The Farnsworth Art Museum Shows "Beyond Rugs!"

Written by Ralph Jenkinson Saturday, 03 December 2011 00:13

Rockland, Maine.-  The Farnsworth Art Museum is proud to present "Beyond Rugs!", on view at the museum through February 5th 2012. The exhibition is organized by guest curator Mildred Péladeau, author of 'Rug Hooking in Maine 1838-1940', and Farnsworth Assistant Curator Jane Bianco, and is on display in the museum’s Crosman Gallery. A design by the innovative modernist, Marguerite Zorach, will introduce selections of artists from throughout the country who set the pace today with hook and fiber. "Beyond Rugs!", which follows last year’s successful "Rug Hooking in Maine and Beyond", explores the way the traditional art of hooking is evolving. No longer destined for the floor, hooked rugs today may be wall hangings, sculpture, or components of mixed media.

These pieces announce social change and global issues, explore dreams, sexuality, personal crises, and reinterpret both abstract and realism in art. Through the imaginative use of unconventional materials, such as recycled plastics and newspapers, plant fibers, and brilliantly dyed threads, the artists have taken the art of rug hooking to a new and exciting place. The exhibition Beyond Rugs! is made possible by a grant from The Coby Foundation, Ltd. The primary media sponsor of Beyond Rugs! is Maine Home + Design

Celebrating Maine’s Role in American Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum offers a nationally recognized collection of works from many of America’s greatest artists. With 20,000 square feet of gallery space and over 10,000 works in the collection, there is always something new on view at the Farnsworth. The museum has one of  the nation's largest collections of works by sculptor Louise Nevelson. Its Wyeth Center features works of Andrew, N.C. and Jamie Wyeth. The Farnsworth's library is also housed in its Rockland, ME, campus. In the 1950s a younger generation of New York artists began to summer in Maine and eventually became identified with the work they produced here, among them the painters Alex Katz, Neil Welliver, Fairfield Porter, Lois Dodd, and Yvonne Jacquette, as well as photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burkhardt. In 1969, Robert Indiana, already nationally renowned for his prints, paintings, and sculpture, and perhaps best known for his LOVE paintings, prints and sculptures. The museum’s holdings of contemporary art have been significantly expanded, too, by donations from the Alex Katz Foundation, which include paintings by Jennifer Bartlett, Francesco Clemente, Janet Fish, Red Grooms, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Philip Pearlstein, David Salle, and Hunt Slonem, sculptures by Bernard Langlais and William Ryman, and photographs by Rudy Burkhardt.

The Friends of the Collection, a group founded in 2002, whose sole purpose is to provide funds for museum acquisitions, has brought works by contemporary artists John Bisbee, Sam Cady, David Driskell, Richard Estes, Yvonne Jacquette, Alex Katz, Alan Magee, Louise Nevelson, Brian White, and others into the collection. The museum has also formed significant holdings of twentieth-century and contemporary photography, again focusing on artists who have worked in Maine. Among this group of more than 1400 photographs are works by Berenice Abbott, Rudy Burkhardt, Paul Caponigro, Joyce Tenneson, Elliot Porter, and Rockland native Kosti Ruohomaa. The Farnsworth collection is promoted through school visits, studio programs, teacher workshops, lectures, family programs, youth and adult docent programs, video and film programs and seasonal celebrations. The Maine in America collection catalogue, exhibition catalogues, articles in scholarly and popular journals, and the museum's Web site provide further access. The museum's collection is rooted in the history of Maine, its people, their occupations and values, central to the Farnsworth’s mission to celebrate Maine’s role in American art. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.farnsworthmuseum.org

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~