Untitled (Pink Dot)

September 1, 2020 - September 30, 2020

In Untitled (Pink Dot), Takeshi Murata transforms footage from the 1982 Sylvester Stallone film Rambo: First Blood into a swamp of seething electronic abstraction. Subjected to Murata’s meticulous digital reprocessing, the action scenes decompose and are subsumed into an almost palpable, cascading digital sludge, presided over by a hypnotically pulsating pink dot. Murata produces digital works that refigure the experience of animation. Whether altering appropriated footage from cinema, or creating fields of seething color, he produces astonishing visions that appear at once organic and digital.

Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle

July 11, 2020 - September 27, 2020

Referencing the past, present, and future, Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle examines the shaping of one of the most important freshwater systems—the Great Lakes. Considered one of the most ecologically significant environments in the world, the lakes are habitats for more than 3,500 species of amphibians, birds, fish, and plants. The artworks in this exhibition—including five 12-foot panoramic paintings—are based on the artist’s extensive research. While celebrating the natural majesty and global importance of the Great Lakes, Rockman also explores how one of the world’s most significant ecosystems is threatened by human forces including climate change, pollution, invasive species, mass agriculture, and urban sprawl. 

Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle is organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum, with support generously provided by the Wege Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Frey Foundation, and LaFontsee Galleries and Framing.

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Jan Matulka: The Unknown Modernist

July 6, 2020 - September 6, 2020

Closing soon, this exhibition examines Jan Matulka’s role in the development of modern art in the United States, focusing on the students he taught and other early modernist artists who were similarly approaching their art. Born in Vlachovo Březí, Bohemia, in 1890, Matulka immigrated to the United States where he studied at the National Academy of Design in New York. After graduating, he traveled to Paris, experiencing first-hand the avant-garde through exhibitions he visited and artworks he studied. While living in New York City, Matulka taught at the Art Students League, where he became the first instructor to introduce modern art to his students.

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Black Matters

July 6, 2020 - October 11, 2020

This exhibition features a series of woodcut prints by artist Matthew Owen Wead. Each print depicts a Black individual who was killed by police officers or armed vigilantes. Many of the perpetrators were later exonerated of the crimes in which they were charged. These artworks are Wead’s way of confronting a system that is intended to protect everyone yet has subjugated and brutalized so many, and to remind everyone that Black matters.

Although the initial series was completed in 2009, Wead explains that it “has now become a never-ending and daunting task.” Included in this exhibition are three new prints portraying Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery.

From the Artist

"On a daily basis, every moment, black folks are being bombarded with images of our death and after a while that does something to your psyche. It's literally saying, ‘black people, you might be next. You will be next.’ But in hindsight it will be better for our nation, the less of our kind, the more safe it will be." - Patrisse Kahn-Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter

The intention of this series grew out of the pain he felt hearing, seeing, and reading about the unnecessary brutal force enacted on to these victims. To peer into their eyes was to show another point of view—to maybe strike empathy in the audience—and to allow them to think about how they would react in a similar situation. The title of the series, Shooting Targets, came from the reckless abandon that has been shown and addressed to black people, in both the interactions and then the aftermath, as an afterthought. Black people have become target practice, thrown away, and erased when the next news cycle hits. There is a repetition in the process of killing us without any repercussions for doing so, and sometimes being rewarded to do so. 

This was not meant to be a continuing series—it has now become a never-ending and daunting task. While this is meant to serve from the perspective of the artist, his statement is to look into the eyes of Black queer, trans, and all Black lives that are subjugated and brutalized under a system that was meant to protect them. Unfortunately, there are countless examples that could be included in this series—never to completion—and seems that it will never end in our lifetimes.

matthewowenwead.com

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Soot

March 1, 2020 - March 31, 2020

Soot follows a narrative of hand-drawn figures whose forms are constantly changing, erasing, and appearing. The artist switches the medium from charcoal on paper to marker on plexiglass throughout and manipulates the paper by tearing and taping. Erin Pollock graduated from Whitman College and did postgraduate studies at Gage Academy in Seattle and Studio Art Centers International in Florence before receiving an MFA from the New York Academy of Art, where she is currently a postgraduate Fellow.

