Zimmerli Announces Fall 2018 Exhibitions
By: Stephi Wild Jul. 30, 2018
Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers announces new exhibitions for Fall 2018!
Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel
September 1 to December 30, 2018 / Voorhees Gallery
This exhibition encompasses the decades-long career of the illustrious cartoonist and graphic memoirist. It explores Bechdel's work as a writer, an artist, and an archivist of the self, someone who constantly mines and shares her own experiences as a way to communicate something vitally human: the quest for love, acceptance, community, and social justice. With more than 150 objects, Self-Confessed! features Bechdel's pioneering comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, as well as the graphic memoirs Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama. The exhibition presents these primary bodies of work in depth through original sketches and drawings, while incorporating other aspects of Bechdel's creative output, from early drawings to activist ephemera to large-scale self-portraits. It also includes a model of the set for the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home and clips from the New York performances. Bechdel will speak at Rutgers on October 10; details will be announced later this summer.
Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, about the lives of a group of lesbian friends, ran from 1983 to 2008 and was syndicated in more than 50 alternative papers around the country. In 2006, Bechdel published the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which explores her relationship with her father, her coming out, and his possible suicide. Fun Home was a New York Times bestseller and the basis of the musical of the same name. Bechdel followed up in 2012 with Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, which follows her relationship with her mother, girlfriends, therapists, and her exploration of psychoanalytic theory. Both books are works of multilayered complexity, employing nonlinear storytelling and a rich trove of literary and historical references.
In addition to Bechdel's work, the exhibition includes drawings, prints, and books by three graphic memoirists whose distinct voices reflect experiences shared by many Americans today. Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do (2017) documents the ongoing effects that immigration has on a family, even as its members assimilate to their new homes. In Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir (2012), cartoonist Ellen Forney recounts how she managed a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her years-long struggle to find mental stability, while retaining her passion and creativity. Iraq veteran Maximilian Uriarte's White Donkey: Terminal Lance (2016), a graphic novel that evolved from the comic strip and website he started in 2010, satirizes daily life in the United States Marine Corps. These artists demonstrate how relevant graphic novels and memoirs have become in connecting individuals who share personal experiences that may be difficult to discuss and helping them find a supportive community.
Self-Confessed! is organized by Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, where it debuted in early 2018. The presentation at the Zimmerli is organized by Donna Gustafson, Curator of American Art and Mellon Director for Academic Programs.
Celebrity Culture: Photographs from the Collection of the Zimmerli Art Museum
September 1, 2018 to December 30, 2018 / Machaver Gallery
Photography has been used as a vehicle for celebrity from the moment of its invention in the 19th century and the photographic image continues to enable celebrity in the digital age. Drawn from the museum's collection, this exhibition examines the relationship between photography and celebrity from the 20th century into the present. Among the photographs on view are images of Hollywood glamour by Weegee, headshots by Philippe Halsman, Elliott Erwitt's portrait of the recently widowed Jackie Kennedy, a selection of Andy Warhol's Polaroid portraits, and sports celebrities such as Joe Namath, Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, and Dominique Moceanu, who were photographed by Walter Iooss and Annie Leibovitz.
Organized by Donna Gustafson, Curator of American Art and Mellon Director for Academic Programs, with the assistance of the undergraduate students of the Byrne Seminar "Celebrity and Photography: An Exhibition Seminar at the Zimmerli Art Museum"
Turning Pages: Illustrations by Lulu Delacre for Sonia Sotomayor's Life Story
September 15, 2018 to February March 17, 2019 / Duvoisin Gallery
Exhibition Press Release: http://bit.ly/DelacreSotomayor
In conjunction with U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's first memoir for young people, this exhibition emphasizes how books serve as a steadfast source of learning and solace, while providing rare insight into the process of illustrating children's books. Justice Sotomayor shares her inspiring story about growing up and her deep love of reading in Turning Pages: My Life Story, which will be published by Philomel Books on September 4, along with a Spanish version, Pasando páginas: La historia de mi vida. The exhibition features nearly 30 objects on loan from award-winning children's author and illustrator Lulu Delacre, including her oil and collage art, preparatory drawings, and research material, on public view for the first time. Bilingual labels, in English and Spanish, accompany the works. Ms. Delacre will speak at Art After Hours: First Tuesdays on October 2.
The Art of Turning Pages is on view in the Zimmerli's Duvoisin Gallery, dedicated to showcasing original artwork for children's books, educating audiences about the craft of book illustration, and emphasizing the important, early exposure to visual literacy that children gain through picture books. The exhibition is open during regular museum hours, Tuesday through Sunday. To schedule a class or group tour, please contact the Education Department (education@zimmerli.rutgers.edu) at least two weeks in advance. This exhibition is supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Organized by Nicole Simpson, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, and supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Picturing Labor in Nineteenth-Century France
September 29, 2018 to March 31, 2019 / Volpe Gallery
Urbanization and industrialization during the 19th century greatly impacted popular notions of work, particularly the contrast between traditional rural labor and new types of work available in cities. In response, French artists increasingly turned to labor as a subject for their figural compositions, updating traditional aspects of labor subjects and realistically portraying contemporary workers. This exhibition of prints and drawings focuses on depictions of labor, both rural and urban, by men and women. Jean-François Millet's works depicting sowers and harvesters inspired his contemporaries to explore such subjects, while other artists featured urban laborers, including builders and laundresses, as city life increased opportunities to observe varied types of work. Prints by Emile Bernard, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Henri Rivière, and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen demonstrate how these artists developed their labor subjects to advance their particular stylistic or social interests.
