April 12 - July 19, 2009 The Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is pleased to present the exhibition Lest We Forget: The Voice of Art, which opens to the public on Sunday, April 12, 2009. In Spring 2005, the Weatherspoon mounted a small but compelling exhibition entitled "Artists and Civil Rights". The exhibition, then organized by Curator of Exhibitions Ron Platt, helped to illustrate the breadth of the Weatherspoon's collection in an area that touches deeply upon our collective past. Freedom, equality, and opportunity for all are core notions that artists today continue to value as important material for public discourse. New ideas about social, economic, and environmental equity, along with sustainable practices, are changing the way that education, science, and even design address what we consider to be the rights of all. Within this context, Lest We Forget: The Voice of Art expands upon the original exhibition, both conceptually and through the inclusion of more recent acquisitions to the Weatherspoon collection. The exhibition is organized around four themes: Labor, Confronting Race, Politics & War, and Gestures of Hope. From Alfred Stieglitz's 1911 photogravure The Steerage, which depicts the immigrant experience in the U.S., to Dawoud Bey's portrait of Barack Obama as a Senator, demonstrate the important role images play in documenting our world. Other works, such as Joyce Scotts' Boy with Gun, David Spear's photograph of vagabonds, and Waiting in Line, #21 by Anthony Hernandez speak to the inequities, prejudices and politics that are experienced for many people every day. About the Weatherspoon Art Museum Mission The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets modern and contemporary art for the benefit of its multiple audiences, including university, community, regional, and beyond. Through these activities, the museum recognizes its paramount role of public service, and enriches the lives of diverse individuals by fostering an informed appreciation and understanding of the visual arts and their relationships to the world in which we live. History The Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the university system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region and its early leadership developed an emphasis-maintained to this day-on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A bequest in 1950 from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish the Weatherspoon's permanent collection. Other prescient acquisitions during Ivy's tenure included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Woman by Willem de Kooning, a pivotal work in the artist's career that was purchased in 1954, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection. In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell Giurgula. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Association of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation in 2005. Collections + Exhibitions The permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is considered to be one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Of the nearly 4,800 works in the collection are pieces by such prominent figures as Willem de Kooning, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Al Held, Alex Katz, Henry Tanner, Louise Nevelson, Mark di Suvero, Deborah Butterfield, and Robert Rauschenberg. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally. The Weatherspoon also is known for its adventurous and innovative exhibition program. Through a dynamic annual calendar of fifteen to eighteen exhibitions and a multi-disciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for audiences to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time and enriches the life of our university, community, and region. Weatherspoon Art Museum
For more information or press images, contact: Loring Mortensen, 336-256-1451, lamorten@uncg.edu |
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