Arc of the Curve and Paths & Edges: Prints by Richard Serra
O'Shaughnessy Galleries
O'Shaughnessy Galleries
August 24—October 12 , 2008

Perhaps best known as a sculptor, Serra is at the zenith of his career, with a major permanent installation at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and his very successful summer 2007 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 
As with his sculptures, these large-scale prints push technical and formal possibilities of printmaking and evoke physical and psychological responses from viewers.  The images crowd the paper, they loom over the viewer, and one is aware of their visual and real weight.  Like the artist and his sculptures, these images aggressively claim the space they occupy.
 
The 26 prints were created at Gemini G.E.L. in 2004 (Arc of the Curve) and 2007 (Paths and Edges). Founded in 1966, Gemini G.E.L. is an artists’ workshop and publisher of limited edition prints and sculptures. 
 
The Museum is grateful to collector Paul Schupf for sharing these artworks in honor of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., and for providing funding for the exhibition, and to Joni Weyl and Sidney Felson of Gemini G.E.L. for their invaluable assistance in organizing the exhibition.  Additional support was received from the Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art.

 © 2004 Richard Serra and Gemini G.E.L. LLC /ARS      

Transversal #1, 2004
Richard Serra (American, born 1939)
etching
On loan from the collection of Paul Schupf in honor of
Rev. Theodore H. Hesburgh, C.S.C.

The Museum is proud to exhibit two sets of etchings by Russian artist Maxim Kantor. In an International Herald Tribune article, Roderick Conway Morris stated:

"Wasteland principally revolves around Kantor’s characteristic Russian themes…the repression and squalor of the late Soviet era, and the chaotic, crime-ridden, gangster-plagued birth of a new Russian State. But in Metropolis he has created a vast compendium of images inspired by ancient and modern art, newspapers and photography, on the lines of a medieval “Universal History” updated for our age, embracing geography, history, mythologies, stories pagan, biblical and Christian, illustrating societies, their hierarchies and power politics."

This exhibition is organized, in part, to support teaching by Notre Dame's Paul Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters, Vittorio G. Hösle, and the Museum is grateful for his assistance in organizing the exhibition and related programs.  The prints are generously lent by Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York.  The exhibition is made possible by funds from the Walter R. Beardsley Endowment for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Maxim Kantor (Russian, born 1957)
etching
on loan from the artist and Barry Friedman, Ltd.,
New York, NY

Images from the Era of the French Revolution
Scholz Family Works on Paper Gallery
September 7—October 19, 2008

This exhibition was organized to accompany the conference New Paradigms for Revolutionary Studies: French—American Colloquium, October 6—8, 2008. The keynote address will be presented in the Annenberg Auditorium, located in the lower level of the Snite Museum.

This exhibition of drawings in the Scholz Family Works on Paper Gallery and paintings in the permanent installation of the 18th-Century Gallery, will provide visitors with an opportunity to view some artworks created by French artists during the stormy years of the revolutionary period. The conference which has inspired this exhibition is the collaboration of a team of scholars from the University of Provence, the University of Toulouse, Indiana University South Bend and the University of Notre Dame. Speakers and participants will come from Europe, Japan and the USA.

For more information about the colloquium, please see
http://www.nd.edu/~colloque/index.html

Portrait of a Young Woman, ca. 1795
Jean-Baptiste Charpentier (French, 1728—1806)
oil on canvas
Museum purchase by exchange, the Braschi purchase and an anonymous benefactor
1994.019

For four generations members of the Chavez Family have created woven textiles in the traditional patterns of their Zapotec cultural heritage, as well as original, contemporary patterns, from wool they dyed using natural materials, including insects, plants and minerals. In October 2007 Eric Chavez Santiago and his father demonstrated their dying and weaving techniques during a workshop sponsored by the Snite Museum and the Institute for Latino Studies.

Eric and his family have been invited back to campus to create a memorial altar (ofrenda) in the Oaxacan-tradition for the museum's annual Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) observance, which will be held the evening of Thursday, October 30. As in past years, the event will include a presentation on the tradition of the ofrenda and this year's installation by the guest visual artist, performances of traditional Mexican music and dance, and a reception.

Eric Chavez Santiago (far right), his parents (center), and siblings live in Teotitlán del Valle, a Zapotec community located about twenty miles outside of Oaxaca. Their woven textiles will be used to decorate this year's ofrenda in the museum.