Spartanburg Art Museum
200 East St. John St., Spartanburg, SC 29306
Phone: 864.582.7616
www.spartanburgartmuseum.org
Spartanburg Art Museum
200 East St. John St., Spartanburg, SC 29306
Phone: 864.582.7616
www.spartanburgartmuseum.org
A new exhibition featuring the work of 7 artists from as far away as Yugoslavia and as nearby as Muncie, Indiana opens this Thursday, June 15th at Spartanburg Art Museum (SAM). The artworks on view promise to be as varied as the backgrounds of their creators, ranging from massive wall drawings of hybridized human/animal forms to a Torah an artist has made from his own skin that depicts the opening sequence of the original 3 Star Wars movies.
The varied works in the exhibition depict the physical and psychological experiences of living, striking a delicate balance between pleasure and anguish, sacred and profane, life and afterlife. Canadian artist Corinne Duchesne makes her wall-sized collages by tearing apart and re-assembling her own paintings and drawings on transparent plastic. The resulting mixtures of contorted human and animal forms, complex layers of frenetic abstraction, and intentionally blank, hazy backgrounds are apt visual metaphors for the sensation of grief. Brooklyn-based Ari Richter uses his own skin as a material for artworks, dyeing it with tattoo inks and painstakingly arranging it in glass enclosures to recreate images from pop culture that are at once beautiful and unsettling. In the exquisite watercolors of Polish artist Monica Malewska, traditional subjects in decorative art such as butterflies, flowers, and fruit are paired with exquisitely rendered raw bacon, cheese puffs, and shirtless G.I. Joes. Meg Stein transforms banal materials used for hygiene like cotton swabs, toothpicks, and bandages into sculptures that could easily be mistaken for scientific specimens of formerly living insects, crustaceans, or invertebrates. While the works in the exhibition differ greatly in form and content, all provoke consideration of the conditional, fragile, and often strange nature of living in a human body.
Fans in the Upstate have come to expect such groundbreaking exhibitions from SAM, which recently shifted its exhibitions focus to all Contemporary Art. SAM is one of only a handful of Museums in the Southeast that exhibit such artwork, making it a destination for visitors from throughout the region and a sought-after exhibitions space for artists. What's more, Another Body - like all of SAM's exhibitions - was devised by the Museum's own Curatorial Staff and has never and will never be exhibited anywhere else. Curator of Collections Mat Duncan explains:
"People who visit SAM often ask where the exhibitions on view here have been shown before and where they'll be traveling next. They're always shocked to find out that our exhibitions are one-time only, bespoke offerings crafted by the SAM Curatorial Staff just for Spartanburg. Another Body is an excellent example of one of our typical exhibitions - exhibitions that are possible at SAM and nowhere else." - Mat Duncan, Curator of Collections
Another Body features the work of Corinne Duchesne, David Hannon, Vesna Jovanovic, Monika Malewska, Ari Richter, Edwina Sandys, and Meg Stein. The opening reception is Thursday, June 15th from 5-8pm and is free and open to the public. The exhibition will run from June 15th to September 10th. For more information, visit spartanburgartmuseum.org.
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The Spartanburg Art Museum was founded in 1907 by artists Margaret Law and Josephine Sibley Couper, with the view that "art should not just be the luxury of a few, but the luxury of all." Today, it is one of only a handful of Contemporary Art Museums operating in the Southeastern United States, supporting the creative capacities of the region through an international exhibitions program, youth outreach programs, an art school, a large permanent collection, and an extensive public art program and calendar of community events.
The Spartanburg Art Museum is a regional museum promoting contemporary visual arts by inspiring and engaging people of all ages through exhibitions and education.
Please feel free to contact our Community Development Coordinator and Curator of Collections, Mat Duncan, for more information.
Name: Mat Duncan
Phone: 864.582.7616 ext. 211
Email: mduncan@spartanarts.org
Social Media Handles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
pictured below: Bacon Wreath #1 by Monica Malewska. (2016). Watercolor. 24" x 29"
pictured below: An Iceberg Between the Shoulder Blades (Defense) by Meg Stein. (2015). Ear plugs, straws, rice, bath loofahs, tubing, plaster, clay. 24" x 26" x 16"
pictured below: Star Wars Torah by Ari Richter. (2016). Human skin and tattoo ink on glass. 21" x 28.5"