Art History

Senior Karen Johnson, Junior, Christopher Richards and Jean

On Friday, May 20th, in a tent behind the Barringer House on Annandale Road, Jean was feted, toasted and celebrated by the Art History program and current colleagues, past colleagues, past and current students, and many family members.  It was a memorable afternoon with many moving testimonials and amusing recollections.

Jean and alum Christopher McCloskey and Lily Robbins

The Art History program owes its existence to the efforts of Prof. French in the 1970s to secure art history as a major at Bard College.  The very first art history major, Randy Farber Buckingham, spoke of her experience and life long love of Medieval art as a result of being Prof. French’s student.

Prof. Tom Wolf recollected the early days when the department consisted of two faculty members, himself and Prof. French. As you can see below, the program has grown and is thriving.

The Art History Department faculty and staff 2011

Jean concluded the event with a few words of thanks and encouragement.  Later that evening, she was awarded the Bardian Award by President Botstein.

Jean saying her farewells!

Photographic Representations of the Growth of Cities, 1880-1970

Curated by Luc Sante from his collection.
Stevenson Library Lobby Vitrines

May 11-June 22, 2011
Opening Reception:
Wednesday, May 11, 5:00-6:30 pm

Jean in the early years at Bard

Professor Jean M. French, Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History, has taught Medieval and Renaissance art history at Bard College since 1971.

The Art History Program cordially invites you to a Retirement Celebration
1:00– 4:00 pm
Friday, May 20, 2011
under the tent behind Barringer House
1442 Annandale Road
Please rsvp to [email protected], or 845.758.7158

Prof. Jean M. French will be the recipient of the 2011 Bardian Award presented at the annual President’s Dinner at 5:30 pm after the party!
Reservations are required:
http://annandaleonline.org/commencement

Jean will become Professor Emeritus at Bard College.

Zhang Dali at Eli Klein Fine Art
http://www.elikleinfineart.com/html/exhibinfo.asp?exnum=734|
462 West Broadway NY NY 10012
April 4th – May 8^th

Zhang Dali: New Slogan

Zhang Dali has a show in Soho, New Slogan, which is a further development in his painting series AK47. Zhang first won acclaim as a graffiti artist who from 1995-1998 secretly spray painted his profile on 2000 buildings slated for destruction in Beijing. A form of social protest, it remonstrated the government’s policy of tearing down the old buildings and neighborhoods (hutong) in favor of western style shopping malls and apartment complexes. This series, whose origins date back nearly a decade, takes homeless rural migrants living on the margins of society as the subject of large-scale portraits painted on vinyl. The monochrome images are exacting close-up and frontal depictions that have the immediacy of portraits, or more likely mug shots, that commemorate the unknown denizens of the city. In the early version of the series, Zhang painted over the images a veil of block printed letters –AK47- that looks, in the uniformity and repetition of the motif, like a written page of text.  The phrase AK47, also one of his monikers, is a protest of world violence. From a distance, the paintings seem like skilled portraits, it is only up lose that the tension between the graphic surface design and image is appreciable. New Slogan, which also uses using migrant workers as models differs in the text that covers the image: the veil is now comprised of slogans from the Cultural Revolution sometimes in Chinese: “Practicing good manners leads to a beautiful life” or “Promote Socialism and the construction of a harmonious society”. The intimations of the series are deep and layered ranging from a remonstrance of the urban social problems of homelessness and the manipulation of a society denied freedom of expression, and more.

Taller Puertorriqueño’s
Meet the Author Series at
Julia de Burgos Books and Crafts Stores presents

A SURVEY OF PUERTO RICAN ART
a lecture by Dr. Susan Aberth

Saturday, march 12, 2011, 3:00 pm

A sweeping panorama of art production in Puerto Rico beginning with José Campeche in the 18th century and ending with contemporary artists, including Pepón Osorio, who now resides in Philadelphia, PA, in addition to Francisco Oller, Ramón Frade, Miguel Pou, Carlos Raquel Rivera, Lorenzo Homar, Rafael Tufiño, Myrna Báez, Arnaldo Roche-Rabell, Juan Sánchez, and Miguel Luciano. The list includes many who have exhibited in Taller’s gallery.

FERNANDO RU?Z LORENZO:  ESCRITURA

Fernando Ruíz Lorenzo

CURATED BY TOM WOLF
MARCH 1 – 31, 2011

OPENING RECEPTION: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2011 6 – 9 PM
OPEN DAILY: 10:00 am-7:00 pm
REEM KAYDEN GALLERY?, BARD COLLEGE
Sponsored by the Art History Department and Latin American Iberian Studies

FERNANDO RUÍZ LORENZO was born of Puerto Rican parentage in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in 1978 and raised in the Highbridge section of The Bronx. Ruíz Lorenzo is a writer, artist, and  curator. His work has exhibited at the International Center of Photography (New York), The California Museum of Photography (Riverside), Photographic Resource Center (Boston) and Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art.

Woodstock Artists’ Colony: Noguchi and Japanese-American Artists

Sunday, February 13, 2011 – 3:00pm

Noguchi: Death (Lynched Figure)

Tom Wolf, Professor of Art History at Bard College, discusses a group of Japanese artists, including Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and their influence on Isamu Noguchi’s early work. Many of these artists—who were somewhat older than Noguchi—spent their summers in Woodstock, New York, where the latter also spent time and where he created one of his major early sculptures, Death (Lynched Figure), of 1934. Wolf, who has written extensively about both Asian-American art and the Woodstock artists’ colony, will examine the attraction of Woodstock for these artists and explore the ways in which the political content of Noguchi’s early art echoed their work.

bOb Gallery  presents: ODYSSEY

New works by:

Tom Wolf, 'Odyssey,' detail

Cress Gallery

Artist: Gao lei

Curated by Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky, O. Munsterberg Chair of Asian Art, Bard College, and Professor of Art History, Lehman College with assistance from the Director and Curator, UTC Cress Gallery of Art, Chattanooga, TN.

CHINA SHOW
November 9 – December 14, 2010
“le deluge, après mao”
China’s Surging Creative Tide:
An Exhibition of Work by Significant Contemporary Chinese Artists

Lecture by Curator Patricia Karetzky followed by a reception
Thursday, November 18, 2010, Room 356 UTC Fine Arts Center

China Show card

Broom: The Full Sweep 

The upcoming exhibition in our vitrines in Stevenson Library presents all twenty-one volumes of Broom, the legendary avant-garde periodical from the 1920s. In order to display the full range of the innovative art and literature published by Broom, this exhibition presents the magazine’s most radical and renowned works by changing the materials in the cases weekly.  The exhibition has been curated by recent Center for Curatorial Studies graduate Daniel Mason, and is faculty sponsored by Prof. Tom Wolf, Art History. This exhibition will be on view at the Stevenson Library from November 3 to December 13.

We encourage all to attend the Opening Reception on Wednesday, November 3rd, 5:00-7:00 pm in the lobby of Stevenson Library.