A Focus on American Art of the Late 20th Century at the Addison Gallery This Spring
Andover, MA (PRWEB) April 24, 2014 -- The Addison Gallery of American Art, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, will showcase a trio of exhibitions this spring that explore an important period of late 20th century American culture and art history, and reveal how art forms emerging from this time continue to influence art today. Carefully calibrated to complement and inform each other, the spring exhibitions include Loisaida: New York’s Lower East Side in the ’80s, which opened April 12, POP! Selections from the Collection, and Street Talk: Chris Daze Ellis in Dialogue with the Collection, both opening May 3. In conjunction with Street Talk, Chris Daze Ellis is the Addison’s Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence for the spring. All three exhibitions will be on view through July 31.
“During the 1960s through 1980s, groups of American artists created work of immediacy and cultural relevance, beginning with the Pop artists of the early ’60s, who appropriated mass-media imagery that reflected their time of economic prosperity,” said Susan Faxon, the Addison’s interim director. Later, as the country experienced political and financial upheaval, artists’ use of imagery and methods of expression changed to reflect the realities of their own experiences, as seen in movements such as Graffiti and Loisaida in the 1970s and ’80s. “The lessons from the powerful, complex, and ironic works produced during this intense and energetic time continue to inform the work of many of these same and other contemporary artists, as can be witnessed in Street Talk. With this fortunate confluence of exhibitions, we are looking forward to a lively, colorful, and thought-provoking season.”
In celebration of the new exhibitions, the Addison invites the public to attend an Artist’s Talk and Opening Reception on Sunday, May 4. At 2:00 p.m., Chris Daze Ellis will discuss his work and the exhibition Street Talk: Chris Daze Ellis in Dialogue with the Collection in Kemper Auditorium. The talk will be followed by the opening reception for the spring exhibitions, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., at the Addison. Both events are free and open to the public. For information, please visit addisongallery.org or call 978-749-4015.
On view this spring at the Addison will be:
Loisaida: New York’s Lower East Side in the ’80s, April 12–July 31
The decades leading up to the 1980s were a time of ferment and unrest in the country, triggered by events such as the Vietnam War, the bombing in Cambodia, the Kent State shootings, black power initiatives, gay riots at Stonewall Inn, and for the City of New York, the fiscal crisis in 1974. All of this set the stage in the early ’80s for what the Boston-based, avant-garde collector John P. Axelrod (Phillips Academy Class of 1964) has called “a roiling environment for the emergence of new and exciting art forms.” In Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a diverse group of young, disaffected artists known as Loisaida (the colloquial Latino pronunciation of Manhattan’s Lower East Side) worked in a wide range of media—painting, photography, performance, film, and poetry—developing works that focused unflinchingly on death, homosexuality, drugs, and societal decay. It is Loisaida’s uniquely American expression that has captured Axelrod’s most recent collecting enthusiasm and has resulted in the selection from his personal collection that is presented in this exhibition.
Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by the Morris Tyler Fund.
POP! Selections from the Collection, May 3–July 31
Characterized by bright, explosive, and accessible imagery, Pop Art was unlike any other movement of the 20th century in its instant popularity and its all-encompassing cultural impact. Emerging in the U.S. in the early 1960s, a time of unprecedented economic prosperity, Pop Art explored the image world of a rapidly growing consumer society. Taking inspiration from advertising, pulp magazines, billboards, movies, television, comic strips, and shop windows, and basing their techniques and style on aspects of media and mass reproduction, artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol blurred the lines between art and commodity in humorous, witty, and often ironic works that can be seen as both celebrations and critiques of popular culture. POP! includes prints, sculptures, paintings, and artists’ books drawn from the permanent collection, many never before exhibited at the Addison.
Street Talk: Chris Daze Ellis in Dialogue with the Collection, May 3–July 31
A member of the “second generation” of New York graffiti artists, Chris Ellis—best known by his street name, Daze—has been hailed as one of the most important ‘writers’ of his time. Daze began his career in graffiti as a teenager in the 1970s, tagging subway cars alongside Crash, Seen, Lady Pink, and Futura. Turning his focus from trains to canvas in the early 1980s, Daze has been one of the most successful graffiti artists of his generation to transition from street to studio. Using spray paint in combination with the more traditional media of oil and acrylic to capture the energy and essence of the urban scene, Daze’s large-scale paintings are a provocative blend of spontaneity and control, abstraction and representation. This exhibition presents recent works in juxtaposition with a group of paintings, prints, and photographs chosen by the artist from the Addison’s permanent collection. Revealing intriguing and unexpected resonances in artistic approach, theme, and subject matter, this conversation not only sets Daze’s work within the context of American art history, but also provides new insight to some of the museum’s familiar favorites.
Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by the Mark Rudkin Fund.
Additional information about the Addison’s spring exhibitions may be found on the Addison’s website at http://www.addisongallery.org/exhibitions.
Spring Programs at the Addison
In addition to the Artist’s Talk and Opening Reception, the Addison announces the following programs in conjunction with its spring 2014 exhibitions. All are free and open to the public, and all take place at the Addison unless otherwise indicated. Find more information about our programs and visiting the Addison at http://www.addisongallery.org/visitus.
Gallery Talk for Loisaida: New York’s Lower East Side in the ‘80s
Sunday, April 27, 2:00 pm
Style Wars: Film Screening and Discussion
Wednesday, April 30, 6:00 pm
Drop-In Family Day
Sunday, May 18, 2:00–4:00 pm
Community Conversation: Reflections on Narratives of the Civil War
Wednesday, May 21, 6:00 pm
Gallery Talk for POP! Selections from the Collection
Sunday, June 22, 2:00pm
The Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, is open to the public from Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Sunday 1:00–5:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on Mondays, national holidays, December 24, and the month of August. Admission to all exhibitions and events is free. The Addison Gallery also offers free education programs for teachers and groups. For more information, call 978-749-4015, or visit the website at http://www.addisongallery.org.
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About the Addison Gallery of American Art
Devoted exclusively to American art, the mission of the Addison Gallery of American Art is to acquire, preserve, interpret, and exhibit works of art for the education and enjoyment of all. Opened in 1931, the Gallery has one of the most important collections of American art in the country that includes more than 17,000 works by prominent American artists such as George Bellows, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock, as well as photographers Eadweard Muybridge, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and many more. The Addison Gallery, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, offers a continually rotating series of exhibitions and programs, all of which are free and open to the public. For more information, call 978-749-4015, or visit the website at http://www.addisongallery.org.
Rebecca Mongeon, Addison Gallery of American Art, http://www.addisongallery.org, +1 (978) 749-4342, [email protected]
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