Category: Exhibitions

Make A Day of It: Of Two Minds and Other Art Activities in Our Area

April 14, 2014 0 Comment
Glow & Glitter, Agneta Hobin, mica, steel mesh, 8” x 8” each, 2014; Alchemia, Agneta Hobin, gilded gold-leaf wooden reliefs, 8” x 8” each, 2014, photo by Tom Grotta

Glow & Glitter, Agneta Hobin, mica, steel mesh, 8” x 8” each, 2014; Alchemia, Agneta Hobin, gilded gold-leaf wooden reliefs, 8” x 8” each, 2014, photo by Tom Grotta

There are cultural opportunities aplenty in our area in late April and early May. In addition to Of Two Minds: Artists That Do More Than One of a Kind at browngrotta arts (bga), 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, Connecticut from April 26th (12pm – 6pm) through May 4th (10 am – 5 pm, April 27th – May 4th), there are exhibitions of interest in nearby Ridgefield, Westport and at the Wilton Historical Society:

Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974 Part 1 Robert Rauschenberg, (1925–2008) Robert Rauschenberg, Umpire, 1965; Private collection

Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974 Part 1
Robert Rauschenberg, (1925–2008)
Robert Rauschenberg, Umpire, 1965; Private collection

Celebrating 50 Years:
Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974
Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Smithson

Aldrich Museum of Art (6.13 miles from bga)
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
http://www.aldrichart.org

Hours
Tuesday – Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m.

The Aldrich will celebrate its 50th Anniversary with three overlapping series of exhibitions that highlight not only the Museum’s legacy, but also the relationship between the era in which it was founded and our current cultural landscape. The first, Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974 — features iconic, historical works by Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Smithson that represent the Museum’s early collection acquired by founder Larry Aldrich.

SOLOS 2014

WAC.logoWestport Arts Center (7.01 miles from bga)
51 Riverside Avenue
Westport, CT. 06880
www.westportartscenter.org

Hours:
Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 12pm – 4pm

Of 150 applicants, Patricia Hickson, the Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut has selected 12 artists, including browngrotta arts’ friend, Ken Resen, to exhibit in Westport Arts Center’s SOLOS 2014.

wiltonhistoricalsocieylogoChanging Times — Hand Tools Before the Industrial Revolution: Connecticut Tools of the Trades from the Walter R.T. Smith Collection 
and
Tavern Signs & Paintings: Heidi Howard, Maker & Painter

In its Burt Barn Gallery, the Society has mounted a series of eccentrically shaped, unusual tools. In the Sloan House Gallery, the Society presents an exhibition of contemporary interpretations of 18th and 19th century trade and tavern signs crafted from hand-planed 100- to 200-year old boards, painted by Heidi Howard.

Wilton Historical Society (1.98 miles from bga)

224 Danbury Road
Wilton, CT 06897
www.wiltonhistorical.org
Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 4pm

Exhibition News: Cloth & Memory(2), Yorkshire, UK

September 15, 2013 0 Comment
Cloth & Memory

Installation shot Cloth & Memory {2} (Yoriko Murayama, Katusura Takasuka, Kari Steihaug)

You have several weeks yet to visit Cloth & Memory(2), dramatic, site-specific exhibition located in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Salts Mill, Saltaire Yorkshire UK. Cloth & Memory(2) takes place in the original Spinning Room (known as The Lobby), which when first built was thought to be the largest industrial room in the world. The extraordinary internal architecture, with its peeling walls and floors still retain the marks and smells of its original use. All the works engage with the palpable history of place that is evident at Salts Mill and The Lobby in particular, and range from large scale interventions in space to highly intimate placings within the fabric of the building.

Cloth & Memory

Koji Takaki. ‘Ma’. Cottpn & Polypropylene. Cloth & Memory {2}

The exhibition’s curator is bga contributor Professor Lesley Millar of the University of Creative Arts. Informed by the knowledge that “cloth holds the memory of our time and connects us with the memories of other times and other places…,” the exhibition features 23 artists drawn from Europe, Japan and the UK.

Caroline Bartlett. 'Stilled'

Caroline Bartlett. ‘Stilled’ Installation Cloth & Memory {2}

Among the participants is Caroline Bartlett (UK), whose work involves a number of large embroidery hoops within one of the wall bays. Each stretched, stitched, woolen cloth piece will be inset with a small porcelain round, imprinted with an impression taken from a fragment of textiles. Bartlett has long been interested in the indications of other histories being formed through textiles and the journey that they take.

