Visual Arts

Brian Jungen, Michael, 2003, screen print on powder coated aluminum, 10 boxes, installation dimensions: 34 x 44 x 33 in. Rennie Collection, Vancouver.  

Visual Art
October 8 - December 12

Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports

The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports, curated by Christopher Bedford, and organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York.

Mixed Signals focuses on artists from the mid-1990s to the present who question the notion of the male athlete as the last bastion of uncomplicated, authentic identity in American culture during the preceding decades. The works presented here, made by artists who have appropriated, riffed on, complicated, and variously re-presented athletic imagery, demonstrate that the male athlete is a far more ambiguous, polyvalent figure in our collective cultural imagination than ever before.

The exhibition includes 40 works in photography and video from artists such as Matthew Barney, Mark Bradford, Marcelino Gonçalves, Lyle Ashton Harris, Brian Jungen, Kurt Kauper, Shaun El C. Leonardo, Kori Newkirk, Catherine Opie, Paul Pfeiffer, Marco Rios, Collier Schorr, Joe Sola, Sam Taylor-Wood, Hank Willis Thomas.

The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the iCI Advocates, the iCI Partners, Agnes Gund, Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, and Barbara and John Robinson.


Mixed Signals is an expanded version of Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets--Masculinity and Sports, an exhibition curated by Bedford and organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Admission to the exhibition is free. The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and is located in the Fine Arts Building. For more information call 410-455-3188.

Photo: Brian Jungen, Michael, 2003, screen print on powder coated aluminum, 10 boxes, installation dimensions: 34 x 44 x 33 in. Rennie Collection, Vancouver.

 

Visual Art
Continuing through December 13th

The Art of Persuasion: Poster Design from 1896 through 2008

The Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery presents The Art of Persuasion: Poster Design from 1896 through 2008, on display from August 25th through December 13th, 2009.

The Art of Persuasion surveys a century of development in the visual language of posters. Presented in three distinct thematic groups—Pleasure & Leisure, Politics & Propaganda, and Commercial Advertising, this broad selection of posters highlights transformations in the art, culture, and technology of posters. Disseminating vital information through use of diverse visual strategies, poster artists engage the viewer to sell ideas and products.

Many of the posters in the exhibition are widely recognized and have been collected for their historic and cultural significance as well as their aesthetic qualities. Also included are posters identified as emerging landmarks in this ever evolving medium. Selections were drawn from UMBC’s Special Collections as well as public and private collections.

The presentation of this exhibition is supported in part by a General Operating Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Friends of the Library & Gallery, the Libby Kuhn Endowment, and private contributors.

The Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 12 noon to 4 pm, on Thursday until 8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday 1 - 5 pm. Admission is free. For more information call 410-455-2270.

Image: Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the U.K., Silkscreen Print, 1976, United Kindom, on loan from Dennis Lo