Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc

Voorhees Special Exhibition Galleries
Jan 30, 2010 - Jun 06, 2010

Born in Morocco into a conservative Muslim family and educated in Europe and the United States, Lalla Essaydi is poised at the intersection of two cultures. She is one of several contemporary Islamic women artists whose subjects are informed by feminist perspectives and personal experience. Her work has garnered increasing acclaim in Europe and America; in 2011 she will be the subject of a mid-career survey at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc comprises 17 large scale photographs selected from the artist’s most recent series. The title of the series, Les Femmes du Maroc,is adapted from Eugene Delacroix’s iconic painting, Les Femmes d’Algiers of 1834. The painting by Delacroix, while based on his actual travels in North Africa, is a fictive vision of languorous women in an opulent harem. Paintings like these, which coincided with the nineteenth-century European occupation of much of the Arab world, fostered a view of the Middle East as a sensual paradise of sexually available women, rich colors and exotic tastes. Essaydi takes these Orientalist paintings of the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a point of departure for her own de-colonializing enterprise. She drains the paintings of color, removes all male figures, drapes the women and all surfaces in white fabric, and sets everything within a shallow stage-like space. All visible surface -- backdrops, floor, drapery, skin -- are inscribed with Arabic calligraphy. These texts are subversive on several levels. In Islamic cultures calligraphy is a male art form, used primarily to transcribe the Q’uran and other sacred literature, however, in Essaydi’s work, the texts -- musings on personal freedom, cultural and individual identity, memory and communication taken from her personal journals -- are applied with henna, a tradition associated with women. Her transformations of the original paintings reverberate with the historical past while revealing the colonial and gendered perspectives of historic and contemporary Orientalism.

This exhibition has been organized by the DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, and is funded by a generous grant from the Lois and Richard England Family Foundation.

Coordinated by Donna Gustafson, Liaison for the Mellon Program and Assistant Curator of American Art, Zimmerli Art Museum.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Museum Hours:

Seva's Blue Horizon: the Poet Seva Nekrasov and Artists of Unofficial Moscow

DuBrow Gallery
Nov 11, 2009 - May 30, 2010

Seva (Vsevolod) Nekrasov (1934-2009) was the youngest and probably the most talented of the generation of poets and artists grouped around Lianozovo – one of the earliest and most important centers for underground culture in the Soviet Union. His entire life was closely connected with the arts and the artists of “unofficial Moscow,” and his poetry often reflected upon the visual works of his friends. And vice versa, artists found inspiration in his poetry, and produced works clearly based on his verses . This exhibition, entitled Seva’s Blue Horizon (which is a rough translation of an anagram: Sevina Sineva) commemorates through poetry and art the entire generation of early Soviet underground culture that is now vanishing by the day.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Museum Hours:

Trail Blazers in the 21st Century: Contemporary Prints and Photographs published by Exit Art

The David and Ruth Robinson Eisenberg Gallery
Oct 03, 2009 - Mar 07, 2010

This focus exhibition of nine prints and nine photographs presents a compelling microcosm of America’s current art scene. Featured artists include Vito Acconci, Laylah Ali, Ida Applebroog, Papo Colo, Petah Coyne, Ann Hamilton, Glenn Ligon, Elizabeth Murray, Paul Pfeiffer, Catherine Opie, Ruth Root, Michal Rovner, Carrie Mae Weems, Gary Simmons, Terry Winters, Su-en Wong, and Daniel Zeller. Their works exemplify how artists have adapted new technology to creative visions that challenge traditional aesthetic norms and address issues of race, gender, identity, society, or abstraction. These prints and photographs are from two portfolios published in 2001 and 2003 by Exit Art, a New York nonprofit cultural center; its mission is to explore the rich diversity shaping and transforming contemporary art and ideas in America. This exhibition, selected from the Zimmerli Art Museum’s collection, is the first display of a recent donation from Peter Frey. The exhibition is organized by Marilyn Symmes, Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts, and Curator of Prints and Drawings.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Museum Hours:

