Exhibitions Archive
Pigment of Imagination
Ochre is a family of mineral pigments made from iron oxides and hydroxides, commonly known as rust. Humans have collected ochre for at least 500,000 years, and it underpins the earliest evidence of symbolic culture, and later, figurative art, in the archaeological record. Pigment of Imagination explores the dual identity of ochre––it is both mineral and pigment––and the ways individuals and communities have used it to express complex relationships with the environment. To paint with ochre is to paint with the earth itself; it is a means of embodiment, of putting the land beneath one's feet and into the storyscapes of cultural knowledge. The works exhibited here––from Africa, Australia, Oceania, and North and South America––reflect the global distribution of ochre and its universal appeal as both material and metaphor. To view these works is to visit the landscape of their creation, to bear witness to place as much as meaning.
Works on Paper, Studies in Contrast
Artists rarely, if ever, remain neutral towards the subjects or themes of their works. They express points of view, opinions, or ideas about the human body, social interactions and hierarchies, politics, faith, the natural world, and even art itself. The works of art in this exhibition, arranged in pairs, offer contrasting perspectives from artists on a variety of themes: men and women, the family, war and human suffering, the built environment, and subjects drawn from poetry and real life. Each pair is accompanied by a single question that serves as a starting point. We wish to provoke further reflection about the artists' individual approaches to their subjects: from what points of view (literal, emotional, intellectual) does the artist look at their subjects? In what ways do artists communicate their points of view?
This exhibition is curated in conjunction with Art History 2, Introduction to the History of Art II.
Culture and Conflict in Central America
Bolas de FuegoBolas de Fuego: Culture and Conflict in Central America draws from the Hood Museum’s limited collections to tell stories of communities from the following countries: Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama. Focused on the conflict-laden twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the installation examines turning points in the region’s political and social history, while attending to the themes of race, ethnicity, and migration.
This exhibition was curated in conjunction with LACS 8: Politics and Culture in Transnational Central America and LACS 50.17: Land, Belonging and Social Change in Latin America.
Bolas de Fuego: Cultura y conflicto en América Central se basa en las reducidas colecciones del Museo Hood para contar historias de comunidades provenientes de los siguientes países: Belice, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua y Panamá. Centrada en los siglos XX y XXI los cuales fueron cargados por conflictos bélicos, la instalación examina los puntos de inflexión de la historia política y social en la región con enfoque en los temas de raza, etnia y migración.
Esta exposición fue organizada en conjunto con LACS 8: Política y Cultura en América Central Transnacional y LACS 50.17: Tierra, pertenencia y cambio social en América Latina.
Narratives in Japanese Woodblock Prints
Japanese woodblock-print artists produced numerous rich engagements with culturally resonant narratives that were often loosely based on historical events, then subsequently embellished in textual sources and their theatrical adaptations. The artists featured in this exhibition explore a wide and often gendered range of responses to those narratives’ emotionally charged moral and ethical dilemmas.
Points of View
The works of art in this exhibition, arranged in pairs, offer contrasting positions by artists on a variety of themes: men and women, the family, war and human suffering, landscapes and seascapes, images of others and of the self. Each pair is accompanied by a single question intended to provoke further questions about the artists’ individual approaches to their subjects: From what points of view (literal, emotional, intellectual) does the artist look at his/her subject? Is the artist’s stance celebratory? honorific? critical? a form of protest? In what ways does the artist communicate this to the beholder? Art history professors Joy Kenseth and Mary Coffey curated this exhibition in conjunction with their course Introduction to the History of Art II, a survey of art and architecture from 1500 to the present.
Twentieth-Century Inuit Art from the Collection of the Hood Museum of Art
Tradition and TransformationThe majority of artists in this installation represent a generation of Inuit from the arctic and subarctic regions of Canada who lived fully “on the land.” Several changes occurred during the mid-twentieth century that pressured the Inuit to change their traditional life ways by moving into settlements. Although the Inuit had been trading works they made out of a variety of materials since the time of contact, new visitors encouraged them to use their knowledge and skills to create work—in stone, fabric, drawings, and on paper—that would be oriented for a non-Inuit art market.
The majority of works in this installation were made by the first generation of Inuit artists to exhibit and sell their work to new markets in the south through art dealers and cooperatives. The objects they produced are remarkable works of art, widely sought after by collectors, and now in the collections of major museums all over the world. Most importantly, the production of this work created a vehicle for preserving cultural knowledge and sustaining tradition while innovating and creating new forms of expression.