DOUGLAS F. COOLEY MEMORIAL ART GALLERY, REED COLLEGE

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SCARECROW
Exhibitionism, Ritual, & Theatricality

Daniel Spoerri, Lynda Benglis, Robert Rauschenberg,
Andy Warhol, Mary Bauermeister, Sol LeWitt
Works of Art from the Reed College Art Collection
April 6 – June 9, 2010

NOON TO 5 PM, TUESDAY – SUNDAY, FREE

OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, April 9, 6:00 pm, Cooley Gallery

THE EVER UNFINISHED BODY, April 22, 6:30 p.m.
An evening of puppetry, Andy Warhol films, and short lectures organized
by the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery
and the Reed student Andy Warhol Polaroid Group.

April 22, 2010, 6:30 p.m., beginning at the Cooley Gallery
An expanded press release is forthcoming for this event.





ABOUT THE EXHIBITION




SCARECROW
considers artists' explorations of the human body — and its functions — in visual narratives and performance situations that reorder and transgress physical and social conventions.

SCARECROW
seeks to locate and consider the "ever unfinished, ever creating body" through works of art by a renowned group of seminal American and European artists that came of age in the 1950s and 60s, during periods of feverish artistic experimentation and upheaval. The exhibition presents recently acquired and rarely seen works from the Reed College Art Collection embracing ritualistic, theatrical, and exhibitionistic forms of art making that exceed and animate the representational body — through action, transformation, myth, and taboo.

SCARECROW
is inspired, in part, by the writings of Russian philosopher, literary critic, and semiotician Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975). Bakhtin's seminal work on the grotesque, theorized the body in relationship to internal and external stresses that penetrate and transform the self.

"Contrary to modern canons, the grotesque body is not separated from the rest of the world. It is not a closed, completed unit; it is unfinished, outgrows itself, transgresses its own limits. The stress is laid on those parts of the body that are open to the outside world, that is, the parts through the world enters the body or emerges from it, or through which the body itself goes out to meet the world. This means that the emphasis is on the apertures or convexities, or on various ramifications and offshoots: the open mouth, the genital organs, the breasts, the phallus, the potbelly, the nose. The body discloses its essence as a principle of growth which exceeds its own limits only in copulation, pregnancy, childbirth, the throes of death, eating, drinking, or defecation. This is the ever unfinished, ever creating body, the link in the chain of genetic development, or more correctly speaking, two links shown at the point where they enter into each other."

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World . Trans. by Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1984), p. 26.


SUDDENLY: WHERE WE LIVE NOW

SUDDENLY.ORG


THE DOUGLAS F. COOLEY MEMORIAL
ART GALLERY, REED COLLEGE
3203 SE WOODSTOCK BLVD.
PORTLAND, OREGON 97202-8199


HOURS: NOON TO 5 P.M., TUESDAY – SUNDAY, FREE
LOCATED ON THE MAIN FLOOR OF THE REED LIBRARY


The mission of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery is to enhance the academic offerings of Reed College with a diverse range of scholarly exhibitions, lectures, and colloquia in its role as a teaching gallery.

The gallery was established by a generous 1988 gift from Sue and Edward Cooley and John and Betty Gray "in support of the teaching of art history at Reed College, as part of an interdisciplinary educational experience that strengthens the art history component of Reed's distinctive humanities program." Exhibitions are coordinated in collaboration with Reed faculty members and courses, with attention to the needs and interests of the larger Portland and Northwest arts communities. A schedule of three to four exhibitions during the academic year brings to Reed and the Portland community work that would not otherwise be seen in the region.


 

Stephanie Snyder
John and Anne Hauberg Curator and Director
Office: 503.777.7251
Fax: 503.788.6691
Cell phone: 503.367.7004
snyders@reed.edu

EMAIL THE ABOVE ADDRESS TO BE ADDED
TO THE GALLERY EMAIL OR MAILING LIST


Greg MacNaughton
Education Outreach Coordinator
Office: 503.777.7251
Fax: 503.788.6691

macnaugg@reed.edu


REED STUDENT INTERNS AND EDUCATION DOCENTS

Elizabeth Bidart, '12
Sara O'Keeffe, '10
Elizabeth Spavento, MALS, '10
Allison Tepper '11

Yoseff Ben Yehuda, '10
Jesse Van Buren '10
Alex Saxon '10