Organized by Christine Giviskos, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art
Timekeeping
September 29, 2018 to March 31, 2019 / Eisenberg Gallery
Individual perceptions of time vary, with minutes often feeling eternal, while years seem to flash by in an instant. Despite personal experiences, there is one constant: time is perpetually moving. This exhibition examines the ways that artists have traced, recorded, and interpreted the passage of time through prints, drawings, and photographs drawn from the museum's European, American, Japanese, and Russian collections. One of the most popular subjects in art, life's fleeting passage is explored through works ranging from Old Master to modern. The cyclical passage of time is marked through allegories of the seasons, from Renaissance harvest scenes to decorative botanicals and abstract renderings. Measuring time is chronicled in a series of calendars, including stylized Art Nouveau months and contemporary interpretations. Contemporary artists demonstrate innovative approaches to interpreting time through conceptual photographs and incorporating the passage of time into their own processes of art making.
Organized by Nicole Simpson, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings
Dialogues - The 60s Generation: Lydia Masterkova/Evgenii Rukhin
October 13, 2018 to March 17, 2019 / Dodge Wing Lower Level
This exhibition is the first in a series that pairs artists who were prominent in dissident circles, but whose careers have been overlooked by histories of unofficial art outside Russia. It includes major paintings by both artists, as well as a group of works on paper by others associated with the 1960s as a generation that has indelibly shaped the understanding of Russia's unofficial art world.
Lydia Masterkova (1929-2002) was associated with the Lianozovo group of artists and writers who gathered on the outskirts of Moscow in what had been a gulag (labor camp) for women. Her abstract paintings are often exhibited with those of her husband, Vladimir Nemukhin; however, she responded to the shared legacy of abstract painting in Russia more in the manner of Rukhin than other Lianozovo artists. Evgenii Rukhin (1943-1976) worked in Leningrad and was one of the figures closest to Norton Dodge, who was an avid collector of both artists' work. His paintings often incorporated the wording of official decrees, street signage, and debris, together with traces of religious imagery. In this respect, for Rukhin as for Masterkova, abstract painting retained an appeal not only as a signal of personal independence and avant-garde inheritance. Their paintings betray allusive layers of Russia's cultural past that bind them to their time and place.
Organized by Jane A. Sharp, Research Curator for Soviet Nonconformist Art, and Julia Tulovsky, Curator for Russian and Soviet Nonconformist Art, and made possible by the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund
Polymorphic Sculpture: Leo Amino's Experiments in Three Dimensions
October 20, 2018 to April 21, 2019 / Littman Gallery
The American sculptor Leo Amino (1911-1989) was born in Taiwan to Japanese parents and raised in Tokyo. He arrived in California as a student in 1929 and soon settled in New York where he briefly studied direct carving techniques under Chaim Gross. Interested in transparency, light, and a dialogue between interior form and outer structure, Amino explored different ways of opening up sculptural space and new materials like resin and plastic. His innovative and polymorphic sculpture drew from American modernism, European surrealism and constructivism, Henry Moore's biomorphic forms, and the new materials that were introduced into American manufacturing after World War II. Drawn primarily from the Zimmerli's collection, the exhibition includes examples of Amino's work in wood, plastic, and resin.
Organized by Donna Gustafson, Curator of American Art and Mellon Director for Academic Programs
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS
Impressions: Prints of Mexico, 1930s-40s / Impresiones: Estampas de México, 1930s-40s
Through September 23, 2018 / Eisenberg Gallery
Place on Stone: Nineteenth-Century Landscape Lithographs
Through September 23, 2018 / Volpe Gallery
Nevermore: Leonid Lamm, Selected Works
Through September 30, 2018 / Dodge Wing Lower Level
Stanley Twardowicz: Color Field Paintings, 1962-1990
Through October 14, 2018 / Littman Gallery
Three American Painters: David Diao, Sam Gilliam, and Sal Sirugo
Through July 28, 2019 / Lillien Gallery
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum houses more than 60,000 works of art, ranging from ancient to contemporary art. The permanent collection features particularly rich holdings in 19th-century French art; Russian art from icons to the avant-garde; Soviet nonconformist art from the Dodge Collection; and American art with notable holdings of prints. In addition, small groups of antiquities, old master paintings, as well as art inspired by Japan and original illustrations for children's books, provide representative examples of the museum's research and teaching message at Rutgers. One of the largest and most distinguished university-based art museums in the nation, the Zimmerli is located on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Established in 1766, Rutgers is America's eighth oldest institution of higher learning and a premier public research university.
Admission is free to the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers. The museum is located at 71 Hamilton Street (at George Street) on the College Avenue Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. The Zimmerli is a short walk from the NJ Transit train station in New Brunswick, midway between New York City and Philadelphia.
The Zimmerli Art Museum is open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., and select first Tuesdays of the month, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays, as well as the month of August.
PaparazZi Café is open Monday through Thursday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a variety of breakfast, lunch, and snack items. The café is closed weekends and major holidays, as well as the month of August.
For more information, visit the museum's website www.zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu or call 848.932.7237.
The Zimmerli's operations, exhibitions, and programs are funded in part by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and income from the Avenir Foundation Endowment and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment, among others. Additional support comes from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts and the Estate of Victoria J. Mastrobuono; and donors, members, and friends of the museum.
Videos