Exhibitions Archive
Representations of Biblical Women from Sixteenth-Century Germany
Creating the Feminine
Many artists in sixteenth-century Germany created images of biblical women and female saints. The ultimate woman, Eve, brought life and, through her sin, death to the entire world. Biblical accounts also describe an alternative female trope, the virgin martyr or saint. These two ends of the spectrum did not constitute the only ways women could be depicted, and images varied depending on what an artist chose to emphasize.
Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties offers a focused look at painting, sculpture, graphics, and photography from a decade defined by social protest and American race relations. In observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this exhibition considers how sixty-six of the decade's artists, including African Americans and some of their white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Caribbean contemporaries, used wide-ranging aesthetic approaches to address the struggle for racial justice.
This exhibition is curated by Teresa A. Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Kellie Jones, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.
Emmet Gowin Dreams of Stars
Emmet Gowin photographs subjects at the core of life, from intimate family relationships to the man-marked landscape. He records the textures, tones, and patterns that surround us, forcing us to look closely at the seemingly familiar. In the fall of 2014 Gowin was a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth, and while on campus he met with students, faculty, and community members. This exhibition displayed work spanning Gowin’s career—pictures of his wife, Edith, and her family from the 1970s, aerial environmental images from the 1980s and 90s, and more recent work exploring the beauty and diversity of insects, especially moths. Each body of work reflects the rich nuances of life and the complexity of humans’ relationship to nature.
Vehicles of Artistic Ideas
Colorful Squares
While the use of squares as decorative elements can be traced back to the geometric patterns on Greek pottery in 700 B.C.E., the square did not become a dominant compositional element in paintings until the twentieth century. The simplicity and regularity of the square, as both surface and compositional element, might be seen to restrict freedom of representation; however, some artists found that through nuanced coloring, shading, and positioning of squares they were able to convey ideas without distracting the viewer with complicated forms. This installation explores the use of the square in paintings during the 1960s and 1970s to illustrate the range of effects produced through this simple geometric form.
Dartmouth Looks at The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari)
Often called “the world’s first novel,” The Tale of Genji was written in the early eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu, the nom de plume of a woman born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy. Its complex development of character and sophisticated representation of moral and aesthetic values have made The Tale of Genji the central canonical text of one of the world’s most important literary traditions.
This exhibition of works from the Japanese collection of the Hood Museum of Art showcases representations of the eleventh-century Tale of Genji and three sequels written in the mid-nineteenth century. A handscroll and folding screen painted during the early to mid-1700s offer a sense of high-culture approaches to the novel. A selection of woodblock prints demonstrates how the novel and its sequels were reworked for popular audiences.
The Art of Public Placemaking
Placemaking is the process of making spaces meaningful to those who experience them. This can be done in small or large ways, by groups or by individuals. Take a moment to think of your favorite place. Maybe it is your childhood backyard, the coffee shop down the street, or a neighbor's front porch. What makes this place meaningful to you? Perhaps it is the social interactions, fond memories, or simply that feel-good sensation you associate with this place. When people attach meaningful ideas and emotions to places, these places take on unique identities. They become a part of our lives and of us.