The Hillstrom Museum of Art at Gustavus Adolphus College will host three concurrent exhibitions beginning Monday, Sept. 13. Voices: Contemporary Ceramic Art from Sweden; ENNESBO; and FOCUS IN/ON: Henry Varnum Poor’s Autumn Still Life will all be on display through Nov. 7.
An opening reception will take place Monday, Sept. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m. with a second reception scheduled during the Nobel Conference Tuesday, Oct. 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. All exhibitions, receptions, and related events at the Hillstrom Museum of Art are free and open to the public.
Voices: Contemporary Ceramic Art from Sweden features ten artists who are leading proponents of the dynamism and originality of contemporary ceramic art in Sweden. Their work redefines ceramics as an art form used for freedom of expression, no longer as objects designed primarily for function. The artists, chosen for the exhibition by Inger Molin, a prominent figure in contemporary Swedish ceramic art, include Frida Fjellman, Renata Francescon, Eva Hild, Pontus Lindvall, Mårten Medbo, AnnaSofia Mååg, Gustaf Nordenskiöld, Kjell Rylander, Per B. Sundberg, and Kennet Williamsson.
Voices was developed by the Swedish Institute, Stockholm, and was organized for tour by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. The exhibition was previously shown at European venues including Hamburg, Paris, and Ghent, and in a U.S. tour including the House of Sweden/Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Mont., and the Dubuque Museum of Art in Iowa.
In conjunction with Voices, Nicole Roberts Hoiland, who teaches ceramics in the College’s Department of Art and Art History, will present a public gallery talk in the exhibition space, at 12 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14.
In the exhibition ENNESBO, artist Sandra Binion offers, through the use of various media including multi-channel video installation, surround sound, photographs, paintings, and wallpaper, a unique interpretation of a humble but richly emblematic place. Ennesbo is a small farming settlement in rural southern Sweden where the artist’s family has lived and worked for more than 300 years, and from which her great-grandmother emigrated to the U.S. in 1896. The artist was drawn to the family farm in an effort to delve into her personal, familial, and cultural roots, and through the richness of her time spent there, it became a locus for investigating broader issues of one’s sense of place, the effects of landscape on individual sensibility, and the transmission of cultural values across history. Binion will discuss her work at the opening reception for ENNESBO.
FOCUS IN/ON: Henry Varnum Poor’s Autumn Still Life will consider a still life painting by prominent American painter and ceramicist Henry Varnum Poor (1887-1970), in another of the Museum’s FOCUS IN/ON projects, in which a single work from the Hillstrom Collection is analyzed in depth in collaboration with a colleague from across the Gustavus curriculum. An essay co-written by Professor of Philosophy Lisa Heldke and Museum Director Donald Myers, will consider Poor and his career, and the still life elements in the painting, tying it to contemporary movements in locally grown and organic food. This exhibit is presented in conjunction with the College’s 2010 Nobel Conference, Making Food Good, which will take place Oct. 5-6.
The Hillstrom Museum of Art is located on the lower level of the College’s C. Charles Jackson Campus Center. Regular museum hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 1 to 5 p.m. on weekends.
For more information about these exhibitions or the Hillstrom Museum of Art, go online to gustavus.edu/finearts/hillstrom or call 507-933-7200.
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