#helenglazer

[fairfielduam]

Winter 2024 Direct from the Director

I hope you will join us for the two winter exhibitions described in the current newsletter, which open with receptions on Jan. 18th (Streaming: Sculpture by Christy Rupp) and on Feb. 1st (Helen Glazer: Walking in Antarctica) respectively.

I am excited to give you a sneak preview of what will be coming up in the galleries after that! Following Helen Glazer in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries will be a solo show of recent works by a Fairfield University Studio Art professor, entitled Suzanne Chamlin: Studies in Color.

In this exhibition of recent work, Chamlin explores ideas about color theory and light through a series of landscape and interior stills. Since 2012, the artist has carefully charted her paints using the Munsell color system, which analyzes colors in terms of hue (the color itself), value (relative light and dark) and chroma (level of saturation or brilliance). For each of her paintings, Chamlin sets a highly specific palette; experimentation within this limited range then guides her decisions about process and pictorial space.

Chamlin's works will be complemented by an exhibition entitled The Landscape in Focus: Recent Acquisitions of Photography, on view in the rear gallery. The photographs on view will include recent donations to the Museum of work by artists including Alen MacWeeney, Bea Nettles, Victoria Sambunaris, Larry Silver, James Welling, and Huang Yan, among others.

Following Christy Rupp in the Museum's Walsh Gallery, in the Quick Center for the Arts, will be Peter Anton: Just Desserts, a solo exhibition of Anton’s incredibly realistic, oversized pop sculptures of desserts, on view from May 10 through July 27, 2024.

Anton’s models for his array of desserts come from products that are instantly familiar to the viewer and evoke a nostalgia for childhood (and adult) favorites. Sculptures that will be featured in the exhibition include a melting chocolate-covered ice cream pop, a gigantic box of donuts, and an open box of chocolates with a few missing a bite, together with numerous crumpled brown candy cups.  

I hope this brief preview has whet your appetite for all that we have in store for you this spring and summer!

I want to also remind you that thanks to a generous Access for All grant from the Art Bridges Foundation the Museum is now open until 8 p.m. on Thursday nights! I encourage you to plan an evening visit to take advantage of these wonderful new expanded hours.

Looking forward to seeing you in the galleries! Artfully yours, Carey

Captions: Suzanne Chamlin, Autumn Yellow, 2022. Oil on linen. 9 x 12 inches. Lent by the artist. Suzanne Chamlin, Painter Hill Road 4, 2022. Oil on linen. 10 x 20 inches.Lent by the artist. Suzanne Chamlin, Window Study – Summer, 2023. Oil and charcoal on linen. 8 x 10 inches. Lent by the artist. Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (train on salt flats), Great Salt Desert, Utah, 2002. Chromogenic print. Edition: 5. 39 × 55 inches. Gift of Avo Samuelian and Hector Manuel Gonzalez. Peter Anton, Super Donuts, 2020. Mixed media. Lent by the artist.

[onemoretime]

Helen Glazer 

helenglazer

[fairfielduam]

Direct from the Director Late Fall 2023

It has been an exceptionally busy season at the Museum! It has been a privilege for us to present the landmark exhibition In Real Times. Arthur Szyk: Artist & Soldier for Human Rights this fall. Since the exhibition opened on September 28, we have:

Offered free admission to over 3,700 visitors

Hosted more than 70 free online and in-person Szyk-related events, including exhibition tours led by the Director, the Exhibition Coordinator, our Educators, and a fantastic corps of community volunteers, which have been attended by over 2,000 people;

Received 20,000+ YouTube views of the Szyk video tour and recorded programs.

The Season of Giving is upon us, and we need your support to continue this good work!

The Museum operates on a modest annual budget, and exhibitions like the Szyk show are very expensive to produce. We depend on the contributions of generous donors like you to keep our museum offerings free and accessible both in person and online, in both English and Spanish.

If you participated in one of our numerous events this fall, enjoyed our virtual programs, or simply believe in the power of the arts in our community, will you please make a gift today to help enhance our exhibitions, ensure our unwavering commitment to excellence, and continue to inspire young minds?

Please take a minute and DONATE now.

Museum Accreditation News: Last week we had the privilege of hosting John Wetenhall, Director of the George Washington University Museum of Art, and The Textile Museum and Megan McAdow, Director of the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State University. They spent two days with us on campus as our Site Reviewers for the American Alliance of Museums Accreditation process. They met with University students, faculty, staff, alumni, members of our Collections Committee, and of the University Board of Trustees, as well as foundation funders, community collaborators, and other Fairfield County arts and culture professionals. Their primary role was to confirm that all of the information that we had shared in our Self-Study was correct. They will write a report based on their findings which will be submitted to the AAM Accreditation Committee at their February 2024 meeting where they will vote on whether to grant us accreditation. We will certainly let you know!

Upcoming Winter 2024 Exhibitions: We are very excited about the two exhibitions we are opening in late January/early February, both of which focus on environmental and climate-related themes. In the Walsh Gallery, we are presenting Streaming: Sculpture by Christy Rupp. Understood as one of the early pioneers in the field of ecological art activism, the artist, activist and thought-leader Christy Rupp has an international reputation. Streaming will feature a survey of Rupp’s wall installations and free-standing sculpture created with detritus gathered from the waste stream, which chronicle the ongoing tension between natural systems and the environment in transition, and call our attention to our interconnectedness with non-humans and habitat. Informed by science and the historical representation of natural history, the artwork in this exhibition examines the way we frame our opinions of nature, using irony and wit to represent the human impact on our natural habitat.

In the Bellarmine Hall Galleries, we will present Helen Glazer: Walking in Antarctica. This interdisciplinary exhibition includes photography and sculpture made from 3D scans of ice and rock formations, inspired and informed by Glazer’s experiences as a grantee of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. It also includes an audio tour which takes the visitor on a series of “walks” through the Antarctic landscape, narrated by the artist.

Please come see the Szyk exhibition before it closes if you have not yet had a chance to see it – it truly is a remarkable and timely collection of works. It is only open through December 16th! Keep in mind that thanks to a recent generous grant from the Art Bridges Foundation, we are now open for extended hours on Thursdays until 8pm.

Wishing you and yours a very happy Holiday season.

Artfully yours, Carey

Captions: Christy Rupp, Petroplankton, 2019-2021. Collected single use plastics. Courtesy of the artist. Helen Glazer, Cloudburst, Erebus Ice Tongue Cave, Antarctica, 2015/2017; photograph. Courtesy of the artist.