This fall, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College will have four diverse offerings: two new exhibitions - Cell Tango and 21 Etchings and Poems (through December 13, 2009); and two new installations - Christine Hiebert's Reconnaissance: Three Wall Drawings; and Michael Singer's Ritual Series/Retelling, (both on view through summer 2010).

Cell Tango

Will cellphone technology transform how we create and use images? George Legrady and Angus Forbes explore the intersection of user generated visual narratives and descriptive social tagging in their installation Cell Tango. The work is a dynamically evolving archive of cellphone-transmitted images contributed by participants from anywhere in the world. Once submitted, the images are organized according to specific criteria, such as descriptive tags, cell phone numbers, and transmission date. The images and accompanying tags are projected in the gallery and dynamically change as the image database grows over the course of the installation.

Submit your own images to pix@celltango.org to be part of the installation! Be sure to include two to four descriptive tags in the subject line of your message. For example, if you send a picture of a birthday cake you could include the following in the subject line of the message: birthday, cake, delicious, celebration.

George Legrady is Professor of Interactive Media in the Media Arts and Technology program at UC Santa Barbara. He is director of the Experimental Visualization Lab, and is one of the first generation of artists in the 1980's to integrate computer processes into his artistic work, producing pioneering prizewinning interactive projects such as the "Anecdoted Archive from the Cold War" (1993), "Slippery Traces" (1995), "Sensing Speaking Space" (2002), "Pockets Full of Memories" (2001-2007), and most recently "We Are Stardust" (2008) commissioned by the NASA Spitzer Science Center at CalTech.

Angus Forbes is a PhD student and IGERT fellow in Media Arts and Technology at University of California, Santa Barbara. His research areas include information visualization, interface design, self-organizing algorithms, and computational linguistics. He founded Synaesthetic Software, Inc. in 2002 to develop music education software. In 2006, he created the interface to the National Geospatial Digital Archive, a multi-campus preservation initiative funded by the Library of Congress.

Cell Tango is funded by Wellesley College Friends of Art and The Sandra Cohen Bakalar '55 Fund for Art.

21 Etchings and Poems

Uniting word and image in a project both intimate and monumental, 21 Etchings and Poems is a tour de force in the history of American printmaking. Featuring the work of 42 poets and artists, from Dylan Thomas to Frank O'Hara, and Helen Phillips to Willem de Kooning, this 1960 portfolio represents a landmark collaboration between the visual and literary arts. Each print closely integrates text and image, including a poem written in the hand of its author and imagery created through a wide range of innovative print techniques. Initiated by artist Peter Grippe, director of the renowned Atelier 17 print workshop, and the result of nearly ten years of effort, 21 Etchings and Poems is not only a milestone of mid-20th century American print publishing, but is unique in its inclusion of writers and artists from across the spectrum of 1950s cultural production.
Recordings of the poems and images of the etchings are available on iTunes and at http://www.davismuseum.wellesley.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions_etchings_poems.html.

This exhibition and related programs are funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Wellesley College Friends of Art.

Christine Hiebert's Reconnaissance: Three Wall Drawings

The Davis Museum reopens the light-filled architectural space of the Tanner Gallery with Christine Hiebert's Reconnaissance: Three Wall Drawings. Hiebert's site-specific wall installation responds to the monumental space designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, and takes into consideration the fifth-century Antioch mosaic permanently mounted on the gallery wall. Utilizing the language of line on a large scale, Hiebert's art is an exploration of space: she draws, articulates, and redefines it, evoking a personal, metaphorical, architectural space of her own. Composed of blue adhesive tape as well as paper rolled with ink, this multi-part work expressively commands and engages the monumental architectural space of this top floor gallery.

Christine Hiebert is an artist who is equally at home with the intimate scale of drawings on paper and the monumental scale of architectural interventions. She has created site-specific installations for, among others, the Drawing Center, New York (2003), the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2005), and the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA (2007); her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S and Europe, and her drawings are in many public and private collections.

This installation is funded by the Betty B. McAndrew Museum Fund.

Michael Singer’s Ritual Series/Retellings, 1988

During academic year 2009-2010, the Davis Museum will return to view a major work of contemporary sculpture from the permanent collection, American artist Michael Singer's Ritual Series/Retellings, 1988. This exhibition is a chance to take a fresh look at this important, room-size sculpture, as well as the rare opportunity to compare two major pieces by this significant artist. Untitled 1989-92, a site-specific outdoor piece created by Singer in collaboration with architect Michael McKinnell, that is permanently installed on Wellesley College's campus near Lake Waban.

Both sculptures embody a fundamental element of Singer's oeuvre: an exploration of the boundaries between sculpture, nature, and architecture. In each work of art, materials like stone, bronze shaped like wood, and wood are layered and enclosed or contained. They evoke ritualistic associations, transforming the viewer into a kind of archaeologist or explorer and heightening awareness of each site—the white cube of the gallery or the lush landscape of the lakeside.

Michael Singer is renowned for his 1970s and 1980s work, which opened new possibilities for outdoor and indoor sculpture and contributed to the very definition of site-specific art. His most recent work has traversed the worlds of architecture, public space, ecology, and urban planning, where he has been instrumental in creating successful models for urban and ecological renewal. His works are part of public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This installation is made possible by the Helyn MacLean '80 Endowed Program Fund.