Press Release: Two Exclusive Summer Exhibitions on Display:
BOSTON COLLEGE McMULLEN MUSEUM OF ART SHOWCASES MASSACHUSETTS
ARTISTS IN UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS:
Refigured
and
Sarah
Westlake: Drawings <-> Sculpture
June 14 through August 29, 2004
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (5-5-04) - The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston
College will present two exclusive exhibitions this summer, which
will showcase artists from Massachusetts. The exhibitions—Refigured
and Sarah Westlake: Drawings <-> Sculpture—will
be on display from June 14 through August 29, 2004. McMullen Museum
Chief Curator Alston Conley is the principal curator for both
exhibitions.
"The McMullen is pleased to examine the work of these outstanding
local artists and to focus on their previously unexamined relationships
to one another," said McMullen Museum Director and Professor
of Art History Nancy Netzer.
[MEDIA NOTE: Images from the exhibitions are available upon request
from the McMullen Museum: call Naomi Blumberg (617) 552-4676.
Exhibition catalogues also are available.]
Opening Event: Monday, June 14
The public is invited to attend an opening reception at the McMullen
Museum on Monday, June 14 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The artists whose
work will be displayed in Refigured (see below) are expected to
attend the event. For more information, or to arrange attendance,
please call the McMullen Museum at (617) 552-8587.
This exhibition brings together for the first time works by six
Massachusetts artists to examine nontraditional representation
of the human. The artists-Todd McKie, Jo Sandman, Andrew Tavarelli
(a faculty member in BC's Fine Arts Department), Joseph Wheelwright,
Heidi Whitman and Leslie Wilcox-each invent a different visual
language, employing various media, to "refigure" the
complexity of the human condition.
Following in the footsteps of early Modern artists-like Pablo
Picasso, Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet, who were inspired by non-Western
tribal art, children's art and the art of the insane-each uses
the image of the human form as a springboard for exploration into
human experience.
Tavarelli, Wilcox and Sandman portray themes of mortality and
physical vulnerability; McKie, Wheelwright and Wilcox incorporate
humor and word play into their titles and imagery; and Sandman,
Wheelwright and McKie present correlations between human likeness
and natural forms.
Refigured will comprise 54 works of art, including paintings,
sculpture and photography. An illustrated catalogue, with essays
by Conley and co-curators Naomi Blumberg (McMullen Museum exhibition
coordinator) and Katherine Nahum (an adjunct assistant professor
in BC's Fine Arts Department), accompanies the exhibition.
Sarah Westlake, who died last year, came of age as an artist
during the 1940s and '50s, entering the cerebral male-dominated
world of abstract art. She was one of a handful of female artists
of her generation from the Boston area who had an accomplished
professional career.
This exhibition of twenty-six drawings, sculptures and folding
screens examines Westlake's mature work, from 1984-2002. Synthesizing
the structural elements found in the minimal reductive work of
Agnes Martin; the rich, decorative aspects of Henri Matisse, and
the flat space of Japanese prints and painted screens, Westlake's
oeuvre exudes a dynamic tension between unruly, natural forms
and planar structures.
"Westlake moved between media with complexity and variation,
graphically recording her creative thought process," writes
Conley in an essay in the accompanying catalogue. "These
works from the last eighteen years of her career show a searching,
personal visual language that was strongly felt, yet steeped in
restraint. They were exhibited, but perhaps not seen and appreciated
widely enough. I, for one, would have been poorer without having
viewed and known these works and the creative life they represent."
Between 1984 and 2002, Westlake alternated working in two and
three dimensions which, when viewed together, approximate a graphic
depiction of her creative process.
The accompanying illustrated catalogue also includes an essay
by exhibition co-curator Mary Armstrong, who met Westlake in the
mid-1980s and corresponded with the artist. Conley and Armstrong
are both faculty members in BC's Fine Arts Department.
Organized by the McMullen Museum, the summer exhibitions have
been underwritten by Boston College with major support from the
Patrons of the McMullen Museum of Art.
McMullen Museum
The McMullen Museum is renowned for organizing interdisciplinary
exhibitions that ask new questions and break new ground in the
display and scholarship of the works on view. It serves as a dynamic
educational resource for all of New England as well as the national
and the international community. The Museum displays its notable
permanent collection and mounts exhibitions of international scholarly
importance from all periods and cultures of the history of art.
The Charles S. and Isabella V. McMullen Museum of Art was named
in 1996 in honor of the late parents of Boston College benefactor,
trustee and art collector John J. McMullen. In keeping with the
University's central teaching mission, the Museum's exhibitions
are accompanied by scholarly catalogues and related public programs.
The 2003-04 academic year marks the 10th anniversary of the formal
reopening of the Museum.
McMullen Museum Hours
Admission to the McMullen Museum is free; it is handicapped accessible
and open to the public. The Museum is located in Devlin Hall on
the Chestnut Hill campus of Boston College, at 140 Commonwealth
Avenue.
From June through August, the McMullen Museum hours are as follows:
Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Sunday from noon
to 5 p.m. The Museum will be closed on July 4 and 5.
For directions, parking and additional information, visit the
web site at www.bc.edu/artmuseum or call (617) 552-8100.