Listening In, Caroline Bartlett, mixed media; wooden rings stretched with archival crepeline, wool, linen tape, perspex, 2.75” x 17” x 17”; 5” x 17” x 17”; 6” x 17” x 17”, 2011, photo by tom Grotta

Listening In, Caroline Bartlett, mixed media; wooden rings stretched with archival crepeline, wool, linen tape, perspex, 2.75” x 17” x 17”; 5” x 17” x 17”; 6” x 17” x 17”, 2011, photo by tom Grotta

Bartlett’s Listening In, for example, builds on a previous work of hers entitled Conversation pieces, commissioned by the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, UK. These works evolved from observation and dialogue with the archivist and conservators who work with the Whitworth textile collection and generously shared with the artist some of the procedures and practices with which they are involved. “While an interest in the museological processes of collecting, archiving, storing and conserving guided my explorations,” Bartlett explains, “it was a random search through the accession cards[at the Whitworth] that provided the stimulus and gave focus to the work. It was these that bore witness to the health and state of each item, to the work undertaken to preserve and stabilize each artifact, to endeavors to fill in gaps in the history and making of the object across time and space.” Stilled, Bartlett’s work in Cloth & Memory(2), continues these explorations: “I think of skin, bone, membrane; a layered dermis, and of networks of social, industrial, public and private relations, processes and materiality connecting the building itself with the idea of cloth as silent witness to the intimacies and routines of daily lives.”

Caroline Bartlett. 'Stilled'

Caroline Bartlett. ‘Stilled’. Installation close up Cloth & Memory {2}

Cloth and Memory(2) runs through November 3, 2013. There are curator, coordinator and artist tours each Saturday through the exhibition’s closing. If you can’t visit Yorkshire in time, be sure to visit to exhibition’s website at: http://www.clothandmemory.com. There are images, a video tour, narrated by Lesley Millar and an order form for the comprehensive catalog.

Caroline-Bartlett.-Stilled

Caroline Bartlett. “Stilled” detail. Cloth-Memory

Vanishing and Emerging: Hideho Tanaka’s Retrospective in Tokyo

July 29, 2013 0 Comment

photo by Tom Grotta

In 2012, the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo, Japan hosted, Hideho Tanaka Retrospective: Vanishing and Emerging, an exhibition commemorating the retirement of craft and industrial design professor, Hideho Tanaka. The exhibition featured Tanaka’s signature sculptures made of industrial fibers. In 1985, Tanaka reformulated his notions about the nature of fiber.

VANISHING & EMERGING 2009 I, stainless steel and paper, 22 x 21cm, photo by tanaka nahoshi

VANISHING & EMERGING 2009 I, stainless steel and paper, 22 x 21cm, photo by Jun Sanbonmatsu

Since then, he explained, as part of the Beyond the Surface: Japanese Style of Making Things, he shifted his form of expression “from a longing for eternity to an embracing of things born of relationships that incessantly change and develop.” Why cloth and fiber? Tanaka explains that, “in those days I was constantly inquiring into the nature of material attractions and the necessities of expression. I then became interested in creative forms peculiar to fiber materials, which emerge in time and space and yet which also metamorphose and disappear. This was also part of my realization that there was a kind of fascination in the hierarchy that places accidentals beneath conscious things. The creation of a contrast between what vanishes and what remains, and the moving of this indoors, allows me certain special kinds of expression.

VANISHING 1995 Ⅰ Hideho Tanaka, stainless steel and paper, 27.5" x 59" x 59", photo by tanaka nahoshi

VANISHING 1995 Ⅰ
Hideho Tanaka, stainless steel and paper, 27.5″ x 59″ x 59″, photo by Jun Sanbonmatsu

These have developed into experiments in the intervention of fire into a combination of stainless steel wire (a contemporary inorganic material), and linen (an organic material).” The exhibition was accompanied by a 91-page catalog, Hideho Tanaka Retrospective: Vanishing and Emerging, which is available of $39.95 from browngrotta arts.

Intercultural Approaches: Artfully Connected at the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo

July 24, 2013 0 Comment
Artfully Connected

Artfully Connected artists and Swedish Ambassador Lars Vargö.

