CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
With 27 drawings and paintings in this exhibit, the USU community gets a rare look at the work of this contemporary artist. The viewer is taken through a jungle of symbols filled with religious and historical meanings all arranged in meticulous geometric puzzles that are at once clear while also carrying some ambiguous mystery. The exhibition shows how Starrett's works, "...vibrate with such cool passion, such fiery ice, that they seem at once both hard products of a systematic rationality, of an almost mechanical design, and works of extraordinary emotional resonance...", - Patrick E. White. This exhibit also includes one painting by this artist from the museum's permanent collection featured below.
A catalogue on Jim Starrett's work including his life story has been published in conjunction with this exhibit. Copies of this catalogue can be purchased in the museum lobby. To read an excerpt of this catalogue, click on the link below.
Jim Starrett Catalogue Excerpt
Sisyphe
This mysterious installation is a recent acquisition for the art museum. It creates numerous geometric drawings in a frame of sand through a moving, metal ball. The drawings are created by a magnetic motorized apparatus connected to a computer. Both mezmerizing and modern, this installation is currently in the downstairs Caine gallery and explores the boundless possibilites of combining art and technology.
Art and comics have a complex relationship. This exhibition explores the intersection of comics and art with specific attention on how certain themes and stylistic forms have crossed over from the genre of comics into the world of visual art. Many professional artists have drawn and/or published comics and even worked in a cartoon style while others have used actual comics as material for their assemblages or collages. The exploding popularity of comics, mostly through animation and graphic novels, shows us the graphic, or comic, impulse has become a compelling means of artistic communication. This exhibit helps point toward a growing interdisciplinary trend in the arts that allows for a flow of ideas between media and form, creating a liberation of high art. This exhibit opened in mid June of 2011 and is on display in the museum's upper gallery with the official opening reception held on October 31st, 2011.
A photo tour of this exhibition is available by clicking on this link: Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comic Art - Photo Tour
