Glass in Four Dimensions @ FIA

Glass in Four Dimensions @ Flint Institute of Art in the Harris – Burger Gallery

Installation image – Glass in Four Dimensions, Image courtesy of Jonathan Rinck

When Albert Einstein advanced his general theory of relativity, he argued that there was a fourth dimension: spacetime.  According to theoretical physicists, spacetime has very physical properties: it can literally warp, bend, and even tear.  So can molten glass, of course, and the exhibition Glass in the Fourth Dimension, currently on view at the Flint Institute of Art through March 21, features a selection of glass works from the Studio Glass Movement (the 1960s through the present) which directly or indirectly speak to the concept of the fourth dimension.

The works in this single-gallery exhibition space collectively take playful liberties with the technicalities of what the fourth dimension actually is.  Some of these sculptures celebrate the intrinsic weirdness and plasticity of glass (itself described by some physicists as a “new state of matter”).  Others evoke Daliesque, other-worldly realms.  And some take a more literal approach, directly referencing both time and space.

Steven Weinberg, American, born 1954. Fluted Concentrics, 1995. Cast and cut optical crystal 7 3⁄4 x 7 13/16 x 7 13/16 inches. Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation, Photography by Douglas Schaible

Evocative of some sort of transcendent and other-worldly space, Steven Weinberg’s Fluted Concentrics, is a work of cast and cut optical crystal, inside which exists a set of abstract architectural forms.  Though Weinberg’s works are largely inspired by the forms of ancient Mayan architecture, here this little cubic micro-world seems suggestive of the counterintuitive universe of M.C. Escher.  Richard Ritter also gives us a sort of micro-world with his Florescence: Series #11, which visually reads almost like a sort of oversized petri dish, within which are emerging biomorphic, organic forms. And Czech artist Petr Hora’s Hadros visually reads like liquid suddenly arrested in time and space, its internal patterns (micro-bubbles that formed when the glass was molten) vaguely reminiscent of a Hubble image we might expect to see of the vaporous membranes of some deep-space nebula.

Petr Hora, Czech, born 1924. Hadros, 2006. Cast and acid-polished glass. 18 3⁄4 x 15 1⁄2 x 4 3⁄4 inches. Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation, Photography by Douglas Schaible

Some of these works subtly imply the passage of time through their form and structure, such as an ensemble of undulating Dale Chihuly bowls, which characteristically rest inside each other much like Russian Matryoshka dolls; the transition from small to large is suggestive of growth over time, or perhaps expanding ripples or sound waves.  Though Chihuly’s style couldn’t be more different, its effect responds well to Tom Patti’s Four Ringed Echo, a cuboid sculpture comprising layers of glass which contain a set of vertically stacked rings expanding upward and outward, again implying both time and movement, much like successive frames of stop-motion photography. Both works also directly speak to the ambiguity of the nature of glass, which straddles the boundary between liquid and solid.

But at its most literal, the fourth dimension is a reference to the interconnectedness of both space and time, and some of these works address this directly.  Admittedly, all sculpture does this to some degree.  A painting or photograph can be taken in by the viewer instantaneously, but sculpture exists in three-dimensional space, and must be appreciated in 360 degrees; the viewer must move around it, incorporating the element of time.  But unlike many traditional sculptures, here, largely because of the reflective nature of glass, these works surprisingly transform as we move around them.

Some of these sculptures do this in dramatic fashion.  Just take a look at Czech artist Bohumil Eliás Sr.’s Silent Inhabitant.  It’s a cuboid composite of layers of square plates of glass; when viewed from the side, it’s a mostly transparent cube.  But slowly move 90 degrees to the front, and a blue, three-dimensional floral form enclosed within suddenly materializes, the result of thin layers of paint applied by the artist on each successive layer of glass.  A similarly dramatic transformation occurs with Slovakian artist Yan Zoritchak’s Space Messenger. Here we find a wedge of relatively empty and transparent glass that suddenly fills with surprising and counterintuitive shapes, forms and colors as we move around it.

