Curtis Weatherall (American, born 1968)
Which Way, This Way, 2003.
Wood, steel, plaster and paint.

 

 

Sue Turconi (American, born 1939)  
Read This, 2002.  Acrylic on canvas.  

underCURRENT/overVIEW 7

Through September 26, 2004

Inaugurated in 1997, the underCURRENT/overVIEW exhibition was conceived as a showcase for contemporary artists living and working in the Tampa Bay region.  The seventh installment of the exhibition includesd 14 of the area's most innovative and cutting edge artists of today.

The museum reviewed many submissions from artists throughout Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties.  Such a broad selection provided an opportunity to bring together contemporary art of great quality, but also one that represented the variety of media, subject matter and artistic approaches that thrive in the region.

The artists featured in the exhibition were:

Wendy Babcox
Tonya Clay
Elizabeth Coffman and Ted Hardin
Sheryl Haler
Julie Davis
Dee Hood
Douglas Loewen
Mark Petty
A.A. Rucci
John Sims
Peg Trezvant
Susan Turconi
Curtis Weatherall
Jeff Whipple

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Tampa Bay Lightning's Tim Taylor sits in his locker gathering his thoughts before the start of game three of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Calgary Flames on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 in Calgary, Alberta. (Tampa Bay Lightning Photo/Scott Audette) Focused Passion -- The Tampa Bay Lightning's Quest for the 2004 Stanley Cup Championship September 1 - 22, 2004 A collection of 26 beautifully framed photographs by Tampa Bay Lightning team photographer Scott Audette were exhibited at the Tampa Museum of Art from September 1-21. These powerful off-ice photographs hae never been seen before and represented the emotions and true determination of the Lightning during the Stanley Cup Finals vs. the Calgary Flames.  Audette was granted unprecedented access to the team during the Finals in order to capture the behind-the-scenes moments that led to the Lightning’s rise to the top of the hockey world. From team meetings and pre-game preparation to stitches by team doctors during intermissions – Audette was there to capture it all both in Tampa and Calgary . CROSSCURRENTS AT CENTURY'S END: Selections from the Neuberger Berman Art Collection January 25, - April 11, 2004 Fatimah Tugger (born 1967, Kaduna, Nigeria)  Bath Time, 1999.  Computer montage, 48 x 52 1/2"  Photo courtesy Binta Zarah Studios, Brooklyn, NY.   Neuberger Berman Art Collection.     Michael Bevilacqua (American, born 1966)  Do You Remember the First Time? 1998.   Acrylic on Canvas.   Neuberger Berman Art Collection    Thomas Struth (born 1954, Geldem, Germany)  Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, 1991. C-print, 74x96" Photo courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.   Neuberger Berman Art Collection. Exhibition Sponsor was

Crosscurrents at Century’s End: Selections from the Neuberger Berman Art Collection was an exceptional exhibition of 55 innovative paintings, sculptures and photographs showcasing the range of contemporary art produced primarily in the last five years. The exhibition explores such themes as: the influence of popular culture; the tradition of abstraction; the human condition; the role of whimsy; and personal responses to social and political events. Many of the artists whose works were on view in the exhibition have created some of the most important contemporary art of the last century. Some of the artists with international reputations represented in the exhibition included: Andreas Gursky, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Thomas Struth, Sam Taylor-Wood, Laylah Ali and more. One characteristic of much painting in recent years is its relatively up-beat nature. Artists in the show who tend toward the whimsical include Michael Bevilacqua, Sharon Ellis, Michael Lazarus, David Moreno, and Takashi Murakami. Whimsy also plays a role in the metaphorical images of Liza May Post and the droll images of Vik Muniz both of whom may challenge many preconceptions about photography. The exhibiton included works that ranged from a fascinating revisiting of tradition to work that appeared startlingly new. The focus is on individual works of art rather than on the representation of a movement or direction.  This exhibition offered visitors to Tampa Museum of Art a unique chance to see a variety of work by many of the most exciting artists working today. While their work has been widely seen in major galleries and museums, this was a special opportunity to view their work in Tampa. Crosscurrents at Century’s End was a collection belonging to the Neuberger Berman Investment Corporation. Art in the workplace has been a part of Neuberger Berman’s corporate culture since the investment firm was founded in 1939. In 1990 Neuberger Berman began developing its own art collection, emphasizing the work of emerging mid-career artists from around the world and presenting their works in an enriching environment for employees and visitors. Their collecting philosophy is open-ended and celebrates contemporary art’s diversity with no dominating style or media. The exhibition was accompanied by an extensive catalogue by Exhibition Curator, I. Michael Danoff that is still available for purchase in the Guilders Museum Store.