Community

January 26, 2020 - April 19, 2020

Community highlights some of the most important African American artists in the FIA’s collection. Through paintings, sculpture, drawings, and photographs, this exhibition shows the diversity as well as the commonalities of African American art, encompassing thematic areas of people, place, and perspective. From portraits of well-known subjects such as Rosa Parks and Claressa Shields to less familiar individuals, these works reflect community. Place is portrayed through real locations and those imagined that nonetheless invite reflection. Lastly, perspective is offered through various lenses from realism to abstraction. 

Community Choice

Unique to this exhibition, visitors were able to vote for one of three works on loan by artists not currently in the collection. Voting took place through March 8, 2020. Using funds raised by the Community Gala, the work with the largest number of votes will be purchased by the museum. The work chosen by the community was Stephen Towns's The Gift of Lineage #5.

The voting process and subsequent purchase reinforce the notion that the objects in the FIA’s collection belong to the public while emphasizing the collection’s capacity for change and future growth.

The Gift of Lineage #5, 2018. Stephen Towns, American, b. 1980. Acrylic, Bristol board, metal leaf, natural and synthetic fabric, polyester and cotton thread on wood panel, 36 x 24 inches. On loan from De Buck Gallery, New York. Stephen Towns is an American painter working primarily in oil, acrylic, and fibers. His work explores how American history influences contemporary society. Born in Lincolnville, South Carolina, in 1980, he received his BFA from the University of South Carolina. He lives and works in Baltimore. He has been exhibited locally and nationally and his work is in private and public collections, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City.

Useful and Beautiful: Decorative Arts Highlights

November 16, 2019 - July 26, 2020

Artfully crafted but functional items like vases, teacups, and flatware are often called decorative arts. The term was created in Europe after the Renaissance to distinguish these items from painting and sculpture. This exhibition explores an array of decorative arts including glass by Auguste Jean and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Prior to the 19th century, most glass manufacturers were aiming for pristine, almost machine-made, objects. However, some artists were seeking a different, more handcrafted, quality. In the 1870s, Auguste Jean gained attention by abstracting traditional vessel forms. While the glass was still malleable, he used tools to create protrusions and ripples in the glass. He later decorated the surface with enameled and engraved designs. Louis Comfort Tiffany applied innovative glassmaking techniques to his nature-inspired designs. Favrile glass—a term coined by Tiffany in 1894—was made to resemble ancient vessels, which, when excavated from archeological sites, had an iridescent surface. Tiffany achieved a similar look by spraying metallic salts on hot glass, a new technique that created a lustrous finish.

SSS

November 1, 2019 - November 30, 2019

The self-proclaimed “grandmother of performance art,” Marina Abramović collaborated with multi-media artist Charles Atlas to create SSS, an autobiographical performance in which Abramović delivers a personal chronology. This brief narrative history, which references her past in the former Yugoslavia, her performance work, and her collaboration with and separation from long time partner Ulay, is intercut with images of her engaged in symbolic gestures and ritual acts, such as scrubbing her feet or staring like Medusa as snakes writhe on her head. Closing her litany with the phrase “Time past, time present,” the artist invokes the personal and the mythological in a poignant affirmation of self.

Harmony in Expression: The Myron and Barbara Levine Print Collection

October 19, 2019 - January 12, 2020

This exhibition highlights the recent gifts of Myron and Barbara Ruth Levine, who, as collectors, acquired works that held expressive meaning for them. Many of the artists were part of a group in the late 1940s called CoBrA (taken from the first letters of the cities in which they lived: Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam), including three of the movement’s founders, Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, and Guillaume Corneille, who are featured in this exhibition. CoBrA artists were interested in automatism—the act of creating art without conscious thought. In their manifesto, the group stated that they practiced “freedom of color and form.” Other CoBrA artists used the idea of the freedom of form and expression in their works.

Industry

October 5, 2019 - December 30, 2019

The development of industry in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries greatly affected artists striving to capture the spirit of the nation by using local subject matter. This exhibition reflects artists’ reactions to the rapid industrial changes, in both straightforward and complex ways. Some artists portrayed these scenes optimistically, such as Robert Riggs and Alexander Levy, who praised the monumentality of the machine. Other artists, such as Arthur Lehmann, portrayed industry in a more critical light, depicting the human and environmental impact as a dark, foreboding presence.