Exhibitions Archive
Artists Celebrating the White Mountains
When Men and Mountains MeetPrivate Portraits/Public Conversations
Félix de la ConchaThe Hood Museum of Art continues its series of major public art projects, in conjunction with the Dartmouth Centers Forum, in a multimedia exhibition of fifty-one portraits exploring the ways members of the Dartmouth and Upper Valley communities have encountered conflict and how they made--or are making--the journey toward reconciliation.
De la Concha's effort to capture a truthful portrait results in a multidimensional representation of his encounter with his sitters--each one is intellectually, psychologically, and emotionally charged. Each portrait session lasted two hours, during which time the artist interviewed the sitter, and video- and audio-taped the entire experience. The artist added the aspect of video recording for the Hood project as a means of reconstructing, in real time, what transpired in each two-hour session. Thus, "portrait" here comprises painted representation, spoken narrative, and the visual recording of the interaction between artist and subject.
In Black and White?
America
Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body
Black Womanhood
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.
Four Depictions of Women in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Art
Confronting ClassWorks from 1950 to Today
Focus on PhotographyFocus on Photography surveys the Hood Museum of Art's post-1950 photography collection concentrating on two major themes: portraiture and landscape. Bridging these two themes, a small assortment of documentary and photojournalist works will present work by major figures such as James Nachtwey, Sebastiao Salgado, and Eugene Smith. Focus on Photography maps several contemporary trends in photography including a trend towards adolescence in portraiture, the clash of man versus nature in landscape imagery, the negotiation of identity through self-portraiture, and images of the urban landscape.
In addition, Focus on Photography will trace advances in technology that drive a number of artists's work, including digital photography and computer manipulation (with artists like Loretta Lux), photogenics (Lotte Jacobi), extended exposure times (Gary Schnieder and Matthew Pillsbury) and camera obscura (Abe Morell). Even with such developments, the show will underscore how artists working today continue to draw on traditional subject matters, styles, and processes.