WILLIE COLE: Sources & Metamorphoses

February 8 - April 4, 2004

This exciting exhibition of sculpture, photographs, and prints by contemporary artist Willie Cole confronted and questions issues of race, history, art history, spirituality, and consumer consumption through the simplest of means: allusion and metaphor. Cole began gaining national prominence as an artist in the late 1980s. Although his subject matter and themes have evolved over time, the artist has consistently combined elements of his personal history with the collective history of African Americans in his work.

By carefully choosing his "signifier," Cole challenges an object’s interpretation by twisting it into an icon of complex associated meanings. This transfiguration requires the viewer to spend some time looking at the objects, pondering their form and substance in order to understand their metaphoric depth.

Photographs of old irons evoke African masks; found bicycle parts have been reconstructed to suggest sculptures of African antelope (quoting and punning the great 20th-century master Pablo Picasso and his Bull’s Head); and paintings with scorched surfaces suggest the branding of skin— in tribal scarification rituals, slavery practices, and the current fashion of tattooing and piercing the body.

Such associations instill the works with numerous references, meanings, and ways of seeing: with a sense of playfulness, whimsicality and humor or, at times, offering more poignant commentary on larger, unwieldy themes, such as the spiritual beliefs of the Yoruba and Fon of West Africa or issues of race, identity, or mass production. Ultimately, however, the strength of Cole’s work lies in its emotional resonance and open-ended discourse, not in any exacting interpretations.

Willie Cole was born in New Jersey and lives and works there today. He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, the School of Visual Arts in New York (from which he received his B.F.A. in 1976), and the Art Students League in New York. He has won numerous awards and grants and has exhibited his art throughout the United States. His work can be found in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The artist is represented by Alexander and Bonin Gallery in New York, and will present a talk in Tampa during the course of the exhibition.

Local sponsor for the Willie Cole Exhibition was:

Image above:  Willie Cole (American, born 1955), Pleasure, 2000.  Porcelain and metal fixtures.  

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864 - 1901), 
Aristide Bruant, Ambassadeurs, 1892. 
Color brush and tusche and spatter lithograph.  
The Baltimore Museum of Art: 
Nelson and Juanita Greif Gutman Collection, BMA 1951.69.4

Toulouse-Lautrec: Master of the Moulin Rouge

November 2, 2003 - January 11, 2004

Toulouse-Lautrec: Master of the Moulin Rouge was a showcase of daring and colorful lithographic prints and posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, one of France’s most colorful artists and a great modern master. Also included in the exhibit are works by Toulouse-Lautrec’s contemporaries, many of which recount the raucous lifestyles of artists and performers living in Montmartre, a bohemian section of Paris during the 19th century.

Highly collectible since they were first produced, these lithographic prints are a powerful reflection of French 19th century popular culture— particularly the colorful entertainers, courtesans and bon vivants of turn-of-the-century Parisian nightlife and the Moulin Rouge. Throughout the 1890s, the theaters, newspapers and art journals of Paris were awash in color lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec and his fellow artists, who saw little separation between commercial work and fine art. Together these artists charted new ground in the exciting medium of color lithography.

The selection of 65 works, drawn from The Baltimore Museum of Art’s extensive collection of 19th century prints, included many well-known images, such as Aristide Bruant in His Cabaret, Jane Avril and Divan Japonais. Additionally, works by Lautrec’s colleagues, including Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis and Theophile Steinlein, are featured.

Born to the aristocratic family of the Counts of Toulouse, Toulouse-Lautrec was short of stature and of limited mobility, due to a physical malady. However, that didn’t stop him from creating some of the world’s best known works of art. Lautrec’s art illustrated the alternative Montmatre culture and its performers, including can-can dancer Jane Avril, her partner "Valentin the Boneless," and Mademoiselle Eglantine (Miss Wild Rose Flower), many of whom are featured in this exhibition.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s development of the print medium, as well as his unconventional subject matter, inspired artists such as Georges Rouault, Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh. Toulouse-Lautrec’s prolific output diminished only with his deteriorating health: he died at age 36. This exhibition is organized and circulated by The Baltimore Museum of Art.

