Delaware Center for Contemporary Art Presents 'Young Country' Art Exhibit

"Young Country," the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art's first satellite show, is now running through Friday, July 29th at the University of the Arts Rosenwald-Wolf gallery in Philadelphia. The show explores the idea of art reflecting geography and location, and features work by artists from places the mainstream might consider just farmland or a fly-over zone.

"In one way, shape or form, the artist is responding to the notion of rural," said Maiza Hixson, the DCCA Gretchen Hupfel Curator of Contemporary Art and creator of the show.

The featured artists live in Wilmington, Louisville, Lexington, Richmond, Cincinnati and Washington State.

"They were inspired by horse racing, log cabins, the idea of living in America today and the idea of grappling with a divide of country and city," Hixson says. "We need a rural sector, yet when living in a city we think of the rural as something distant. This exhibit creates a kind of dialogue for how culture can be anywhere, even in the middle of what many people consider a geographical 'nowhere.' "

This is the second time the exhibit has been shown. It appeared first in Louisville. Then Hixson began working for the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in October, her part-time salary paid for by the Gretchen Hupfel endowment. And with the enthusiastic support of DCCA executive director Maxine Gaiber, and an invitation from the University of Arts to remount the show -- partly because exhibiting artist Joe Girandala is the Masters of Fine Arts program director there -- the "Young Country" show opened earlier this month to great reviews.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called it rousing and rambunctious and said it is "a wake-up call that we need to overcome the deep prejudIce That nothing outside New York matters in present-day art."

Housed in a gallery of tall, white walls, the show makes a point to distance itself from big-city reverential and hushed exhibits.

The "Young Country," exhibit is  sponsored by the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art.  It can be seen at The University of the Arts Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, 333 S. Broad St., Philadelphia.
from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday

For more information: (215) 717-6480