Exhibitions in 2002

How-To: The Art of Deborah Oropallo

November 9, 2002 - February 2, 2003

Organized by the San Jose Museum of Art. The San Jose Museum of Art and this exhibition are supported by the City of San Jose; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; The Arts Commission, City of San Jose; the California Arts Council; the William Randolph Hearst Education Endowment; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the Koret Foundation; and Museum members.

How-To: The Art of Deborah Oropallo is a mid-career survey of 23 paintings and 3 sculptures that highlight the work of one of the Bay Area’s most influential artists.

Some Assembly Required

October 26, 2002 - February 23, 2003

Organized by the Museum of Glass

Some Assembly Required presents fifteen works of art by eleven internationally acclaimed artists currently working with glass. The exhibition focuses on how these artists produce a single work by assembling many intricate parts.

Inaugural Exhibition
Sounds of the Inner Eye: John Cage, Mark Tobey and Morris Graves

July 6-October 6, 2002

Organized by the Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany
Sponsored by the Frank Russell Company.

This milestone exhibition focuses on the careers of three historically significant artists who were contemporaries for a time in the Pacific Northwest.

Inaugural Exhibition
The Inner Light: Sculpture by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová

July 6-October 27, 2002

Organized by the Museum of Glass
Guest Curator Robert Kehlmann
Sponsored by Columbia Bank. Additional support provided by Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, AT&T and Scandinavian Airlines.

The Museum of Glass showcases two of the world's most respected sculptors.

Installations

Blackbird in a Red Sky (a.k.a. Fall of the Blood House), 2002

Mildred Howard
July 2, 2002 – June 22, 2004

Organized by the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by Pierce Country Arts Commission, Spectrum Glass Company, Inc., and Specialty Forest Products

Using the ordinary objects of everyday life - glass bottles, flip-flop slippers, shoe polish containers, old photographs and the like - mixed media and installation artist Mildred Howard creates works of profound aesthetic and cultural significance. Drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary experiences, the prolific artist chooses materials that reference African-American folk culture then reinterprets them in contemporary language.

Much of Howard's art focuses on potent subject matter, fertile with symbolism. In her hands, fragments of memory and history, architectural elements and found and store-bought objects mingle to create a visual language that is both personal and communal. The unique contributions of the African diaspora to world culture, both in music and art, also are celebrated in her work. Improvisation, often prominent in these African-derived forms, is crucial to her artistic methods.

Die Falle, 1998

Gregory Barsamian
July 6, 2002 – May 18, 2003

Collection of the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by Museum members

Gregory Barsamian makes daydreams and existential nightmares lurch to life using the optical illusion of motion and the 19th century invention of the zoetrope, an automated flipbook and precursor to the cinema. His adaptation of the old fashioned toy uses strobe lights synchronized to sequentially sculpted objects. Applying mechanical know-how, 3-D animation techniques, and what Barsamian calls "Industrial Revolution-style technology," he creates the illusion of motion and metamorphosis. The effect is truly mesmerizing.

Die Falle is a derivation of a German slang word meaning bed. In this large-scale piece, a small human body spills out of the head of a sleeping man (Barsamian). As it rises, the body transforms into a round tire, then a square tire. By the time it returns to the form of a body it has climbed to a new height. Finally, it jumps into a bed shaped like a mousetrap. The liquid image of the character plays a "disarrayed irrational dream" against "the joy of slumber," alluding to the struggle between the spirit and the body.

Call of the Wild, 2002

Patrick Dougherty
July 6, 2002 – May 3, 2004

Organized by the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation

The sculpture of Patrick Dougherty has a unique twist - literally. He is internationally recognized for his large outdoor creations, woven entirely from twigs and saplings. His installations are organic and architectural, evocative of both birds' nests and cathedrals. Dougherty develops each piece in harmony with its surroundings. Many are created not only to be viewed but also to be walked through, sat upon and explored. Each installation takes about three weeks to wind, twist, loop and twirl its way into the landscape, a process that is improvisational and intuitive.

The Glass Kingdom, 2002

Gronk
July 6, 2002 – October 5, 2003

Organized by the Museum of Glass
Sponsored by the Tacoma Arts Commission and Museum members

Born and raised in East Los Angeles to Mexican parents, Gronk dropped out of high school at age 16 to become an artist. His experience of the Mexican-American mix of Latino culture in the area during the 1950s and 1960s was very much a part of his formative years. Often referring to himself as an "urban archaeologist," he uses these roots as a foundation to structure a narrative story through art.

During the 1970s, Gronk was one of the founding members of ASCO, an avant-garde "multi-media arts collective" in Los Angeles. Later that decade, Gronk turned his attention to drawing, painting, solo performance art and stage design. He is best known for his murals and his very physical approach to painting. Much of his recent work has been done either in series or as temporary, mural-scale, site-specific paintings. He has also been working extensively with music and its relationship with painting.