Tang Museum opens two new shows, offers lively summer agenda

Two shows opening July 14 at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery on the Skidmore campus are must-see additions to the Saratoga summer scene. The new exhibitions, combined with ongoing shows and a wide range of summer events, make the Tang a popular summer destination.

Terry Adkins Recital  (July 14-December 2, 2012)

Recitalbrings together a selection of work from the past 30 years by artist and musician Terry Adkins.Combining sculpture and live performance,Adkins has described his approach to art-making as being similar to that of a composer. His sculptures re-purpose and combine a range of materials, such fiberglass propellers, wooden coat hangers, parachute fabric, and a variety of musical instruments in a process that the artist calls "potential disclosure," which aims to reveal the dormant life in inanimate objects.

During performances with members of his Lone Wolf Recital Corps, Adkins activates these objects through improvisational playing and singing, spoken word, costumes, and recorded sound.These events intend to uphold the legacies of immortal and enigmatic figures such as Bessie Smith, John Brown, Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, Matthew Henson, and John Coltrane, among others. Adkins not only resuscitates individuals from historical erasure, but also sheds light on willfully neglected or ignored aspects in the lives of well-known figures, such as Ludwig van Beethoven's possible Moorish ancestry or Jimi Hendrix's military service as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne.

Adkins, whose work has been exhibited extensively in solo and group settings, is a professor of fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibit is curated by Ian Berry, the Tang's associate director and Susan Rabinowitz Malloy '45 Curator, and is accompanied by a career-spanning monograph on the artist. 
 
Dance/Draw(July 14-December 30, 2012)

Dance/Drawassembles work by nearly 40 artists to explore the multilayered relationship between contemporary dance and drawing through the past 50 years. The show looks at the ways in which dancing and drawing?two eloquent forms of expression, communication, and creativity?are profoundly linked to the body.

Since the mid-20th century, both dance and drawing in the Western world have changed radically, mirroring large shifts in contemporary society through the exploration of new forms and quest for increased freedom of expression. The works inthis exhibitionshare a treatment of the body as line in space, calling the body of the viewer into heightened awareness and perception in ways both intellectually stimulating and physically joyful.InDance/Drawvisual artists dance and dancers draw,revealing the many ways artists and dancers have explored the phenomenon of the line.

The exhibition is organized into four sections to explore these themes.In "More Than Just the Hand," new and often "bodily" ways in which drawings can be made are presented?Janine Antoni using her eyelashes and mascara, Trisha Brown making drawings with her feet, Mona Hatoum using human hair. The performance aspect of each of the works links them, both implicitly and explicitly, to the realm of dance.

The section, titled "The Line in Space," presents three-dimensional works including Ruth Asawa's hanging sculptures of crocheted wire and an entire room of crocheted fiber by Faith Wilding.

The third section, "Dancing," explores dance as it has been understood by both postmodern choreographers and contemporary visual artists?Charles Atlas's video "portrait" of choreographer Yvonne Rainer humorously presents her legendary challenge to traditional modern dance; J r me Bel's Veronique Doisneau (2005) attempts to demystify the ballet; Babette Mangolte's photographs and films of dancers Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs show us the dancing body, in its entirety, rigorously defining itself as a line in space; Senam Okudzeto uses dance to investigate the social and political differences between Western Europe and West Africa.

Finally, the section "Drawing" returns to drawing and a generation of younger artists for whom movement, performance, and drawing are intrinsically mixed. Here visual artists are interested in the relationship between the performing body and drawing?Silke Otto Knapp hauntingly traces photographic images of dancers onto luminous silver-painted canvases; Helena Almeida draws, and has herself photographed while doing so; and William Forsythe imagines his dancing body as a series of drawn lines, making the case that dance and drawing emanate from the same source.

Dance/Draw is organized by Helen Molesworth, chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Hatje Cantz.

Ongoing exhibitions

Also at the Tang are three continuing exhibitions: Hearing Pictures (through December 30), which explores the relationship between hearing and seeing through a selection of aurally evocative drawings, paintings, photographs, and prints from the Tang collection.Visitors are invited to create and record sounds they imagine in a selected work of art that rotates monthly.Twisted Domestic(through July 2)investigates the often hidden complexities of our relationships with home.The show explores the ways that home can be a site of charged relationships, a site of longing and loss. Other works transform common household objects to recapture the quirks and distortions of childhood imagination. The show isorganized by Alec Unkovic '12, the Tang Museum's Eleanor Linder Winter '43 Intern.Elevator Music 21, Doug Van Nort: Constellate (through October 14). Composed by the artist while inside the elevator, Constellate blurs the line between sound delivery system and acoustic instrument. There are no traditional speakers, but rather a set of physical objects that act as speakers themselves through Van Nort's use of sound transducers.

Summer events

The first of several Hearing Picturesperformances is set for July 22 at 3 p.m. in Winter Gallery, with area musicians Matthew Carefully, Elky, Doug Van Nort, and Matt Weston.

The public is invited to join Tang curatorial staff for tours every Tuesday at 1 p.m. through the end of August, as follows:

Terry Adkins Recital, July 17 and August 14; Dance/Draw, July 24, August 7, and August 28; Hearing Pictures and Twisted Domestic, July 10 and July 31; and behind the scenes museum tours on July 3 and August 21.

The Tang's popular Upbeat on the Roof series highlights regional musical talent in free concerts Fridays at 7 p.m. on the museum roof (or inside in case of inclement weather), as follows:

• Low 'N Lonesome, July 6; Holly and Evan, July 13; Street Corner Holler, July 20; The Blue Olives, July 27; Brian Patneaude Quartet, August 3; Steven L. Smith Band, August 10; Three Gals and their Buddy Larry, August 17; Deja Voodoos, August 24; and Bryan Thomas, August 31.

Summer Hours

The Tang Museum is open noon?5 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday, and open until 7 p.m. on Fridays during July and August. For more information call 518-580-8080 or visit skidmore.edu/tang.