Exhibitions Archive
Small-Scale Art, the Viewer, and the Art World
Rejecting the Diminutive
Small-scale contemporary art has often been ignored or trivialized by scholars and critics. This exhibition looks at seven works that reveal different strategies for rejecting conventional artistic standards. Some of these artists appropriate "insignificant" materials—either everyday or ephemeral in nature—while others employ a hybridized practice to break down traditional institutional boundaries between "high" and "low" art.
Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth
In Residence
Organized in collaboration with the Studio Art Department, this exhibition celebrates the important history and legacy of the Artist-in-Residence Program at Dartmouth College, which began in 1931 when the Guatemalan painter Carlos Sánchez, Class of 1923, was invited back to campus on a year-long fellowship. The exhibition showcases the work of more than eighty artists who have participated in this acclaimed international program since that time, including Charles Burwell, Walker Evans, Louise Fishman, Allan Houser, Donald Judd, Magdalene Odundo, José Clemente Orozco, Robert Rauschenberg, Alison Saar, Paul Sample, and Frank Stella, whose presence on campus has undoubtedly enhanced the vitality of the arts at Dartmouth.
This gallery presents a selection of contemporary and traditional Native American art in conjunction with Vera Palmer’s course Perspectives in Native American Studies. Vera Palmer frequently discusses many of these objects with her students to underscore the multiple forms of expression employed by Native American artists. Many of these works provide an opportunity to explore issues of identity, education, assimilation, and violence.
Articulating the Hand in Art
Hand Alone
In Chauvet, France, red ochre handprints and stencils are found in chambers throughout the Pont-d'Arc Cave. These are the oldest known representations of the human impulse to make marks, to bring pigment to surface. A common hypothesis: these hands are a form of early signature. And so on through history, with the hand being created into a distinct visual trope again and again. Think of Egyptian hieroglyphs and how they look so distinctly Egyptian. Look at the Assyrian hands on their carved reliefs, and notice how clearly Assyrian. Or even Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael—all are of the same style, yet each produces a distinguishable hand. The hand, for all of its biological constancy of form, is vulnerable to flourishes of expression like few other body parts.
Highlights from the African Art Collection at the Hood Museum of Art
Evolving PerspectivesMuseum collections usually form in one of two ways—either by gifts or through curatorial purchases. At a college or university museum, however, faculty members can also influence purchases of works of art and material culture that reflect their research and teaching interests.
This installation of African art from the Hood Museum of Art presents a selection of objects that marks the trajectory of the collection's development and pays tribute to some of the people who shaped it. From the son of an early Dartmouth president to a professor in Dartmouth's anthropology department; from donors whose love of African art is reflected in the quality of the works they gifted to three curators who acquired memorable and important works during their tenures—all have contributed the Hood's mission to teach Dartmouth undergraduates and visitors of all ages about the diverse and rich art of the many cultures of this continent.
Selections from the Hood Museum of Art
The Beauty of BronzeBronze—a combination of copper, tin, and small amounts of other metals—has long been prized for its preciousness, endurance, and ability to register fine details and reflect light. It is strong and durable, making it ideal for modeling expressive gestures, yet—in molten form—it is malleable enough to be suitable for creating intricate shapes. The term “bronze” is often used for other metals as well, including brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc.
There are two basic methods of casting a bronze in order to make multiple versions of the same design. Sand casting—developed in the early nineteenth century in Europe—is a relatively simple and less expensive technique that relies upon disparate molds made of compacted fine-grained sand that allow for easy production and assembly. Traditional lost-wax casting uses wax models in two manners, or methods, both of which date from antiquity. In the “direct” method, the original wax model itself is used (and thereby destroyed); in the “indirect” method, reusable plaster molds are taken from the original wax model.
The medium’s intrinsic tensile strength and ability to render precise features and various surfaces have been applied to a variety of objects, including vessels, implements, portraits, animals, and figurines. The examples on display here document the worldwide attraction to this remarkable material from antiquity to the early twentieth century.