“Group Relief”— a solo exhibition by artist Ruby Sky Stiler
Featuring new relief paintings and figurative furniture-sculpture by New York artist Ruby Sky Stiler (b. 1979), Group Relief is presented by the Fairfield University Art Museum as part of the University’s celebration of 50 years of women at Fairfield. Stiler, who holds a BFA from RISD and an MFA from the Yale University School of Art, has been investigating images of women inspired by the techniques and language of classical antiquity for over a decade. Recently, Stiler’s art has expanded to include the subject of “father and child.” The dearth of art historical precedent for depictions of men displaying emotional intimacy, or being defined by their relationship to their children, is in stark contrast to the abundant impressions of “mother and child.”
Curated by Ian Berry, Dayton Director of the Tang Teaching Museum, this exhibition includes contemporary interpretations of the traditional museum “viewing bench” as a form of utilitarian sculpture. The exhibition invites viewers to sit and consider their own bodies in relation to the gallery space and the ideas in the artwork on the walls.
The exhibition is accessible through the museum’s website as a 3-D virtual exhibition with audio tour. (Due to Covid-19 precautions, Fairfield University’s in-person viewing of the exhibition in the museum’s Walsh Gallery in the Quick Center for the Arts, is not available.)
The exhibition, which opened with a virtual conversation between Ruby Sky Stiler and curator Ian Berry on September 10, will be on view until December 19.
Michelle Di Marzo ‘07, PhD, Curator, Fairfield University Art Museum
In interviews, artist William Kentridge (b. 1955) has frequently remarked that he was “reduced to being an artist” after his lack of acting ability scuttled his plans for a career in theater. Such dry humor characterizes much of the renowned South African artist’s work over the course of the past four decades, from charcoal drawing and printmaking to film animation and even opera direction. Fairfield County will enjoy the opportunity to experience some of the artist’s most recent work as Fairfield University Art Museum presents William Kentridge: Universal Archive, an exhibition of works on paper inspired during the writing of the artist’s Norton Lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 2012. The exhibition in the museum’s Walsh Gallery features more than 75 linocut prints, based on ink sketches and printed on dictionary and encyclopedia pages. In these prints, Kentridge revisits a familiar personal iconography, including coffee pots, typewriters, cats, trees, nudes and other imagery, a thematic repertoire that has appeared in his art and stage productions throughout his career. Shifting from identifiable subject matter to deconstructed images of abstract marks, the images form juxtapositions with the underlying text that suggest skepticism about the creative process and even the construction of knowledge itself.
Born in Johannesburg, Kentridge displayed prodigious artistic talent from a young age. After graduating with a diploma in Fine Arts from the Johannesburg Art Foundation, he studied theater in Paris. Later, while working in television and film as an art director, he began developing a studio practice as a draftsman and printmaker. He also became known for his innovative animations, which he created by filming his drawings through a process of erasure, revision, and movement. In the world of opera, Kentridge has attracted widespread praise as a stage designer and theater director, including his productions of Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2015, and Berg’s Wozzack at the Salzburg Festival in 2017. In 2016, he designed Triumphs and Laments, a monumental, 1800-foot-long mural along the banks of the Tiber River in Rome formed of more than 80 silhouettes based on his charcoal drawings. His work has also appeared in countless major international exhibitions, and is in the collection of museums worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Tate Modern in London.
Together with charcoal drawing, printmaking forms the core of Kentridge’s studio practice. Since the 1970s he has made over 300 prints utilizing a range of techniques, including etching, drypoint, engraving, silkscreen, lithography, and linocut. Unlike the act of drawing, in which the artist’s engagement with the support is mediated only through the hand and eye, printmaking involves the surprising intrusion of an outside force—the mechanical act that creates the print not only reverses the drawn image, but also potentially introduces unexpected changes. As the artist explained in 2010, “at the other side of the press is a version of your drawing that is different to the marks originally made. A separation, as if some other hand had made the print.”
In 2012, Kentridge held the prestigious Charles Eliot Norton lectureship at Harvard University. In the lectures he presented, entitled Six Drawing Lessons, the artist likened his drawing for a print to a “hypothesis,” and the printing press to “a primitive machine for logic.” Rather than follow a predetermined course, the roles played by chance and failure are recurring themes in Kentridge’s discussion of his studio practice. If the result (the “proof,” in both senses of the world) “does not hold out,” he explained, “the proposition must be altered, the plate reworked, sent back through the rollers to reveal a new proof.”
Inspired by these lectures, the works in William Kentridge: Universal Archive began as drawings in India ink, executed using both what the artist calls a “good brush” as well as a “bad brush,” the latter being one with damaged bristles that produced less controlled marks. Together with his printing team, Kentridge then translated the drawings into linocuts, a technique capable of capturing the fluidity of line in a manner similar to that of drawing. In the resulting prints, trees birds, coffee pots and cats—each brought to life by thick, calligraphic lines—gambol over pages plucked from Encyclopedia Britannica and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. The juxtapositions of image and text produce encounters that range from the playful to the melancholy, and which challenge the primacy of traditional (and now perhaps outdated) forms of creating and storing knowledge. “We are so pleased to be able to bring this important body of work by such a distinguished artist to the Fairfield University Art Museum,” says the museum’s assistant director and exhibition curator Carey Weber. “Given Kentridge’s both subtle and overt references to language and knowledge, this show is a perfect fit within the context of a university art museum.”
Originally published in Venü magazine.
William Kentridge: Universal Archive will be on view March 1 – May 19, 2018 in the museum’s Walsh Gallery in the Quick Center for the Arts on Fairfield University’s campus and is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday, 12-4 p.m. Admission is free. Please consult the museum website (www.fairfield.edu/museum) for more information.
Excited to be part of a panel discussion tomorrow involving art and science! Artists Travis LeRoy Southworth, Gianluca Bianchino & Jessica Angel will part of the discussion along with astronomer Jaclyn Avidon, computer scientist Manfred Minimair, and physicist Mahmet A. Sahiner. Moderated by Jeanne Brasile.
Panel Discussion: "Grasping Infinity"
Thursday, March 5th 7:00-8:30pm
Walsh Gallery, Seton Hall University