Earlier this year, the Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo presented Artfully Connected, a look at Sweden through the eyes of  an exciting group of artists from Japan, Korea, Sweden and the US, curated by artist

Eva Vargo Download me Korean paper cord, Korean old book paper, Japanese ink 48 x 48 cm, 2012

Eva Vargö, Download me (photo: Eric Micotto)
Korean paper cord, Korean old book paper, Japanese ink
48 x 48 cm, 2012

Eva Vargö. The artists who participated were: Young Soon CHA, Korea (Fiber),

CHO-Hikaru

CHO Hikaru, Every thing is not what it seems, Acrylic painting (Photo: Hikaru Cho), 60 × 42 cm, 2013

Hikaru CHO, Japan (Photos and videos), Miwha OH, Korea (Metalsmith – Jewelry), Hisako SEKIJIMA, Japan (Basketmaker),

Jin-Sook So, View the Storsjön (Photo: Pack Myung Re) Steel mesh, electroplated silver, gold painted acrylic color, 90 x 42 x 9 cm, 2012

Jin-Sook So, View the Storsjön (Photo: Pack Myung Re)
Steel mesh, electroplated silver, gold painted acrylic color, 90 x 42 x 9 cm, 2012

Jin-Sook SO, Sweden/Korea (Paintings on steel mesh), Naoki TAKEYAMA, Japan (Enamelled works on copper), Eva VARGÖ, Sweden(Paper weaving and paper Objects),

Lisa VERSHBOW Corsages, six brooches on a stand, Silver, Copper with color pencil patina and wet-felted wool Installation – 21 x 67 x 3 cm, (each brooch approx. 14 x 3 x 1 cm), 2013

Lisa Vershbow, Corsages (photo: Eric Micotto) six brooches on a stand, Silver, Copper with color pencil patina and wet-felted wool, Installation – 21 x 67 x 3 cm, (each brooch approx. 14 x 3 x 1 cm), 2013

Lisa VERSHBOW, USA (Metalsmith – jewelry). Click the links on each name and you can read a brief “story” about the artists and the influence Sweden had on their works.

Hisako Sekijima SE, Kudzu vine, 33 x 20 x 17 cm, 2013

Hisako Sekijima
SE (photo: Eric Micotto) Kudzu vine, 33 x 20 x 17 cm, 2013

Hisako Sekijima, for example, describes the map of Sweden she found on the internet as influencing, SE, the basket she created for the exhibition. Hikaru Cho’s Every Thing Is Not As it Seems speaks to discrimination.”We always bear prejudice and a sense of discrimination somewhere inside,” says the artist in her story. “Often, we don’t even notice it. I have experienced it many times while living in Japan with Chinese nationality. People differentiate the own ethnic group from others in order to strengthen the solidarity.” You can read more about Cho, in the Asahi Shimbun article, “Japan-born artist turns her eye to discrimination,” by Louis Templado, June 14, 2013, http://ajw.asahi.com/. The Embassy also teamed up with well-known Swedish cameramaker Hasselblad to create a behind-the-scenes video, filmed by Eric Micotto, that you can view here: http://vimeo.com/65644600.

Magdalena Abakanowicz Survey: Marlborough Gallery, New York through this Saturday, April 27th

April 24, 2013 0 Comment

Just a few days remain to see the impressive survey of works by Magadalena Abakanowicz at Marlborough Gallery in New York. Marlborough’s exhibition includes 55 works created over a 21-year period from 1987 to 2009. Pieces from several of the artist’s various “cycles,” including War Games, Hoofed Mammal Heads, Coexistence and the Anatomy Cycle as well as three of the artist’s “crowd” figures, including Bambini, a group of 10 children, from 1998-99.

