Three new shows to open at Tang Sept. 26
Recent artworks in media ranging from painting and ceramics to site-specific sculpture will go on view Sept. 26 in three new exhibitions opening at the Tang Teaching Museum. The shows include Nicole Eisenman: The Way We Weren't, which features recent paintings by the Brooklyn-based artist; Arlene Shechet: Blow By Blow, which will include the New York-based artist's new glazed ceramic works; and Type A: Barrier, a sculpture project by Type A,the collaborative team ofAdam Ames and Andrew Bordwin. All three exhibitions will run through Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010.
An opening reception celebrating the museum's fall and ongoing exhibitions will begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 26. The reception is free and open to the public.
Nicole Eisenman: The Way We Weren'twill feature a recent series of paintings that extend the artist's perceptive social commentary into the realm of human interaction and isolation. For the last fifteen years, Eisenman's psychologically revealing work has critiqued cultural and social norms associated with gender and sexuality, popular culture, and the current art scene. Influenced by Impressionist and German Expressionist paintings, her latest paintings depict scenes of street corners and beer gardens crowded with surly and melancholic figures, drowning their shared discontent in alcohol, and reveling in the anonymity of the crowd.
Arlene Shechet: Blow By Blowwill present the artist's latest body of work?glazed ceramic objects that float, twist, puff up, and deflate atop stacks of unadorned concrete, plaster, and steel. While Shechet has worked in sculpture for over two decades, these new works shift away from her earlier explorations of iconographic Buddhist imagery toward more abstract forms and combinations. Described by critic Roberta Smith as "sexy, devout, ugly, and beautiful all at the same time," Shechet's pieces deftly confound any single reading, as they hover in the fertile space between East and West, secular and sacred, and modern and ancient.
Type A's new site-specific installation, Barrier (2009), will fill the Tang Museum's atrium with numerous concrete sculptures modeled after Jersey barriers, the blocks used to direct traffic and secure urban sites from terrorist attacks. By curving each of their concrete forms in a 60-degree arc, the artists alter Jersey barriers' standard form. The project developed as a response to the heightened anxiety and fear that grew after the World Trade Center attacks. As Type A explains, the Jersey barrier's simple form "has insinuated itself into the environment without grace or apology, affecting the ways in which the population is permitted to circulate." Obtrusive yet graceful, Type A: Barrier will compel visitors to drastically alter their relationship to the museum space. A co-production of the Tang Museum; DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; and Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, the project will take on different configurations at the collaborating museums after its run at the Tang.
These new exhibitions will join several ongoing shows, including two that explore the history of the Hudson River, Lives of the Hudson and Elevator Music 15: Annea Lockwood: A Sound Map of the Hudson River. In the mezzanine gallery, the monthly-rotating exhibition Amazement Park: Stan, Sara, and Johannes VanDerBeek continues through April 25, 2010, and in the Winter gallery, Eduardo Paolozzi: General Dynamic F.U.N., which features the British Pop artist's 1965-70 print series, will remain open through November 1, 2009.
Tang Museum hours (Sept. 1 through May 31)are 10 a.m.?5 p.m., Tuesday?Friday; 10 a.m. ?9 p.m. Thursday; and noon?5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays. For more information call (518) 580-8080.