QMAil: November 2005
It's November and it's 70 degrees and sunny in Queens, and that means that it's perfect weather to catch the final week of Down the Garden Path. Odd Lots, our look at Gordon Matta-Clark's 1970s Fake Estates project continues through January, but November is marked by the opening of The Gift: Building a Collection for the Queens Museum of Art. The past five years have seen our collection triple in size and we're sharing some 200 of the most dynamic recent acquisitions with you. Please join us on November 20th for the opening reception. Cinemarosa, Queens only queer film series continues on the 20th as well, so it promises to be a wonderful afternoon.
Hope you can make it.
November masthead: l. Chitra Ganesh, Bed, 2004. Digital C print, 30 x 40 inches. Collection of the Queens Museum of Art. Gift of the artist.
r. Attributed to Julien Levy and George Platt Lynes, Salvador Dalí, Gala, and model with lobster, 1939. Gelatin silver print. Jean Farley Levy and the Julien Levy Estate. Collection of the Queens Museum of Art. Partial gift of Eric Strom.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
The Gift: Building a Collection for the Queens Museum or Art
November 20, 2005 — February 12, 2006
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 20, 2-5 pm
Over the past five years, the QMA has enjoyed the tremendous generosity of collectors, artists and friends who have endowed this relatively young institution with a body of work of both contemporary and historical significance. With that in mind, we present The Gift: Building a Collection for the Queens Museum of Art, an exciting amalgam of our most dynamic recent acquisitions, among them six important bodies of work, as well as remarkable contemporary pieces given by the artists who have become in many ways, the Museum's biggest supporters.
Jack Clarity, Death Threw a Strike, October 9, 1956. Gelatin silver print. Gift of The New York Daily News Photo Archive.
Four significant collections have provided a wonderful cross section of photography's ascendancy from a 19th century document to a legitimate art form: a collection of iconic photographs documenting Salvador Dal“ installing his 1939 Surrealist World's Fair pavilion, The Dream of Venus; Photography in the Fine Arts, an encyclopedic collection of photographs shown in the Kodak Pavilion in 1965, that brings the QMA more than 125 images by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Dorothea Lange, and Irving Penn; generous gifts from photographer and dealer of photographs Charles W. Schwartz; and the selections from New York Noir: Crime Photos from the New York Daily News Archive. Add to these collections of drawings and etchings by a pair of artists whose combination of artistic sensibility and social commentary shed light on the rapidly changing world of the 20th century: John Sloan's etchings capturing the highs and lows of New York City life in the first half of the 20th century; and William Sharp, whose drawings depict the rise of the Nazi regime, Cold War political tensions and the courtroom drama of major trials.
These six major gifts have been a tremendous boon to the Museum's collections, but so too have the many ambitious artists' projects that have become the trademark of the Museum's curatorial endeavor. The work shown in The Gift speaks volumes of these artists' interest in assisting the Museum in building an important collection of contemporary work that addresses shifting trends in the international art community as well as the increasingly cosmopolitan dynamic of the borough of Queens.
Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon
Matta-Clark's Fake Estates
Through January 22, 2006
Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark's Fake Estates examines the legacy of Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) through the history of his important project Fake Estates (1973-4). A meditation on property, ownership, landscape, and absence, Fake Estates was born when Matta-Clark discovered that the city periodically auctioned off “gutterspace” — absurdly small slivers of land carved from the urban grid by anomalies in surveying, zoning, and municipal construction. Matta-Clark purchased fifteen of these odd lots at auction. He then visited and photographed each one, and collected the related maps and deeds. None of his many plans for further use of the slivers was ever carried out before his death in 1978. Now, decades later, Odd Lots furthers his vision.
At the Queens Museum of Art, the origins of the project are presented through Matta-Clark's materials, Jaime Davidovich's film of Matta-Clark visiting the sites in 1975, and the Panorama of the City of New York, on which the 15 Matta-Clark sites are marked.
Odd Lots was conceived and curated by Cabinet Magazine editors Jeffrey Kastner, Sina Najafi, and Frances Richard.
More information about Odd Lots is available here.
This exhibition has been made possible by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Altria Group, Inc.
Photo: Video stills of Gordon Matta-Clark working on Fake Estates project - Jaime Davidovich, Queens Project, 1975. Courtesy of Mitchell Algus Gallery.
Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism
Last Chance —
Closing this Sunday, November 6, 2005
The garden has always been considered a quiet sanctuary from the rigors of everyday life, but artists have also seen the garden as a vehicle for expressing ideas beyond the idyllic. Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism presents a broad range of materials that refer to gardens as points of departure to understand history, politics, and our relationship to nature. From models by modernist masters and sketches by contemporary art mainstays, to living works by emerging artists and outdoor installations in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the exhibition calls for a redefinition of the role of the garden.
Participating Artists
Vito Acconci, Ghada Amer, Lothar Baumgarten, Roberto Burle Marx, Tom Burr, Mel Chin, Thierry De Cordier, Mark Dion, Stan Douglas, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dan Graham, Lonnie Graham, Paula Hayes, Jenny Holzer, Ronald Jones, Anissa Mack and Dave McKenzie, Gordon Matta-Clark, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Isamu Noguchi, Nils Norman, Christian Philipp Müller, Ingrid Pollard, Robert Smithson, Alan Sonfist, Brian Tolle and Diana Balmori, Sergio Vega, Jan Vercruysse and Meg Webster.
Lonnie Graham, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Ghada Amer, Brian Tolle and Diana Balmori, and Anissa Mack and Dave McKenzie have installed five new works in the open spaces adjacent to the museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the nearby Queens Botanical Garden.
For more about Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism click here.
Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden After Modernism is made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. The Exhibition Award program was founded in 1998 to honor Emily Hall Tremaine. It rewards innovation and experimentation among curators by supporting thematic exhibitions that challenge audiences and expand the boundaries of contemporary art. The additional funding is provided by National Endowment for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, Furthermore...A program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and The Florence Gould Foundation.
Photo: Paula Hayes, Teardrop Terrarium, 2004, hand-blown glass with living plants, courtesy of the artist.
unseenamerica: Beyond the Window
On view through November 24
in the QMA Community Gallery
unseenamerica is a national program of Bread & Roses Cultural Project that gives cameras, lessons, and exhibits to the scores of people who have no public voice and little visibility. It first began as an idea, with 100 donated cameras, volunteer photographers and interested students to create a process to show life from the perspective of the photographers themselves. Many work and live in difficult conditions, with low wages, and without sufficient voice in society: home care workers, migrant workers, Native Americans, garment and restaurant workers, steelworkers... and now women from Afghanistan.
The QMA hopes that Women for Afghan Women's participation in unseenamerica will help to end the silence and invisibility that have been the most effective tools in the suppression of Afghan women. Having women take pictures of their everyday lives will empower them to change those lives, and will help to dissolve myths and stereotypes about Afghan women, who are largely “unseen” outside of their domestic environments.
Join us on November 6, 3-5 pm, for a reception celebrating this provocative exhibition.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Autumn Art Walk & Art-making with Natural Materials
Sunday, November 6, 1 - 4 pm
To commemorate the last day of Down the Garden Path: The Artist's Garden after Modernism, we invite you to enjoy the fall season in beautiful Flushing Meadows Corona Park with a walk led by artist Meg Webster, including stops at the three artist's gardens in the park. Participants will gather natural materials such as leaves, nuts, twigs, and pinecones which will be utilized in a group art project that celebrates the natural environment and honors the change of seasons. Free hot cider and cookies provided!
Veterans Day Event:
Voices from Vietnam
Sunday, November 13, 3 - 5 pm
Don't miss this memorable afternoon of inspiration and healing! Join award-winning author Charlene Edwards for an unforgettable presentation mixing powerful narratives and moving photographs devoted to the courageous people portrayed in her book, VOICES FROM VIETNAM. During this one-of-a-kind presentation, experience the emotional faces of those affected, listen to the personal reflections of yesterday's war and learn of the tragedies and triumphs of both Americans and Vietnamese — two peoples forever entwined by the legacy of war. Featuring: Slideshow of beautiful & haunting color photography by Charlene Edwards, Readings by local poet Karen Taylor, Original songs by award-winning singer/songwriters John Taylor and Patricia Shih. Some of the people featured in the book will be in attendance to talk about how they were able to go beyond the boundaries of nationality to finally understand the people that war creates as enemies.
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