Maud Sulter, Terpsichore, 1989, dye destructions print. Arts Council
Collection, London. Photograph courtesy of Maud Sulter and the Arts Council
Collection, Southbank Centre, London. On view in the exhibition Black
Womanhood.
Magdalene Odundo, Untitled, 2003, blackened terracotta. Purchased
through the William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Fund and the Claire and
Richard P. Morse 1953 Fund; C.2003.50. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel. On view in the
exhibition Black Womanhood.
Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, Seminole/Muscogee/Diné, b. 1954, Photographic
Memoirs of an Aboriginal Savant (Living on Occupied Land), twelfth page,
1994, digital print. Purchased through the Contemporary Art Fund; 2007.55.
Photo by Andrew Smith Gallery, Inc.
The exhibitions program of the Hood Museum of Art represents one of the most important means by which the museum fulfills its primary mission: to foster a greater appreciation of the visual arts as a medium for the expression of ideas and cultural values. The exhibitions presented by the museum are intended to contribute to scholarship in art history and related disciplines and to offer insight into the artistic production of many different historical periods and cultures. In addition to ongoing displays from its permanent collection, the museum also presents approximately eight special exhibitions each year, covering a broad range of topics, and two teaching exhibitions each academic term. Organized in conjunction with Dartmouth College courses, these exhibitions are intended to facilitate the curricular use of the museum's collections.
April 1 through August 10, 2008
Organized by the Hood Museum of Art, this major traveling exhibition examines the historical roots of a charged icon in contemporary art: the black female body. Only through an exploration of the origins of black womanhood's prevalent stereotypes can we begin to shed new light on the powerful revisionism occupying contemporary artists working with these themes today. The exhibition features over one hundred sculptures, prints, postcards, photographs, paintings, textiles, and video installations presenting three separate but intersecting perspectives: the traditional African, the colonial, and the contemporary global. Together they reveal a common preoccupation with themes of ideal beauty, fertility and sexuality, maternity and motherhood, and identities and social roles and enable us to peel back the layers of social, cultural, and political realities that have influenced stereotypes of black womanhood from the nineteenth century to the present. This approach promotes a deeper understanding of the ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality that inform contemporary responses—both the viewers' and the artists'—to images of the black female body. A fully illustrated catalogue published by the Hood Museum of Art and the University of Washington Press accompanies the exhibition.
This exhibition is generously funded by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Hugh J. Freund '67, P'08; the William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Hall Fund; the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenbaum Fund; the Hanson Family Fund; and the William Chase Grant 1919 Memorial Fund.
April 12 through June 15, 2008
Harrington Gallery
Highlights from the Hood's pop art collection reveal the intersection between life and art through the appropriation of media, commercial, and popular culture imagery. Focused around Ed Ruscha's Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas (1963), Ruscha and Pop explores aspects of pop art including the transformation of the everyday object into art, the popular interest in consumerism and commercial architecture, and the collapsing of boundaries between high and low art and culture. The charged cultural environment of the sixties fills the work of first-generation pop icons including Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as artists immediately following them, including Mel Ramos and Stephen Shore.
This exhibition is generously funded by the Harrington Gallery Fund.
New Acquisition
Gutman Gallery
Ongoing
Early photographs of Native Americans were used as political tools to express Western views about Native peoples as cultures frozen in a timeless ethnographic moment. Many stereotypes emerged from such images that remain insidiously present in the popular perception of Native Americans today, an issue that Native photographer Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie directly challenges in her art. Tsinhnahjinnie uses photographic imagery to express Native thoughts and philosophies that confront the negative stereotypes generated by photography’s historic legacy. She writes, "No longer is the camera held by an outsider looking in, the camera is held with brown hands opening familiar worlds. We document ourselves with a humanizing eye, we create new visions with ease, and we can turn the camera and show how we see you." Tsinhnahjinnie's art emphasizes the reception and interpretation of images by the indigenous communities for whom she documents her personal views, informed by self-experienced Native authority. Her photographic subjects originate from her personal life, popular culture, and vintage photography. They often directly engage the viewer by looking out of the frame, as though questioning or challenging what they see. At other times, Tsinhnahjinnie gives her subjects agency and voice by interweaving first-person statements with the imagery. Throughout her work, Tsinhnahjinnie creates a sovereign space in which she propagates and continually mediates Native visions and viewpoints, often accompanied by her own personal commentaries and critiques.
