Four Exhibitions at the Samuel Dorsky Museum

Four marvelous new exhibitions have been installed at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art on the SUNY New Paltz campus.  Opening receptions for all will be held in the museum on Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 5-​​7pm.
For directions or more information go here

ANDREW LYGHT: FULL CIRCLE

Curated by Tumelo Mosaka

January 20 — April 10, 2016  •  Alice and Horace Chandler and North Galleries Opening reception Saturday, February 6, 2016, 5 – 7 pm

Full Circle is a venture into the departures, encounters, discoveries, and transgressions that inform Andrew Lyght’s artistic practice and life. While living and working for decades in various cultural contexts such as Guyana, Canada, and the United States, Lyght has pursued an extensive inquiry into the mechanics of art making. Curated by Tumelo Mosaka, Andrew Lyght: Full Circle is the artist’s first museum exhibition since he moved to Kingston, NY in 2006. Best known for his flexible and volumetric forms, vibrant paintings, and abstract linear drawings, Lyght creates a wide range of works that analyze the structural properties of painting and reanimate pictorial space as an open system. Over the many years he has developed an art form that explores the built environment as a dynamic pictorial subject, introducing new ways of seeing the world around us.

To this day, I remain intrigued by this enigmatic view, and how it mirrors the pictorial space and sense of hope and infinite possibility it inspires. It is a fascination that has driven my visual inquiry and practice for more than fifty years. It has guided the conceptual, structural, and aesthetic development of my work. Using many of the formal elements of drawing, painting and sculpture, such as line, curved planes and color. I envisioned works of art that filled the air, the physical space giving a sense of flight and a sense of weightlessness.

I have never divided nor made a distinction between life and career in art. It is not a career for me, it is a life.

—Andrew Lyght

 

 

MADE FOR YOU: NEW DIRECTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY DESIGN
Curated by Jennifer Scanlan

February 6 – July 10, 2016  •  Morgan Anderson and Corridor Galleries,
Opening reception Saturday, February 6, 2016, 5 – 7 pm

In the 21st century, design has become personal. Bombarded by an endless array of mass-​​produced objects in big box stores and on the Internet, people are increasingly attracted to the unique and custom-​​made.

Drawing on designers and makers in the Hudson Valley and environs, this exhibition considers the ways in which the contemporary design object is customized for the individual, from the one-​​of-​​a-​​kind objects made by craft techniques to the latest technological advances of 3D printing.

The exhibition will include approximately 25 designers/​makers and demonstrate a range of approaches to design.

Participating artists:

Atlas Industries, Sheila Bridges, Doug Bucci, Tom Burtonwood, Emily Cobb, Deborah Ehrlich, Sharan Elran, EyeBodega, Kieran Kinsella, Christopher Kurtz, LALOON, Malfatti Glass, Andrew Molleur, Nervous System, Michael Puryear, Kathy Ruttenberg, Courtney Starrett, Thornwillow Press, Joshua Vogel & Blackcreek Mercantile, Jessica Wickham

 

THE FLOATING WORLD: HOLOGRAMS BY RUDIE BERKHOUT
Curated by Daniel Belasco

February 6 – July 10, 2016  •  Sara Bedrick Gallery,
Opening reception Saturday, February 6, 2016, 5 – 7 pm

Holography first became available to artists in the late 1960s. Within its first decade, Rudie Berkhout (1946 – 2008) emerged as one of the new medium’s leading innovators. The Floating World will feature the Dutch-​​born, New York-​​based artist’s captivating “Transmission” works of the 1970s and 80s.

Rear-​​mounted lights illuminate glass plates to project holographic images into space. The viewer steps into and away from the plates to interact with the ever-​​changing geometrical forms and organic textures, which reference electronic music, Asian cultures, and local landscape.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the first catalogue dedicated to Berkhout, published in partnership with the Center for the Holographic Arts, New York.

 

ON THE STREET AND IN THE STUDIO: PHOTOGRAPHS DONATED BY HOWARD GREENBERG
Curated by Daniel Belasco

Howard Greenberg Family Gallery  •
February 6 – July 10, 2016 (Part I), August 31 – December 11, 2016 (Part II), Opening reception Saturday, February 6, 2016, 5 – 7 pm

Dealer and specialist Howard Greenberg has significantly impacted the study and collecting of photography over the past four decades, expanding the field to include once-​​underappreciated artists and movements around the globe.

Among his legacies are 1,145 photographs donated to The Dorsky Museum, forming a rich study collection of works by 101 artists, from singular prints by European masters Eugène Atget and Julia Margaret Cameron to in-​​depth holdings of over 100 prints by New Yorkers Morris Huberland and Carl Van Vechten.

On the Street and in the Studio is a two-​​part exhibition that evaluates more than 70 highlights and novelties. Part I will focus on street photography, defined as spontaneous photographs taken in urban public spaces. Part II focuses on portraiture and the personal relationship between photographer and subject. Many of these prints have never been exhibited. The two exhibitions affirm the history of photography as a continual work-​​in-​​progress.

Featured Image, Emily Cobb, The Elk with Antlers that Never Stopped Growing, 2010, Glass-​​filled nylon, photopolymer, gypsum, Courtesy the artist