Yan Zoritchak, Slovakian, born 1944. Space Messenger, 2002. Cast glass with copper patina and gold leaf. 19 9/16 x 16 15/16 x 5 1/8 inches. Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation. Photography by Douglas Schaible

As for the theoretical physics behind Einstein’s revelations regarding spacetime, I’ll never understand them, though I do find the fourth dimension fascinating with the help of a good NOVA documentary. Glass in the Fourth Dimension, however, is both welcoming and accessible.  And much like the rest of the permanent works on view at the FIA, this exhibit makes abstract art enjoyable to those who might not generally consider themselves fans of abstract art.  There’s an undeniable craftsmanship and polish on display, and all these works are undeniably beautiful. Furthermore, the time-based element to this show emphatically makes the case that art is best viewed firsthand (and over time), and not just instantaneously as an image online or in a book– a compelling reason to come see this exhibition in person.

Glass in Four Dimensions @ Flint Institute of Arts through March 21,2021

Story Word Sound Sway @ Stamps Gallery

Wes Taylor (BFA ’04), Ann Arbor Undercommons, 2020, Installation detail. Lead Archivist Jamall Bufford with assistance from Athletic Mic League. Photo: Nick Beardslee

The MFA’s and BFA’s produced each year by the nation’s academic art programs far exceed the ability of the art establishment–fine art galleries, museums, collectors and the like–to absorb them. What happens to all those aspiring and hopeful young creatives upon graduation?  How do contemporary artists pay rent and continue to work in a world that doesn’t reliably support them financially?  The exhibit Story Word Sound Sway, at the Stamps Gallery from now until February 28, provides a provocative answer of sorts.

Their creative paths as artists are as varied as the individuals–all graduates of the Penny Stamps School of Art and Design–now showing their work in the gallery. Contributions range from highly personal performance-based videos to political activism to graphics to object/image making. Many of the artworks in the gallery represent ongoing projects intended to engage multiple audiences at varying levels of sophistication and in diverse settings, all the while answering in real time the question of how contemporary artists continue to exist and even thrive.

The show, co-curated by Jennifer Junkermeier-Khan and Moteniola Ogundipe, allocates an outsize role to performance-related materials. I counted nearly a dozen time-based artworks, which collectively run to more than 90 minutes, throughout the show. This abundance of content made it challenging–okay, impossible–to experience all of them during the limited time of 25 minutes it was recommended that viewers be in the gallery during the pandemic. (To be fair, some–though not all–of the videos can be viewed online )

One of the most viscerally compelling entries in Story Word Sound Sway is Survivors Among Us, by Elshafei Dafalla (MFA ’08), an ongoing sound installation. It’s a disturbingly evocative description of physical and psychological torture that succeeds by moving the audience one step back from the experience. The first-person, anonymized interviews are both matter-of fact and chilling; the subjects baldly recount their experience without histrionics. They are unnamed, the locales also unknown.  What remains is the sense that capricious yet systematic, politically motivated cruelty can occur anywhere, to anyone.   It seems almost obscene to describe the formal qualities of the piece given the horrific nature of the subject.  Appropriately, Survivors Among Us can be experienced only in the gallery and is not available for online listening.

Elizabeth Youngblood (BFA ’73), Cone + Chartreuse, 2020, graphite on paper, 20” x 22” photo: K.A. Letts

In the case of Elizabeth Youngblood (BFA ‘73), the process of art-making takes on the character of ritual, a theme that runs just under the surface in the work of several artists in Story Word Sound Sway. Youngblood employs humble materials–aluminum paint from the hardware store, simple pen and paper, in her incremental journey toward transcendence.  Through her use of chance processes and repetition, the artist weaves a statement that is both private and universal.

Yvette Rock, Community Conversations, Kahtara and Dwan, 2016-2020, mixed media fiber, 18” x 12” x 2.5” Photo: Nick Beardslee.

Yvette (MFA ’99) Rock’s re-patched fiber pieces are visual metaphors for the spiritual process of healing–her carefully constructed fabric bands in Community Conversations illustrate the laborious one-on-one process of piecing back together the torn social fabric of Detroit.  In addition, Rock contributes a video of an accompanying performance set in the Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit demonstrating her ongoing commitment to the restoration of her community.

Two videos, What the Tide Brought In by Carisa Bledsoe (BFA Interarts ’14) and Sift Shift Swoosh Bods by Levester Williams (BFA ‘13) continue the inward-directed spiritual strands of Story Word Sound Sway in narrative form. Both are hermetic performances that cast the spectator as bemused observer of  enigmatic private mysteries.

