 | greenville business & community directory |
|
The Greenville County Museum of Art embraces the objet d’art in a revolutionary way this month, offering a national exhibition that features the work of fifteen artists who created contemporary realist paintings, each of which contains five common objects. The exhibition, titled Object Project, will be on view in Greenville from through April 6, 2008.
The idea for Object Project grew from a conversation among several mid-career artists residing in locations across the United States, in cities as far-flung as Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and Longmont, Colorado. Many of the artists have a national profile. All are full-time artists, and most are represented in the collections of major museums across the United States. Several of the fifteen were friends and knew one another’s work; others were invited to take part for the contribution they could make. As the concept matured, the artists formed a steering committee, structured the requirements for the paintings, and assembled a plan to market the exhibition. The objects (a clear glass of water, a hand mirror, a bone, a moth, and ball of string) were selected by vote. Each artist received a box containing six identical objects, although they were allowed to alter the pieces in a variety of ways. Colorado painter Scott Fraser created a multi-perspective in Three Way Vanitas, 2006 (seen on the left) which presents the five objects framed by and reflected in a three-paneled mirror. Fraser calls it “a riff on the Vanitas concept”—a symbolic still life painting common during the Renaissance. Robert Jackson, a North Carolina native who now resides in Pennsylvania, brought the five objects together in Daredevil (above) using colorful, old-fashioned bottle carriers. There’s a test in this image: the wooden boxes mention the cities where Object Project will be exhibited. The paintings travel very different paths; as a result, the exhibition is an interesting test of observation as well as an exploration of realist and hyper-realist art. In some, the five objects are fully revealed. In others, one or more is hidden or blended into the imagery. Painter Skip Steinworth of Stillwater, Minnesota, painted a box containing the objects just as it arrived—with the objects still inside. The imagery is challenging for adults as well as children. Gallery exercises intended for children might be just as interesting for adults. Artists who teach classes in the Center for Museum Education will try their hand in a similar exercise and talk about it at 6:30 on Thursday, March 13. The Evansville Museum of Arts, History, and Science organized the exhibition and its travel to other locations. In addition to Evansville and Greenville, Object Project will be seen in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Englewood, Colorado. Find a schedule of locations and dates along with visual examples at http://theobjectproject.com. A full color catalogue on the exhibition is for sale in the Museum Shop. The Greenville County Museum of Art is located on Heritage Green, just three blocks from Main Street in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. The Museum opens at 11:00 Tuesday–Saturday and at 1:00 on Sunday, closing at 5:00 except on Thursday, when the galleries remain open until 8:00. Admission is always absolutely free. For information, call 864/271-7570 or see http://www.greenvillemuseum.org. (Image provided by the Greenville County Museum.)
|