Toulouse-Lautrec: Master of the Moulin Rouge recreated the bold and dynamic atmosphere of the French capital at the end of the 19th century. 

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Voces y Visiones: Highlights from 
El Museo del Barrio's Permanent Collection

Through October 19, 2003 

 Voces y Visiones: Highlights from El Museo del Barrio's Permanent Collection featured 100 works of art from a variety of media and cultures that are considered the overall “highlights” of El Museo del Barrio’s permanent collection, which spans from pre-Columbian artifacts to contemporary Latino works.  

The variety and richness of artworks and “voices” in this exhibition derive from El Museo del Barrio’s mission to represent and include, beyond the founding Puerto Rican community, all the Latin American communities that are transforming El Barrio, New York City, and the United States at large.  The exhibition featured art from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and U.S. and is divided into eight general themes: Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead; The Taínos and Their Legacy; Santos & Devotional Art; Voudou & Orisha Worship; Animals & Transformation; Patterning & Worldviews; Politics & Art; and Abstraction & Process.  Organized and circulated by El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY  

For more information about El Museo del Barrio link to their website:  http://www.elmuseo.org/

Unknown Artist, from Metepec, Mexico, Tree of Life 
Candelabra (Candelabro del Arbol de la Vida) ca. 1980 .
Painted Ceramic.  Gift of Margery Nathanson.  
Collection of El Museo del Barrio, New York.

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Modern Art in Florida (1948-1970): 
A Climate for Contemporary – Tampa Bay

Through July 6, 2003

Guest curated by Mark Ormond, this exhibition focused on artists who traveled to, resided in, or exhibited at museums or galleries in Florida during the period between 1948 and 1970.  Work by Syd Solomon, a resident of Sarasota since 1946, was an important part of this exhibition as he was the catalyst for the exchange among the other artists, most notably James Brooks, Conrad Marca-Relli, and Philip Guston.

(Right) Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1883-1971)
Visage rieur, 1940.  Gouache on paper
Private Collection, courtesy Jan Krugier 
Gallery, New York

(Above) Manierre Dawson (American, 1887-1969)
Lucrece, 1911.  Oil on canvas
Ringling Museum of Art, Purchase 1967 

Solomon was involved in establishing a visiting artists program at New College that, in its three-year existence, brought these artists to Sarasota as workshop instructors.  Also important to the area was Chick Austin who arrived in 1946 to be the Ringling Museum of Art’s first director.  As the Tampa Museum embarks on a major expansion it is important to look at an earlier period that also nurtured the new and committed to the now in art.  Examples of Modernism, Surrealism, Abstraction, Collage, Pop and Realism will be part of the exhibition.  Organized by the Tampa Museum of Art.

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MAGNA GRAECIA
Greek Art from Italy and South Sicily

February 2 - April 20, 2003

Link to the Magna Graecia Website:

http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibcef/mgtampa/khtml/front.html 

 
Youth of Agrigento (about 480 BC)
Agrigento
Marble, East Greek
Museo Archeologico Regionale di Agrigento, inv. C 1853
Photo by Bruce White

Magna Graecia: Greek Art from South Italy and Sicily brought masterworks of Western Greek art from eight Italian archaeological museums to America for the first time.

The Greek colonization of South Italy and Sicily was a cultural "big bang." From the 8th through the 6th centuries BC they founded new cities similar to those they left behind but on a grander scale. Life in Western Greece was more exuberant, its temples bigger, and its cities more prosperous. Interactions with local populations added to the region's dynamism.

The Greeks called it "Megale Hellas" and the Romans "Magna Graecia"-- Great Greece! 

Magna Graecia: Greek Art From South Italy and Sicily was co-curated by Aaron J. Paul, Richard E. Perry Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Tampa Museum of Art and Michael Bennett, Curator of Greek and Roman Art at The Cleveland Museum of Art in collaboration with Mario Iozzo, Director of the Center for Conservation in Florence, and Director of the Archaeological Museum of Chiusi.