Perhaps the most clearly community-facing work in Story Word Sound Sway is Schroeder (BFA ‘76) Cherry’s installation employing rod puppets the artist uses to reach out to a broad audience with public service messages both humorous and colloquial. His puppets have performed in museums, libraries, and cultural centers for adults and children across the U.S. in productions such as The Civil Rights Children’s Crusade, Can You Spell Harlem?, and Underground Railroad, Not A Subway. The main character in this particular installation is Khordell, whose casual instructions to and from his fellow puppets include reminders to wear a mask, to not drink disinfectant and to register to vote–all good advice.

Schroeder Cherry, Dallas Dan, 1992, digital print, 11” x 17” photo: Schroeder Cherry

A room-sized display of ephemera from the Ann Arbor Undercommons, collected by Wes Taylor (BFA ’04), provides extensive documentation of a performance-based collective of Ann Arbor students of color from Huron High School. Dated from 1993 to the present, the materials record the underground hip-hop scene in Ann Arbor, particularly the ongoing activities of the Athletic Mic League. The artists hope that this exhibition will serve as a catalyst to get the process started toward a final documentary product that remains to be defined.

Other event-related installations, like The Collab by Caleb Moss (BFA ’13) speak specifically to the artist’s ongoing involvement in his Detroit community. As community activist and graphic designer, Moss’s entries consist of video documenting community cultural events intended to raise funds for scholarships, and a display of way-finding graphics for The Detroit Department of Transportation. Moss explains,  “My work with The Collab has allowed my friends and me to give back to Detroit Public School students while utilizing our varying skills. “The Connection” (our staple event) is a night of art, music, and fellowship that highlights the many talents of local Detroit artists.” The diversity of his work illustrates the multiple routes by which art–and artists–can find a way into the cultural ecosystem of a city.

Caleb Moss, The Collab, 2020, Installation detail, poster. Photo: K.A. Letts

The curators describe Story Word Sound Sway as “research-driven and collaborative… a document and documentation… an analysis, a celebration, a critique.” Co-Curator Jennifer Junkmeier-Khan goes on, “The artists tell stories, use words, create and transmit sounds; physically sway in their work and sway “us” with their ideas.”   In the process they have also illustrated a more private and often unseen struggle by artists to contribute to their environment while managing to live a creative life in the arts. They are part of a cultural community that, like dark matter, is invisible but essential.

Artists in Story Word Sound Sway: Carisa Bledsoe (BFA Interarts ’14), Schroeder Cherry (BFA ’76), Elshafei Dafalla (MFA ’08), Masimba Hwati (MFA ’19), Caleb Moss (BFA ’13), Senghor Reid (BFA ’99), Valencia Robin (MFA ’08), Yvette Rock (MFA ’99), Wes Taylor (BFA ’04), Levester Williams (BFA ’13), and Elizabeth Youngblood (BFA ’73)

Penny Stamps Gallery is open during limited hours to holders of the MCard. For more information go here.

This review is re-printed with permission from the Ann Arbor District Library’s online culture magazine Pulp. (Editor: Christopher Porter)

The Salad Days @ Detroit Artists Market

The Salad Days, Installation shot 2021, Image courtesy of DAM

Curated by Holliday Taylor Martindale, “The Salad Days” is a Shakespearean idiomatic expression meaning a youthful time. The millennial renaissance of Detroit from 2000 through 2012 heralded self-made artist run spaces. With rent low and space unlimited, artists gravitated to this inclusive paradigm shift to bring engaging shows. Emerging from a prosperous decade and a world reshaped by the internet, it was a new beginning as much as an awakening. Salad Days explores the subculture and practice of artists who were working in Detroit in the aughts (2000s) while featuring current work reflecting an age of genesis and collaboration.

Taurus Burns, The Hunt For Equality, oil on canvas 48” x 72” Image courtesy of the artist

Straight out of a nightmare comes The Hunt For Equality by Taurus Burns. Wickedly spiked branches trap a fantastical half-human creature while its hunters lurk in the shadows behind the twisted bark of complicit trees. The black and white palette fosters a scenario where present danger is felt, but not clearly seen. Under a draped confederate flag, a manacle and chain waits for its captive. A cross burning behind ghostly, pointed white hoods easily identifies the assailants. A harbinger crow warns from a branch high above as a modern-day lynch mob torch strikes down.