MONTANA DEL FUEGO, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1983, photo by Tom Grotta

MONTANA DEL FUEGO, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1983, photo by Tom Grotta

Abakanowicz who is recognized as among the most original and powerful sculptors working today, initially gained international recognition for her remarkable, over-sized dimensional works of fiber. In Warsaw, in the late 50s and early 60s, Abakanowicz worked with what was available. “I could not pick up stone or marble and go to a foundry because there was no stone, no marble and no foundry to cast it,” she told Rita Reif of The New York Times in 2001, The Jackboot Has Lifted. Now the Crowds Crush. “This absence brought me to what they call the ‘world of fiber.’ It would never have happened if everyday life had been different. I needed to build something around me like a fence, to shut out the unpleasantness.” She called her early works, made of sisal ropes salvaged from the docks on the Vistula River in Warsaw “constructions” Abakanowicz has said that she had no desire to learn weave. Nonetheless, one of her first woven works, Composition of white forms, created a sensation at the first international Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962, not only because of the monumental scale — large enough to walk into, but because the work was such a departure from pictorial tapestry conventions. Though now far better known as a sculptor, Abakanowicz continued to create tapestry forms, albeit unconventional ones, through at least the mid-80s.

LUNE DE MIEL 1 sisal 55" x 78" x 8", 1986

LUNE DE MIEL 1, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1986, photo by Tom Grotta

Magdalena Abakanowicz: A Survey 1987-2009, Marlborough Gallery, 40 West 57th Street, New York, NY, 10019, 212-541-4900. To see a sampling of the exhibition, visit: http://marlboroughgallery.com/exhibitions/magdalena-abakanowicz-a-survey-1987-2009.

In Honor of Asia Week: Nine Japanese Artists

March 15, 2013 0 Comment

Asia Week New York 2013, March 15th to March 23rd is a nine-day celebration of Asian art throughout metropolitan New York, with exhibitions, auctions and special events presented by 43 leading international Asian art specialists, five major auction houses, and 17 museums and cultural institutions; http://www.asiaweekny.com. Not going to be in New York this month? Not to worry, over the next few days, we’ll bring some striking examples of Asian art, more than two dozen works, in fact, to a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone near you. Here’s the first of four installments, featuring nine artists from Japan.

3D INTERSECTION II by Norie Hatekayama, photo by Tom Grotta

3D INTERSECTION II by Norie Hatekayama, photo by Tom Grotta

Norie Hatekayama (Japan)

Figure-Odd by Kazue Honma, photo by Tom Grotta

Figure-Odd by Kazue Honma, photo by Tom Grotta

Kazue Honma (Japan)

Groundwater by Mutsumi Iwasaki, photo by Tom Grotta

Groundwater by Mutsumi Iwasaki, photo by Tom Grotta

Mutsumi Iwasaki (Japan)

Aric Grid Hanging with Tank Twelve by Kiyomi Iwata, photo by Tom Grotta

Aric Grid Hanging with Tank Twelve by Kiyomi Iwata, photo by Tom Grotta

Kiyomi Iwata (Japan.United States)

Grove by Tamiko Kawata, photo by Tom Grotta

Grove by Tamiko Kawata, photo by Tom Grotta

Tamiko Kawata (Japan/United States)

Space Ship 2000 by Masakazu Kbayashi, photo by Tom Grotta

Space Ship 2000 by Masakazu Kbayashi, photo by Tom Grotta

Masakazu Kobayashi (Japan)

Untitled by Naomi Kobayashi, photo by Tom Grotta

Untitled by Naomi Kobayashi, photo by Tom Grotta

Naomi Kobayashi (Japan)

SAI by Yasuhisa Kohyama, photo by Tom Grotta

SAI by Yasuhisa Kohyama, photo by Tom Grotta

Yasuhisa Kohyama (Japan)

A Begining by Kyoko Kumai, photo by Tom Grotta

A Begining by Kyoko Kumai, photo by Tom Grotta

Kyoko Kumai (Japan)

This Month’s Don’t Miss Exhibitions

January 13, 2013 0 Comment

through January 20, 2013
High Fiber: Recent Large Scale Acquisitions in Fiber
Racine Art Museum
Racine, Wisconsin

Ahnen Galerie by Françoise Grossen

Ahnen Galerie by Françoise Grossen

High Fiber transforms RAM’s largest gallery space with larger-than-life size sculpture by significant contemporary artists who have established reputations working with fibers such as fabric, metal wire, and cedar. Created with techniques like weaving and knotting––and touching on a variety of subjects including metaphysics, the human condition, and the natural world––the works featured in this exhibition delight the eye and engage the mind. The artists whose work is included are: Nancy Hemenway Barton, Carol Eckert, Françoise Grossen, Jan Hopkins, Michael James, Ruth Lee Kao, Nancy Koenigsberg, Gyöngy Laky, Rebecca Medel, Linda Kelly Osborne, Barbara Lee Smith, Jean Stamsta, Merle Temkin, Dawn Walden and Claire Zeisler. For more information, call: 262.638.8300 or visit: http://www.ramart.org/sites/default/files/userfiles/exhibitions/2012/HighFiber/High Fiber Notes.pdf.

