Six Exhibitions Share New Views and Old Masters with Visitors to Wellesley's Davis Museum

The Davis Museum premieres the season’s exhibitions on September 17, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., with a Fall Celebration reception in the Davis Lobby and the premiere of the featured New View: 2014 Faculty Exhibition. New View is one of six exhibitions on view this fall that inspire visitors to see the familiar with fresh eyes, and to explore different perspectives of the unexpected.

Four of the exhibitions open tomorrow, with two to follow in October.

New View: 2014 Faculty Exhibition
On view: September 19–December 21, 2014

New View features 11 faculty members whose work is featured in galleries and museums across New England, throughout the country, and in many instances, around the world. Students will have the opportunity to see another side of the instructors and mentors that they know from their Art and Cinema and Media Studies courses, and the art community will enjoy the artists’ most recent works—many created for this exhibition.

Participating artists are Professor of Art Carlos Dorrien, Elizabeth Christy Kopf Professor of Art Bunny Harvey, 2014-2015 Visiting Lecturer and Director of the Jewett Galleries Candice Ivy, Assistant Professor of Art David Kelley, Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies Nicholas Knouf, Professor of Art Phyllis McGibbon, Professor of Art Salem Mekuria, Senior Lecturer in Art Qing-Min Meng, Visiting Lecturer in Art Andrew Mowbray, Assistant Professor of Art Daniela Rivera, and Assistant Professor of Art David Teng Olsen. Capturing their extensive range, the exhibition includes paintings, prints, and sculpture, as well as video and mixed media installations. Visitors will have an opportunity to meet the artists both at the Fall Celebration, and at gallery talks scheduled on September 24, October 22, and November 12. (Please see our Events pages for information on which artists and host curators appear on each date.)

Feast Your Eyes
On view: September 19–December 21, 2014                                      

Artfully photographing a meal is not only a recent foodie fad—it taps a long history of feast and famine imagery. Connecting contemporary interest in stylized cuisine with the rich tradition of still life in art, this exhibition charts changing fashions of representations of food through prints, drawings, photographs, and paintings from the Davis collections.

Sigalet Landau: DeadSee
On view: September 19–December 21, 2014

Sigalet Landau’s film DeadSee inscribes the tradition of “still life” with unexpected layers of reference and movement. Landau’s elegant performance art video embeds the artist’s body within a spiral of 500 floating watermelons, gradually unfurling in the buoyant waters of the Dead Sea.

Michael Craig-Martin: Art&Design
On view: September 19–December 21, 2014

Conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin was a star of the 2014 Friends of Art Patrons Trip to London, and the installation of his recent print series brings the enthusiasm and energy of that experience home to Wellesley. The portfolio includes icons of contemporary art and design rendered in the artist’s spare, sharply graphic style, in unexpected combinations and with flashy pops of color. Its purchase was made possible by the “London Trippers,” and the presentation kicks-off the 50th anniversary celebration of Friends of Art.

Edged in Black: Selections from SMS
October 1, 2014–Spring 2015

The SMS series was one of several important experimental ventures in the late 1960s that sought to reconsider the dissemination of art, both by destabilizing the boundaries of traditional media and by making work of the day’s leading artists accessible to those outside of the collector class. The portfolio includes work by Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, and Roy Lichtenstein, alongside music by La Monte Young and Terry Riley. Mellon New Media Curator Michael Maizels will discuss the highlights in a gallery talk on November 19.

Hanging with the Old Masters: Davis Museum Reinstallation
October 1, 2014–Spring 2015

This exhibition will allow viewers to examine not only the Old Master Italian paintings from the Davis collections under consideration for reinstallation, but the process through which an exhibition is curated. One wall of the fifth floor of the Davis will display 3D models of the Museum for a better understanding of the space, while three will be devoted to navigating questions of curatorial content, including display, conservation and aesthetics. The exhibition will demystify the process while offering an extended visit with the Masters.

For more information, please visit theDavis.org. We look forward to seeing you at the Davis.