How We Live Now: Picturing Everyday Life in Children's Book Illustrations

The Roger Duvoisin Gallery
Dec 05, 2009 - May 23, 2010

From the 1960s onward, technical improvement in image reproduction and growing social awareness combined to produce a growing number of children’s books that reflect the diversity of American people and ways of life. Selected illustrations from the Zimmerli Art Museum’s collection exemplify this trend. Roger Duvoisin’s painterly gouache illustrations for It’s Time Now, 1969, casually capture the feeling of street life in the city. John Thompson’s realistic black and white illustrations for The Liquid Trap, 1976, a short novel for young readers, provide a more literal portrait of a girl’s visit with her family in the south. Barbara Beirne, E. B. Lewis, and Stephen T. Johnson were inspired by young people from their neighborhoods, rather than professional models, to create vibrant and authentic images of young people engaged in sport activities. Illustrations by Catherine Stock depict subjects ranging from a small boy’s relationship with neighbors, Miss Viola and Uncle Ed Lee, 1999, to the unexpected pregnancy of a teen-aged girl in Doll Baby, 2000. Books related to the illustrations are on view in the gallery, along with hands-on activities for visitors. The exhibition is organized by Gail Aaron, Assistant Curator, Original Illustrations for Children’s Books, Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Museum Hours:

Four Perspectives Through the Lens: Soviet Art Photography in the 1970s-80s

The Lower Dodge Gallery
Oct 03, 2009 - Mar 28, 2010

This exhibition presents a selection of more than sixty photographs from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art by Francisco Infante, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Boris Mikhailov, and Aleksandr Slyusarev, four major Soviet artists working with photography in 1970 –1980s. Photography was not officially considered an art in the Soviet Union at that time, and it was not taught in art schools. On the other hand, the amateur status of artistic photography, unrestricted by professional conventions or censorship, allowed great creative freedom and presented wide opportunities for experimentation. Soviet photographers made exceedingly canny, inventive, and highly individual use of the medium, expressing ideas that were both specific and universal in character.

These four artists demonstrate four different approaches to the photograph, and testify to the range and variety of fine art photography’s development in Soviet unofficial art. Two – Slyusarev and Mikhailov – are straightforward art photographers. Two others – Infante and Kupriyanov – are visual artists, who use photography as a medium to transcribe their creative ideas. Two of the four – Kupriyanov and Mikhailov – are concerned with social issues; the other two – Infante and Slyusarev – explore abstract categories, such as the geometry of light and reflections, often with reference to Russian avant-garde and/or western modernist practice.

The exhibition presents an opportunity for multiple comparisons and cross-references in areas such as the approaches to social themes, cultural and art historical associations, and various photographic techniques and artistic effects.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Museum Hours:

Rutgers Theater Company
In the Blood*

By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Eric Ruffin

Friday, March 5, 2010 - Saturday, March 13, 2010
Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks' In The Blood wrestles with poverty and racism in a mesmerizing rethinking of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. This African-American version of Hester Prynne lives under a bridge with five illegitimate children, struggling to survive in a society where the phrase "social safety net" has no meaning.

P$25/E,A,O$20/S$15

Price Key:

P = General
E,A,O = Rutgers Alumni, Employees, Seniors
S = Students

* indicates that seating is assigned at the time of purchase

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THE ART OF MUSIC/Conformism and Rebellion: Two Soviet Composers

Date: March 07, 2010
Time: 3:00 pm

The Sima Trio

This concert presents trios by two great Soviet composers, Arno Babajanian and Alfred Schnittke. Their fates could not have been more different. Babajanian earned the respect and support of the Soviet Union, winning the Stalin Prize in 1950 and being named People’s Artist of the Soviet Union in 1971. Schnittke, ten years younger and influenced by Schoenberg’s modernist techniques, had several of his works banned by the Composer’s Union. In 1980, Schnittke was forbidden from traveling outside of the USSR. The Sima Trio is quickly becoming one of the leading, young trios of its generation. Winners of international competitions, violinist Sami Merdinian, cellist Ani Kalayjian, and pianist Sofya Melikyan, are highly sought-after soloists and chamber musicians who have performed at such major venues as Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón, and The Concertgebauw.