Past Exhibitions: 2009
January 13 – May 10, 2009 | Joel and Carole Bernstein Gallery for Works on Paper
Aaron Siskind: The Thing Itself
Aaron Siskind (1903–1991) is best known for his abstract photographs, often of natural forms or architectural features that were manipulated in order to produce unfamiliar images. Siskind minimized the importance of literal representation by carefully distinguishing between a photograph of something—which is a distinct, flat object shaped by the photographer’s perception—and his fully three-dimensional subject or “the thing itself.” This intimate exhibition combined key images from Siskind’s first forays into abstraction with the artist’s own eloquent writings in order to examine the tension inherent in his work: between the artist’s perception and the literal representation of an object.
Curator: Rachel Furnari, Smart Museum curatorial intern and PhD candidate in art history, in consultation with Richard A. Born, Smart Museum senior curator.
April 2 – September 6, 2009 | Richard and Mary L. Gray Gallery for Special Exhibitions
Your Pal, Cliff: Selections from the H. C. Westermann Study Collection
Horace Clifford (H. C.) Westermann (1922–1981) created a meticulously crafted and highly personal body of work that defies easy categorization. He blended imagery born of profound personal experiences—especially apparent in the Death Ship and other motifs related to his searing experiences in World War II—with bawdy, absurd, or unsettling elements from contemporary American material culture. This comprehensive and revealing new exhibition offers fresh insight into the work and life of this singular American artist. Drawing largely on material that has never been exhibited before, Your Pal, Cliff brought to light for the first time the full scope of the H. C. Westermann Study Collection. The collection—established at the Smart Museum through donations by the estate of the artist’s wife, Joanna Beall Westermann, and enhanced by gifts from the artist’s family and others—includes correspondence, sketchbooks, print blocks, gift objects, photographic documentation, tools, and unfinished projects in addition to rich holdings of finished sculptures, drawings, and prints. Your Pal, Cliff mixed art with objects of a more archival nature in order to detail Westermann’s signature themes, legendary sense of craft, and the convergence of his life and art.
Curators: Rachel Furnari and Michael Tymkiw, both PhD candidates in art history at the University of Chicago and Smart Museum curatorial interns, in consultation with Richard A. Born, Smart Museum Senior Curator.
This exhibition and related programs was made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
May 5 – October 18, 2009 | Edward A. and Inge Maser Gallery for Art Before 1900
The Scholar's Studio: Selections from the Edward A. and Inge Maser Collection
Edward A. Maser was the first director of the Smart Museum and a scholar of the baroque. A professor of art history at the University of Chicago, he shaped the early years of the Museum, guiding the development of its artistic and academic character through judicious acquisitions of medieval, Old Master, and nineteenth-century paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Together with his wife, Inge, Professor Maser also formed a distinguished personal collection on modest means that was informed by both enthusiasm and a scholar's eye. The Masers acquired rich examples of such specialized genres as oil sketches (which served as studies for independent easel paintings and fresco cycles) and small ensembles of works from such celebrated European cultural centers as the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. In 2008, the Smart Museum received a bequest of twenty-seven of these paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. The Scholar's Studio featured not only select pieces from the bequest but also other works in the Museum's collection the couple donated during their lifetimes. The exhibition examined the scholarly facet of collecting, offering an intimate view of Ed and Inge Maser's enduring relationship with the Smart Museum.
Curator: Richard A. Born, Smart Museum Senior Curator.
This was the inaugural exhibition in the Smart Museum's newly dedicated Edward A. and Inge Maser Gallery for Art Before 1900.
May 19 – August 30, 2009 | Joel and Carole Bernstein Gallery for Works on Paper
Malleable Likeness and the Photographic Portrait
Although portraits have been produced for centuries in a variety of media, photography has played a pivotal role in the genre's history. To a large extent, the photographic portrait's popularity stemmed from the medium's capacity to quickly and inexpensively reproduce a sitter's appearance with an unprecedented degree of mimetic detail. At the same time, photographers have consistently complicated the notion that a photographic portrait faithfully reproduces a sitter's physiognomy. This exhibition—which includes works by Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Berenice Abbott, and Vik Muniz, among others—considers the malleable role of likeness in portrait photography from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The exhibition features photographs generously loaned to the Smart Museum from the collection of Lester and Betty Guttman.
Curator: Michael Tymkiw, PhD candidate in art history at the University of Chicago, in consultation with Jessica Moss, Smart Museum Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, and Stephanie Smith, Smart Museum Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art.
October 1, 2009 – January 17, 2010 | Richard and Mary L. Gray Gallery for Special Exhibitions
Heartland
Throughout the vast interior of the United States, contemporary artists are responding to the world around them and reshaping it in unexpected ways. Organized by the Smart Museum of Art and the Van Abbemuseum, one of Europe’s premier contemporary art institutions, this exhibition offered an idiosyncratic look at the innovative forms of artistic creation taking place in the American Heartland. Heartland featured site-specific installations and performances as well as drawing, photography, and video by artists and artist groups working in—and in response to—Detroit, Kansas City, and other cities and rural communities across the region. The exhibition premiered new commissions and presented recent works by Carnal Torpor, Compass Group, Cody Critcheloe, Jeremiah Day, Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop, Design 99, Scott Hocking, Kerry James Marshall, Greely Myatt, Marjetica Potrč, Julika Rudelius, Artur Silva, Deb Sokolow, and Whoop Dee Doo. Together with an extensive series of programs and lectures, Heartland challenged our understandings of place, community, and the role of contemporary art in our changing world.
Exhibition catalogue available in the Smart Museum shop
Curators: Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Kerstin Niemann, Research Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, and Stephanie Smith, Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smart Museum of Art.
The exhibition was co-organized by the Smart Museum of Art and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Van Abbemuseum's presentation of Heartland took place from October 3, 2008 to February 8, 2009. In Eindhoven, the project consisted of a group exhibition in the Van Abbemuseum together with a musical program in the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips.
Major funding for the Smart Museum's presentation of Heartland was provided by Janis Kanter and Thomas McCormick and the Kanter Family Foundation. Generous support was also provided by the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation and the University of Chicago's Arts Council. Major support for the Heartland project was made available by Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