Burns interprets, “With this piece I wanted to capture the feeling of being hunted because of the color of your skin, while depicting the challenge of navigating America’s often polarized landscape as someone who is biracial. The panther here is inspired by both the Black Panther Party and the White Panther Party, both of which fought for Black empowerment against systemic racism. This panther wears the stripes of a zebra- a term sometimes used to describe children who have one black and one white parent. Tiki torches recall the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 where supporters of the rising white nationalist movement gathered together in a show of strength, and Heather Heyer was killed when one of them drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the rally.”

Scott Northrup, Wayward Boys and Assholes, paper on clayboard 16” x 20” Image courtesy of the artist

Scott Northrup communicates his always personal message in a quiet, but bold way that asks the viewer to slow down and pay attention to the details. The reductive techniques he’s honed through sculpture, printmaking and film narrows the focus to content. For Wayward Boys and Assholes he’s collaged three pieces of paper including a scrap of a photo printed across the fold of a magazine page. The assembled image is an upside-down oil can spilling its contents and embellished with a green tassel tip from an illustration of a whip. Cloaked in Northrup’s trademark snark is ruthlessly honest dialogue. He openly flirts with the viewer, teasing a response from a shy grin to an audible chuckle. He is the master of calling out well-guarded secrets.

Cal Navin, Liberty I, digital print 30” x 18” Image courtesy of Kim Fay

Cal Navin’s Liberty I spills a toybox onto the page inviting us to remember childhood afternoons immersed in enchanted landscapes and adventures with mystical friends. The series began with 3D images of nostalgic toys as a way to mourn her dearly departed brother; toys they had played with, things that reminded her of him. She translated those images into layered digital drawings to tell her story. Her imagery and palette convey playful delight. Navin creates her imaginative characters with love, kindness and a whimsy most of us set aside long ago. Her reminiscence indulges the relationship the random playthings have with each other and our formative creativity.

Chido Johnson, Ari, multi-media and video projection 8’ x 8’ x 8’  Image courtesy of DAM

Installed in the east end of the gallery is a loosely constructed but recognizable figure comprised from a cacophony of materials. Ari is a collaborative project orchestrated by Chido Johnson. He began by carving a left foot in stone, then invited sixteen artists to join him imagining a body. Halima Cassells contributed a cement cast heart embedded with her sister’s and grandmother’s jewelry representing family combined with plants depicting life itself. Graem Whyte attached a left arm, which he’d had for thirty years patiently waiting for a body. Floating, dripping scraps of translucent material cast using her own fingers, Lisa Tolstyka provides a transitional element through “touch”.

Living in the midst of Covid, each artist came into the installation space independently adding their contribution to Ari’s body. They recorded their experience with the body, which they shared online to be witnessed through a digital window to the public. In the tradition of an exquisite corpse, a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. they did not know what Ari would become. Although working in isolation, they called each other to better understand how they physically connected and functioned together. This in itself reflects the time we live in.

Since the exhibition’s cohesive thread is the artists themselves—when and where they were working during a particular period—the work is as varied as they are. Genres range from photographic collage, found object sculpture, abstract painting and loosely painted street scenes. Themes run the gamut from intense social commentary to pointed sarcasm. What is on display here is not only the freedom and brilliance of a simpler period but artists devoted to their practice with passionate support for each other and their community.

On view January 22-February 20, 2021 at Detroit Artists Market 4719 Woodward Avenue, Detroit

Participating Artists: Michael Nagara, Mukhliseenah Hajj, Scott Hocking, Andrea Eckert, Asia Hamilton, CeCe McGuire, Bryant Tillman, Anthony Divis, Dekilah Nazari, Simone DeSousa, Scott Northrup, Chido Johnson, George Rahme, Jeff Nolan, Martin Anand, Gilda Snowden, Cedric Tai, Sioux Trujillo, Taurus Burns, Erik Howard, Katie Hawley, Chris McGraw, Cal Navin, Undine Brod, Kevin McCoy, Steve Kuypers, Kate Silvio, Vincent Troia, Shoshanna Utchenik.

