SAINT JOSEPH COLLEGE ART GALLERY SUMMER EXHIBITION -
BEYOND WORDS OPENS ON TUESDAY, JULY 7: As part of its
summer exhibition of the permanent collection, the Saint Joseph College
Art Gallery will present Beyond Words, an installation of
prints that use text as image and message, including screen prints by
Sister Mary Corita Kent and posters by the Guerilla Girls. The
installation opens on Tuesday, July 7 and runs through Sunday, September
6.
• Beyond
Words features prints that embody a deep engagement in cultural and
social issues. Sister Mary Corita Kent, who belonged to the Order of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, began exhibiting her screen prints in the
early 1950s. Drawing inspiration from advertising and media, she
re-contextualized everyday phrases and images in colorful prints on such
issues as poverty, social injustice, and war. In the late 1960s her work
began to focus on lettering as the major design element in her prints,
using texts from song lyrics, fragments of poetry, or contemporary
slogans. The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of female artists, was
founded in 1985 in response to an exhibition at MoMA in which only 17
out of 165 artists were women. Since then they have made posters, staged
public actions, and issued books using humor to state bluntly the facts
of discrimination. Their posters on view in Beyond Words
address injustice in art, culture and politics.
• The
installation has been timed to coincide with Saint Joseph College’s 2009
Arts Integration and Multiple Intelligences Project (AIMI) summer
programs for children grades 3-8. The theme for Session II (July 13
-July 29) with Jacques d’Amboise and a team from the National Dance
Institute is A Celebration of John Lennon, which will culminate
in a performance weaving vignettes of Lennon’s life together with
original choreography set to his music.
• In addition
to Beyond Words, the summer exhibition of works from the Saint
Joseph College Art Gallery’s permanent collection will feature such
highlights as paintings by Milton Avery, Georgia O’Keeffe, Thomas Hart
Benton, and other twentieth-century American masters.
The Art Gallery is
open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday: 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.;
Thursday: 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.; and Sunday: 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.; closed
Monday. Admission is free of charge. For more information, contact
Rochelle L.R. Oakley at 860.231.5743 or roakley@sjc.edu.