For more information and installation photos, please visit us at www.alleghenyartgalleries.com
January 2020
Domestic Displays
On view January 21 – March 8, 2020
Please join us on Tuesday, January 21 for an artist panel discussion, 6:30-7:30 in Allegheny College Campus Center rooms 301/302, followed by an opening reception in the Allegheny Art Galleries, 7:30-9:00. Light fare and refreshments will be served.
Natalie Baxter, Stephanie Kantor, and Ian F. Thomas make art that gestures towards collections more typical of the domestic sphere than the public gallery: ceramic vessels, trophies, and—controversially—guns. Bright, oddly shaped, obsessively accumulated, or adorned with irreverent images, these installations make familiar objects funny and strange, inviting viewers to reflect on their own everyday, intimate surroundings. Working in clay and textiles, the artists engage with materials and techniques historically relegated to the arena of crafts, traditionally coded as feminine. However, many of the forms on view evoke more masculine displays of power, from patriotism to physical prowess. Playfully subverting expectations concerning gender and the domestic environment, Baxter, Kantor, and Thomas consider how individuals curate their homes to convey personal and cultural values.
Past Exhibitions
Previously Unknown Fetishes: Feat. Stuff
On view December 3 – December 10, 2019
Previously Unknown Fetishes: Feat. Stuff includes senior projects by Allegheny studio majors Gene Frank and Sen Rong, with advanced studio projects by Abraham Duncan, Sarah Seitanakis, Silas Morrow, Kathryn Sutter, Miranda Farley, Kathryn Lyon, Joseph Merante, Linh Nguyen Mai, Bryanna Urso, and Robin Laurinec.
Speculative Geographies
Featuring Andrew Erdos, Yasue Maetake, and Barry Underwood
On view October 8 – November 17, 2019
Speculative Geographies incites shifts in perspective: from the human body to the environment, from the present to a hypothetical future or alternate reality. In an era defined by both new technologies and climate change, we increasingly understand ourselves as participants in a vast network of nonhuman relations. Artists Andrew Erdos, Yasue Maetake, and Barry Underwood visualize those networks. Mountainous glass sculptures by Erdos evoke topographies from another time or from some other planet. Conjuring hybrid plant-animals or fantastical structures, Maetake’s constructions in fiber, bone, metal, and resins could populate extraterrestrial terrain. Barry Underwood transforms recognizable landscapes through light and sculptural installations, making long-exposure photographs that appear otherworldly and animated by their own mysterious life-force. From the vantage point of an increasingly precarious present, Speculative Geographies envisions possible realities in which humans may or may not play a role.
Speculative Geographies is curated by Paula Burleigh, Allegheny Art Galleries Director
Andrew Erdos is the youngest recipient of the Rakow Commission of the Corning Museum of Glass. Erdos’ work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, with solo exhibitions at Claire Oliver Gallery, New York; and group exhibitions at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt; Deitch Projects, New York; and the Beijing BS1 Contemporary Art Center, among others. Erdos’ artist residencies include Alfred University, New York; and Corning Museum of Glass, New York. Works by Erdos are in various public and private collections, including the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; and Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee. Andrew Erdos lives and works in New York, New York.
Yasue Maetake has exhibited internationally, at venues including Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam; Harris Lieberman, New York; Queens Art Museum, New York; and Espacio 1414, Puerto Rico. Maetake received The New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture and has been a resident artist in the studio of El Anatsui in Ghana, with a research grant from the Agency for Japanese Cultural Affairs. In 2018, Artsy named Maetake one of 20 female artists advancing the field of sculpture. In 2019, her work was exhibited at the collateral exhibition at the 58th Venice Beinnale organized by London-based Heist Gallery. Maetake lives and works in New York, New York, where she is currently adjunct faculty at SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology.
Barry Underwood has exhibited throughout the United States, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Ohio; The Sculpture Center, Ohio; Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Michigan; Photographic Center Northwest, Washington; and Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York; among other venues. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, Underwood won the Cleveland Arts Prize for Visual Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Underwood has been an artist-in-residence at The Banff Center for the Arts, Canada; Headlands Center for the Arts, California; and The MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire; and most recently at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut. Underwood’s work is part of numerous public and private collections, including the The Akron Art Museum, Ohio; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Elton John Photography Collection; Georgia. Underwood lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, where he is Associate Professor in the Photography and Video department at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Parallax
On view September 5 – September 26, Parallax is co-hosted by the Allegheny Art Galleries and the Meadville Council on the Arts.
Parallax describes the apparent shift in an object’s appearance when viewed from different locations. This phenomenon aptly characterizes how an artwork’s meaning shifts when it moves from one venue to another, or how an artwork can be understood in divergent ways by multiple viewers. Parallax invites visitors to explore two versions of a collaborative exhibition, installed at the Allegheny Art Galleries and the Meadville Council on the Arts. Featuring artists on faculty at Allegheny College as well as artists from the greater Northwest Pennsylvania region, Parallax presents an exciting snapshot of contemporary art in Meadville.
Watch a video of Parallax performance programming on September 25, 2019 at the Allegheny Art Galleries, featuring the complete sonatas and interludes of John Cage performed by Douglas Jurs, movement by Eleanor Weisman and Jay Hanes, and contributions from Allegheny advanced dance students.
Participating Artists:
Heather Brand John Mangine
Margaret Brostrom Lawrence Graydon Minnis
Bill Brunken Elyse Palmer
Eric Charlton Byron Rich
George Cooley George Roland
Heather Fish Richard Sayer
Josh Gates Richard Schindler
Amara Geffen Gwen Singer
Jay Hanes Ian F. Thomas
Dan Hunter Eleanor Weisman
Douglas Jurs
Parallax is organized by Paula Burleigh, Director, Allegheny Art Galleries; Shawn Washburn, Director, Meadville Council on the Arts; and Claire Klima, URSCA Research Fellow and Allegheny Gallery Assistant