delyn Dunham, JSMA exhibition interpreter; Summer Knowlton, JSMA tour coordinator; and Sharon Kaplan, JSMA museum educator and “New Art Northwest Kids” exhibition coordinator.

Participating schools include Cesar Chavez Elementary, Eugene, Charlemagne French Immersion School, Eugene, Classical Conversations (homeschool), Eugene, Corridor Alternative Elementary School, Eugene, Eugene Christian School, Oak Hill School, Eugene, Family School, Eugene, Irving Elementary School, Eugene, Lowell Junior/Senior High School, Lowell, O’Hara Catholic School, Eugene, Oakridge High School, Oakridge, South Eugene High School, and Sutherlin High School, Sutherlin.

Ming Wong: Life and Death in Venice

April 12, 2013 to June 02, 2013

In conjunction with the fourth annual Cinema Pacific film festival, which this year focuses on the cinema of Singapore and Mexico, Singapore-artist Wong shows his 3-channel Life and Death in Venice. Entirely self-directed, produced and conceived during his presentation for the Singapore Pavilion during the 53rd Venice Biennale, the film was short in several locations identified and used in the book and film. Wong plays both Tadzio and the aging composer and provides the soundtrack of the Visconti film (Mahler’s Symphony No. 5) via a flawed performance on the piano.

Also on view at White Box, University of Oregon in Portland, is Life of Imitation (2009, 13 min.), a looped 13-minute double-channel installation. Originally commissioned for the 53rd Venice Biennale Singapore Pavilion, this work is inspired by the classic Hollywood melodrama Imitation of Life, where a black mother meets her mixed-race daughter who has been running away from her true 'identity'. This version features three male actors from the main ethnic groups in Singapore (Chinese, Malay and Indian) taking turns to play the black mother and her 'white' daughter. The identity of the actor for each role constantly changes with each shot. Life of Imitation is on view April 4 - May 4, 2013.

THE FEMALE FIGURE: ARTISTIC MULTIPLICITIES

September 28, 2012 to June 23, 2013

Organized by art history graduate student Anne Taylor, exhibition coordinator extern Jessi DiTillio, and former curator Lawrence Fong, The Female Figure: Artistic Multiplicities draws from works in the collection, supplemented with special loans which present women as complex, nuanced individuals, as well as potent vehicles for symbolic meaning.

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