Join us for our spring openings on March 19, 2008
Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Durer and Titian During their first century of existence in the fifteenth century, prints were essentially limited by the size and shape of single sheets of paper as well as by the size of a standard press. Yet in the new sixteenth century, a variety of impulses led to the expansion of printed imagery beyond these confining boundaries.
Ambitions to rival painted images and to adorn wall surfaces prompted print ensembles to expand, either horizontally into frieze sequences like carved reliefs, or in both directions like murals or tapestries. They achieved these effects by adding coordinated sheets, at first mainly woodcuts but then increasingly engravings, to build single images.
Guest curated by Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania, this exhibition will be shown at the Davis Museum and at two other venues. Except for an exhibition of giant woodcuts in the 1970s, this will be the first exhibition in more than 100 years to explore this genre in printmaking by some of the most important artists and printmakers of their day.
Jem Southam: Upton Pyne
One of the most significant photographers working in Britain today, Jem Southam creates photographic narratives of landscape transformed by time and humans. Upton Pyne chronicles the evolution of a small pond, the result of industrial waste on the site of a former manganese mine near his home in Cornwall, England. The artist describes the series as a "collection of histories," which he gathered during regular visits to the pond during 1996-2003. The photographs detail a very particular place and the passing of time. They also address broader concerns about the relationship between humans and the natural world, from questions about the environment to debates on urbanization. Fundamentally, Southam's work meditates on the human longing for an Arcadian past.
The series is structured in the three parts. The first follows the efforts of one neighbor, who strove to transform the pond into his own notion of Eden, replete with fish, trees, flowers, and benches for contemplation. After three years he suddenly stopped and the pond once again fell into disuse. Part two sees another resident take over, this time with the goal of making it into a suburban-style leisure area, including picnic tables, swing-sets and plastic ornaments. In the final segment, Southam stands at the pond's edges and turns his camera out, connecting the pond and viewers of the photographs with the surrounding landscape.
Davis Museum at 11:03 AM |
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