The spirit of American and Italian collaboration extends to the exhibition catalogue, 18 of whose contributing authors are Italian, and 4 American. Italian museum officials wrote object entries for the catalogue and permitted new photographs to be taken of most of the works in the exhibition.

The exhibition catalog is the first English-language sourcebook for the art of Magna Graecia ($50 hardcover, $34.95 soft cover). Catalog is available on line at the Guilders Museum Store.
 

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Photography's Multiple Roles:
Art, Document, Market, Science

Ended January 5, 2003

      

Harry Callahan. Chicago, c. 1950. Silver gelatin print.

	Barbara Kasten. Architecture Site 17, The High Museum, August 29, 1988. Silver dye bleach print.
George Hurrell. Bette Davis,  from the portfolio George Hurrell, 1938.  Silver gelatin print.
	Dennis Stock. Untitled from James Dean: A Memorial Portfolio, (1979) c. 1955. Silver gelatin print.
Jeanne Dunning. Hand Hole, 1994. Silver dye bleach print.    Keith Carter,  Atlas Moth, 1990. Toned silver gelatin print. Available in the  Tampa Museum Store: PHOTOGRAPHY'S MULTIPLE ROLES This monumental book surveys the development  of postwar American photography, and isolates four major roles of the medium-artistic expression, journalistic documentation, commercial industry, and scientific tool. With extensive essays from a range of scholars and work from Arbus, Frank, Lange, Friedlander, and many more, this book represents a major reference work of photo history. Paberback, 11"L x 10"W, 272 pages. Photography’s Multiple Roles explored and defined the various and often blurred facets of the medium as communication and artistic expression, as a documentor of life and the environment, as a powerful commercial industry and as a tool of science and technology. Included were Robert Frank’s 1950s black-and-white commentaries on race, relationships and public spaces (art) to Alice Hargrave’s romantic medical imaging of gallstones in the human body (science). Commercial photographer John McCallum’s use of digital imaging as an alternative to darkroom manipulation (market) is juxtaposed against Dorothea Lange’s portrait of displaced farmers during the Great Depression (documentation). The exhibition showcased the images, objects and installations of 170 20th century photographers including Berenice Abbott, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Larry Clark, John Coplans, Jeanne Dunning,  Nan Goldin, Alfredo Jaar,  Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibovitz, Sally Mann, Maria Martinez-Canas, Susan Meiselas, Duane Michaels, Abelardo Morell, Patrick Nagatani, Irving Penn, Gilles Peress, Fazal Sheikh, Sandy Skoglund, Carrie Mae Weems and Joel-Peter Witkin, to name a few.

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RIVER MYTHS, A Gallery Installation 
by Therman Statom

January 17- April 7, 2002

      
Therman Stantom, Installation Views, 
Art of Glass, 1996.
Hot glass, flat glass, and neon. 
Collection of Toledo Museum of Art

Various materials including oil painted plate glass, aluminum, and ceramics were combined and constructed to create an experiential environment that explores the artist’s African- and Native American ancestry, a heritage that likewise reflects the Tampa Bay region and its populace. Visitors could actually walk through part of the enormous display.

Statom was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and his African-American and Seminole Indian roots are the primary inspirational sources behind this installation which appealed to audiences of all ages.

Statom worked with Dale Chihuly, a glass master featured in the exhibition Craft is a Verb, while studying at Rhode Island School of Design and Pilchuck Glass School in the 1970s. He has taken the glass medium further by incorporating other materials along side it and by creating large-scale installations.

Organized by the Tampa Museum of Art

The following are images of Therman Statom  at work in his California studio, preparing  a large wall panel and other objects for  the River Myths installation exhibition.
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Twelve women who feel that being blind should not impair their artistic expression explored their creative abilities through lessons in art history, memoir writing, and by creating different types of art. Works in the exhibition ranged from a collaborative clay installation, paintings inspired by the landscape to still-life paintings, charcoal drawings, baskets, and relief prints. The majority of the works in the show were two-dimensional, contrary to traditional attitudes that artists who are visually impaired only find satisfaction in three-dimensional media. Organized by Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL..	Women of Vision: An Experienced in Seeing by the Visually Impaired Ended September 15, 2002