Ari artists: Chido Johnson, Dyani Douze, Fatima Sow, Graem Whyte, Halima Cassell, Heather Anger, Jessica Harvey, Kasper O’Brien, Kristina Sheufelt, Kyle Lockwood, Lisa Tolstyka, Manal Shoukair, Sabrina Nelson, Sean Maxwell, Sophie Eisner.
See exhibition: The Salad Days

New Work / New Year @ David Klein Gallery

Installation image, New Work, New Year, 2021

If it has been hard to survive 2020, that has been especially true for the art community. Artists have had to be concerned with their health, livelihood and families, endure a deadly virus and experience a tumultuous political environment that heightened the anxiety in everyone’s lives.  Art exhibitions struggled to even exist in 2020, while some opted to be exclusively virtual. The David Klein galleries have consistently staged openings, albeit with masks, social distancing and staggered appointments.

The David Klein Gallery’s Director of Contemporary Art, Christine Schefman, has started off the new year by looking back at 2020 with an exhibition statement about this new show. She says, “2020 was a year of uncertainty, but one thing we know that remained constant was artists making art. Maybe there was a pause at the beginning, but ultimately artists found the inspiration to keep moving forward. Whether they continued to explore an ongoing body of work or create something entirely new, their practice endured.”

In this exhibition of fifteen artists, the first two artists I will mention are Robert Schefman and Kelly Reemtsen, both clearly figurative painters with a depth of experience yet whose work is completely juxtaposed.

Schefman talks about choosing an illusionist narrative while avoiding the term photorealism, and he has worked hard at finding a story that uses the human form as his subject.  Over the years, his technique has been impeccable. He has made a point to find a theme, a secret or a mystery that dominates these large oil paintings, and he obviously devotes time to the color pallet and composition.  Reemtsen on the other hand, who has spent time on the west coast and is drawn to Wayne Thiebaud’s work, creates tension between a headless female figure in a pop art patterned dress grasping tradesmen tools; be it a saw, a shovel or an ax. Schefman’s oil paint is carefully and smoothly applied with photo accuracy. In contrast, Reemtsen’s oil paint is very thick and applied loosely at times with a palette knife to the background, while the dresses are always A-line designs cinched at the waist. Her work shouts out contemporary like Balthus, while Schefman’s work is soft and traditionally romantic like Vermeer. It is noted here that the figure has become popular as of late, but it is always a challenge to follow in the steps of DaVinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Ingres, Manet, Klimt, Sargent and Picasso, to name just a few.

Robert Schefman, Lola, Oil on Canvas, 50 x 40″, 2020

Robert Schefman’s last solo exhibition at the David Klein Gallery in November 2019 focused on a series of works exploring hidden secrets sent to him via social media with no names attached. He leaves that process during 2020 with Lola, an aerial view of a Formula 4 race car as a crew member changes a tire while a figure holds the umbrella protecting the driver from heat or approaching rainfall.  It fits nicely into his illusionistic narrative. The strength here is the point of view, the use of color and the construction of a compelling composition. Although it gleams with the craft of realism and the precise replication of photo imagery, it is likely the nostalgia of this moment in time draws the artist back to an earlier period in his life.

Robert Schefman earned a B.F.A. from Michigan State University and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

Kelly Reemtsen, Bits and Pieces, Oil on Panel, 36 x 36″, 2020

Kelly Reemtsen gives us her now-familiar depiction of a young woman in retro skirts carrying an ax, with her trademark being pictorially cropped at the head.  Although there have been large paintings in the past that include the female’s head, the work here, Bits and Pieces, is repeated both in composition and the thick, painterly impasto of oil paint.  Set against a white background, the viewer is forced into the tension between the dress pattern and the manly grasp of the color-coordinated ax. Perhaps an early interest in fashion found its way into her mindset, and the niche was oddly a new “post-feminist” expression. The other element that keeps repeating itself is the reoccurring geometric patterns, both on the dresses and in the backgrounds.

Kelly Reemtsen earned her undergraduate degree from Central Michigan University and pursues her graduate degree at California State University at Long Beach.

Cooper Holoweski, Late Stage, New Age Process, Mixed Media, 40 x 24″, 2020

In this exhibition, Cooper Holoweski’s Mixed Media pieces were new, fresh and fascinating. Based on a composition of photo illusions of objects, human parts and abstract forms, the work has an underlying grid that supports the vertical work on paper.  Although the work was a new experience, the name was familiar. I had written  about his video work at the Center Gallery, College of Creative Studies, in 2017.  What still fits from the review is his mention of tension, contradiction and counterbalance, elements present in this new mixed media collage imagery. These mixed media prints are highly technical in their creation, something described as New Age Process. Made on Homasote, a cellulose-based fiber wallboard, several gesso coats are applied, and Holoweski uses a laser engraver to obtain a variety of effects creating his archival inkjet print.