opened January 12th
Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers
Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Visitor Center GalleryGrosse Pointe, Michigan

FordEdsal.Install.1

Green from the Get Go: Contemporary International Basketmakers installation at the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, photo by tom grotta

Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers, curated by browngrotta arts and Jane Milosch, former curator of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, opens at the Visitor Center Gallery of the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and runs through March 9th. The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House is at 110 Lake Shore Road, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, 48236. Hours are 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. For more information call: 313.884.4222 or visit: http://www.fordhouse.org/calendar.html?month=&year=&cat=&cid=8691.

opened January 12th
Aleksandra (Sasha) Stoyanov: Warp and Weft Painting
Tefen Open Museum
P.O.B. 1
Migdal Tefen, Israel 24959
Art Gallery: 04-9109613; Visitors Department: 04-9872022; 04-9109609

AleksandraStoyanov.TefenOpen.Installation

Aleksandra Stoyanov Tefen Open Museum Installation, photo courtesy of the Tefen Open Museum

The Tefen Open Museum exhibition features a large grouping of Stoyanov’s painterly weavings, whose subjects feel like dream fragments or half-forgotten memories. There is a catalog for the exhibition, which is open through August 2013, http://store.browngrotta.com/aleksandra-sasha-stoyanov-warp-and-weft-painting/. It features an essay by Davira Taragin and will be available through browngrotta arts. Stoyanov’s work, From the First Person – Number II, has recently been added to the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
opening January 17th
Lenore Tawney: Wholly Unlooked For
University of the Arts
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Book of Foot by Lenore Tawney, photo by Tom Grotta

Book of Foot by Lenore Tawney, photo by Tom Grotta

The University of the Arts presents an exhibition by late artist Lenore Tawney (1907–2007), a leading figure in the contemporary fiber arts movement. Presented in conjunction with the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, the exhibition, which runs through March 2nd, will feature her paper-focused pieces. For more information, visit: http://www.uarts.edu/.The Maryland Institute College of Art, Tawney’s alma mater, is hosting a complementary exhibition, http://www.mica.edu/News/Multi-Venue_Exhibition_Honors_Legendary_Fiber_Artist_Lenore_Tawney_H92_(1907–2007)_This_Winter_.html under the same, title featuring her line-based objects.

Opening Reception: January 24, 5 – 7:30 p.m.
University of the Arts
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Panel Discussion: January 24, 2 – 4 p.m.
The Legacy of Lenore Tawney
University of the Arts
CBS Auditorium, Hamilton Hall
Panelists: Jack Lenor Larsen: dean of Modern Textile Design, founder of LongHouse, Honory Doctorate, University of the Arts; Kathleen Nugent Mangan: director of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation; Dr. Suzanne Hudson: assistant professor, University of Southern California; Warren Seelig: artist, distinguished visiting professor, University of the Arts; Moderator: Sid Sachs: director of exhibitions, University of the Arts.

opening January 22nd
MFA Book Arts and Crafts/Fibers Exhibition
Gallery 224 & President’s Office
University of the Arts
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This exhibit features work by University of the Arts students in the MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking and Crafts/Fibers programs, who have each created a piece in response to Lenore Tawney’s work. The students researched an extraordinary collection of objects from the Lenore Tawney Foundation, including old books and parts of old books, wood containers, small bottles and thread, which they incorporated and used as inspiration for their exhibition pieces. The exhibition runs through February 8th. For more information, visit: http://www.uarts.edu/.

Books Make Great Gifts 2013 – Part II

December 16, 2012 0 Comment

More book recommendations from artists and us.

“There are a series of books, journals, Daybook, Turn, and Prospect, by Anne Truitt, the minimalist sculptor,” Mary Merkel-Hess writes, “that were important to me when I was a young artist. In a marvelously lucid way, Anne Truitt wrote about her life in the studio, her marriage, children, and making a living at art. Particularly interesting to me was her discussion, in her first book, about turning away from a life of doing ‘good’ in the world (she studied clinical psychology and worked as a nurse) to become an artist.”