Cooper Holoweski earned a B.F.A from the University of Michigan and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Mark Sengbusch, Singin in the Rain, Acylic on Plywood, 25 x 31″, 2020

Mark Sengbusch’s work is an assemblage of pieces of colorfully painted shapes made from wood that are arranged on a grid with a solid colored background. From his biography, it appears as though the types of forms he uses have been influenced by the architecture he experienced in his travels to Europe and the Middle East. The feeling one gets relies on the pattern created by these new and unusual shapes in this work, Singin in the Rain, which is a combination of secondary color and repetition. These design elements’ craftsmanship extends to the surrounding border and frame, making it an integrated part of the work. He refers to asemic approaches to writing with no semantic content but rather symbolism that is open to subjective interpretations.

Mark Sengbusch earned his B.F.A. from the College for Creative Studies and his M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Ricky Weaver, My First Mind Tells Me, Archival pigment print, 30 x 45″, 2020

Ricky Weaver’s work employs magical realism to investigate the moment. She uses images of herself to capture a metaphysical sense of reality in her work.  In the work My First Mind Tells Me, she recreates a moment with multiples of the same person while shifting to composition and color aesthetics. The attraction here is bringing the viewer into her world and keeping them questioning where the reality lies. The theme that resonates throughout her work is the black female and her relationship with faith. Much of her work is black & white images, but My First Mind Tells Me is rendered in full color. Repeatedly, she investigates the possibilities of these moments and forces the viewer to imagine a variety of alternatives. It is refreshing to experience an artist so grounded in her beliefs that it transfers to her work.

Ricky Weaver earned her B.F.A. in Photography from Eastern Michigan University and an M.F.A. in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Scott Hocking is well known for installations both in the gallery and on sites throughout the Detroit Metro region and beyond.  In answering what an artist did in 2020, he responds with a digital film, Kayaking Through the Quarantimes. He mentions in his statement, “Over the years, the experience of kayaking has developed into a full-blown obsession, a much-needed connection to nature and quietude, an art project in itself.”

 

The exhibition includes the work of: Ebitenyefa Baralaye, Susan Campbell, Matthew Hawtin, Scott Hocking, Cooper Holoweski, Kim McCarthy, Mario Moore, Marianna Olague, Jason Patterson, Kelly Reemtsen, Lauren Semivan, Mark Sengbusch, Robert Schefman, Rosalind Tallmadge and Ricky Weaver.

Hourly time slots are available with a maximum of 20 visitors per hour. Plan your visit to the gallery at www.exploretock.com/davidkleingallerydetroit For further information, please contact: Christine Schefman Director of Contemporary Art: christine@dkgallery.com

Radical Tradition @ Toledo Museum of Art

Therese Agnew, Portrait of a Textile Worker, Shorewood, WI, 2002, clothing labels, thread, fabric backing. 94 1/2 x 109 3.4 in. Image Credit: Museum of Arts and Design, New York; purchase with funds provided by private donors, 2006 Photo: Peter DiAntoni

There’s something visceral and tangible about quilting that sets it apart from other artistic media.   In a very literal sense, quilters stitch together the fabrics of the past and present, imbuing each work with a historical and cultural weight.  Radical Tradition, on view until February 14 at the Toledo Art Museum, explores how American quilts of the 19th through 21st centuries have engaged with prescient social issues.  The show supplements works from the TMA’s own collection with a generous selection of quilts from nearly two dozen lending institutions, and together they demonstrate the medium’s historically robust social engagement, speaking to issues ranging from racial justice, prison reform, women’s suffrage, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and much more.

Radical Tradition forcefully challenges our preconceptions of what a quilt even is, and what’s on view might better be described more broadly as “fiber art.”  Ben, for example, greets viewers at the show’s entrance.  Ben, from the TMA’s own collection, is an endearing fiber sculpture by Faith Ringgold of a 1970s-era homeless man, brandishing buttons, pins, and patches which serve to tell his story.  He’s a veteran of the Vietnam War, and the meagre few possessions he totes and the bottle of alcohol he clutches are suggestive that he’s fallen onto hard times. The buttons he wears call for various progressive political and social reforms.  It’s a very human, heartfelt, and sympathetic portrait.