Nancy Moore Bess, recommends The World of Donald Evans by Willy Eisenhart. “I had purchased some bookmarks with his watercolor ‘stamps’ and was excited to see a book about him. His work is visually so rich and really reflects his life…which tragically ended in a fire at his studio in 1977. If you ever find a copy, curl up with it yourself.”

For Heidrun Schimmel, Documenta 13, was one of the best ‘documenta’ exhibitions and the publications — there are three — give a great deal of information about the art scene, the questions and problems of our world. Documenta 13’s Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev described the 2012 festival as “choreographing many different kinds of materials, methodologies and forms of knowledge.” One of the three publications, Documenta 13: The Book of Books reproduces the entire 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts series of publications (either as facsimiles or with entirely new layouts), and is supplemented by essays from Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Chus Martínez, Franco Berardi and others, plus statements by some of the festival’s agents and advisors. Heidrun also recommends Ends of the Earth, Art of the Land to 1974, by Philipp Kaiser, Miwon Kwon, Tom Holert and Julian Meyers. The companion exhibition is at Haus der Kunst, Prinzregentenstraße 1 in Munich,
Germany through January 20, 2013. “I think this exhibition is very important for anyone who is working with ‘material as matter,’ perhaps especially for artists of my generation who remember this revolution in art history.”

I am thoroughly enjoying Confessions of a Generalist, by Niels Diffrient, as I have a few moments to read amidst holiday prep and end-of-year items. Niels is a friend, the spouse of tapestry artist Helena Hernmarck and designer of the Freedom, Liberty and World ergonomic chairs. His is a remarkable journey — from a Mississippi farm to Cranbrook to Italy, to work with Eero Saarinen, Buckminister Fuller, Henry Dreyfuss and for Edwin Land, on every every type of equipment, as well as computers, exhibits, trucks, airplane interiors and corporate identity programs. The book is lavishly illustrated and captioned and Niels succeeds in his aim of creating a “communication product,” that closely relates words and pictures, both physically and intellectually, and approximates “the way we experience reality with both our intellect and senses.”

Looking Forward/Looking Back: Françoise Grossen

December 3, 2012 0 Comment

Earlier this year, Françoise Grossen sent bga these congratulations on our 25th anniversary. Grossen’s remarkable contributions to the field predate ours. In 1972, her work was featured in, “Rope Art: A new form fit to be tied,” in Life Magazine in an article on the exhibition Deliberate Entanglements. “Françoise Grossen, a Swiss better at knotting than entomology, concocted a 20-foot Inch Worm” the magazine wrote. “Some viewers at New York’s Museum of Contemporary Crafts thought it moved.” (Life Magazine, December 1, 1972, pp.86-90). This year, Grosssen’s work, Ahnen Galerie, 10 braided bundles of dyed manila rope with appendages, 13 x 116 x 92 inches, was acquired by the Racine Art Museum. Ahnen Galerie is now on display in High Fiber: Recent Large-Scale Acquisitions in Fiber, http://www.ramart.org/content/high-fiber-recent-large-scale-acquisitions-fiber, at the Racine Museum of Art through January 20, 2013.

November 26th: Our Online Exhibition Opens With an Offer for CyberMonday

November 26, 2012 0 Comment

On Monday, November 26th, browngrotta arts will present an online version of our 25th anniversary exhibition,Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture at browngrotta.com. The comprehensive exhibition highlights browngrotta arts’ 25 years promoting international contemporary art. Viewers can click on any image in the online exhibition to reach a page with more information about the artists and their work.

“Some works in Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture reflect the early days of contemporary textile art and sculpture movement,” says Tom Grotta, founder and co-curator at browngrotta arts. “There are also current works by both established and emerging artists, which provide an indication of where the movement is now and where it may be headed.”

Since Monday the 26th is CyberMonday this year, sales of art, books, catalogs, videos or dvds placed online or by telephone that day will be discounted 10% (excluding tax and shipping). In addition, bga will make a donation to the International Child Art Foundation for each sale made from November 24th through December 31, 2012. Visit browngrotta.com. For more information call Tom at 203.834.0623 or email us at art@browngrotta.com.