Faith Ringgold, Ben, 1978. Soft sculpture/mixed media, 39 x 12 x 12. Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio) Image Credit: © 2020 Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York

At Work III isn’t even fiber, but rather backlit strips of 16mm polyester film sewn together to form a traditional “log cabin” quilt pattern.  The film strips are extracted from various industrial films showing anonymous female hands engaged in labor in the textile industry, and the work addresses the historical anonymity of those in the textile and garment industries.

Sabrina Gschwandtner, Hands at Work III, 2017, 16mm film, polyester thread, LEDs, 26 7/8 x 27 x 3 in. Image Credit: Image Courtesy of the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery

While this exhibit is perhaps liberal with what materially constitutes a quilt, there’s certainly a thematic continuity in the show’s focus on quilting and social engagement.  Many of the quilts on view (especially the older ones) were created to raise money for various social causes or humanitarian organizations, such as the Cradle Quilt (for the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society), Liberty Tree (for the temperance movement), and the Red Cross Quilt (to support the organization during the First World War). The Vietnam Era Signature Quilt was made to raise funds to rebuild a North Vietnamese hospital that had been bombed during the Vietnam War, and it includes the signatures of Leonard Bernstein, Gloria Steinem, and Pete Seeger, among many others.

Abolition Quilt, ca. 1850. Silk embroidered quilt, 59 x 59 in. Historic New England, 2.1923. Courtesy of Historic New England. Loan from Mrs. Benjamin F. Pitman, 2.1923.

 

Gen Guracar, Vietnam Era Signature Quilt, c. 1965-1973. Made in Mountain View, California, 80 x 63.5 inches. International Quilt Museum, Gift of Needle and Thread Arts Society, 2007.008.0001 Image Credit: International Quilt Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

In many, the very fabric of these quilts helps to underscore their message, such as Portrait of a Textile Worker by Terese Agnew. It’s an image based on a photograph taken by an undercover human rights advocate of a sweatshop worker in Bangladesh. The quilt comprises 30,000 individual clothing labels, each only individually visible up close; mosaic-like, together they form an image of a textile worker stationed at her sewing machine.  It’s a poignant image that speaks to the exploitation of underage and underpaid laborers in the garment industry who work as temporary contractors for big-box clothing brands.

One particularly arresting and prominent work is the ensemble of large, triangular quilt blocks from the International Honor Quilt, a project initiated by Judy Chicago and originally intended to complement her iconic Dinner Party.  Just like each individual place setting of Dinner Party, here each triangular block pays homage to a significant woman from history or mythology, and in its entirety the work consists of 542 individual sections. Each block was created by a different individual, and they reflect a wide variety of styles and techniques.

Judy Chicago, International Honor Quilt (IHQ), initiated by Judy Chicago in 1980, Created in response to The Dinner Party. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville. Image Credit: © 2020 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

As a telescope enthusiast, I was naturally drawn to Anna Van Mertens’ evocative Midnight until the first sighting of land, October 12, 1942, six miles off the coast of current day San Salvador Island, Bahamas.  It’s a black quilt which, as the title implies, charts the course of the stars in a patch of sky as they would have been seen by Columbus and his crew during these hours, so fatefully freighted with the weight of history to come.

This is a visually satisfying show with much to offer, and it makes the most of the TMA’s spacious New Media gallery suite.  There’s also an impressively broad range in style and content.   Some of the works range from the playfully exuberant VanDykesTransDykesTransanTransGranmx DykesTransAmDentalDamDamn (a showstopping, mural-scale work that is as massive and wild as its title implies) to the solemn Dachau 1945, a quilt made from the subdued, neutral patches from prison uniforms of inmates of Germany’s notorious Dachau concentration camp.  Radical Tradition masterfully combines beauty, poignancy, energy, and conceptual depth, and it’s a show that triumphantly lives up to its wittily oxymoronic name.

Unknown Maker, Dachau 1945, 1945, Wool, 69 1/2 x 77 in., Michigan State University Museum Collection, 2015:66.2. Image Credit: Courtesy of Michigan State University Museum. Photographed by Pearl Yee Wong

Radical Tradition is on view at the Toledo Museum of Art through February 14.  The show is accompanied with an exhibition catalogue.