Athens, Ga. – The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will reopen its doors at the end of this month with five new special exhibitions. The American Scene on Paper, Tradition Redefined, Stone and Steel, Horizons and an installation by artist Anthony Goicolea will be free and open to the public starting Jan. 31.
After almost two years and $20 million in external support, GMOA’s Phase II expansion and renovation project, designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects of New York and executed in a collaborative effort with Stanley Beaman & Sears Architects of Atlanta, has resulted in 16,000 square feet of new galleries, an outdoor sculpture garden, an expanded lobby and additional storage space. The new gallery space will accommodate continuous viewing of the museum’s permanent collection in the areas of early Italian Renaissance painting, 19th- and 20th-century American art, folk art and decorative arts. Special exhibitions will be on view in the C.L. Morehead Jr. Wing.
The American Scene on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Schoen Collection
Jan. 31 -May 2
The American Scene on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Schoen Collection was designed as a parallel exhibition to Coming Home: American Paintings, 1930-1950, from the Schoen Collection, organized by the Georgia Museum of Art and the Mobile Museum of Art in 2003. The American Scene on Paper features 153 works by such artists as Peggy Bacon, Rockwell Kent and Paul Cadmus, and addresses the plight of the American farm laborer, the development of industry and the growth of the urban environment. A companion exhibition catalogue, complete with illustrations of all 153 works, will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop.The exhibit will be on display in theBoone and George-Ann Knox, Rachel Cosby Conway, Alfred Heber Holbrook, Charles B. Presley Family and Lamar Dodd Galleries.
Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art
Jan. 31-March 27,
For more than 30 years, Larry and Brenda Thompson have collected works by both famous and lesser-known African American artists, resulting in an impressive assortment of more than 500 objects. The exhibition, organized by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, features 72 works by 67 different artists including Amiri Baraka, Romare Bearden, Camille Billops, Joseph Delaney, Norman Lewis, Charles E. Porter, William T. Williams and Hale Woodruff. The exhibit will be on display in the Virginia and Alfred Kennedy and Philip Henry Alston Jr. Galleries.
Stone and Steel: Small Works by Beverly Pepper
Jan. 31-July
Stone and Steel: Small Works by Beverly Pepper includes approximately 20 works by American sculptor Beverly Pepper. Pepper studied at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York and currently works in Todi, Italy and New York City. This exhibition features small-scale works in stone and such materials as onyx, porphyry, granite and marble. A model for Pepper’s large-scale, site-specific work “Ascensione,” which is on permanent display in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex quad at UGA, also will be on view. This exhibit will be on display in the Dorothy Alexander Roush and Martha Thompson Dinos Galleries.
Horizons
Jan. 31-June 30
Icelandic artist Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir’s installation Horizons inaugurates GMOA’s Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden, which is dedicated to female sculptors. The exhibition comprises 12 androgynous, life-sized cast-iron figures, each in a different position and all bearing a polished glass band across the chest. Þórarinsdóttir received her training at the Portsmouth Academy of Art and Design in England and the Accademia di Belle Arte in Bologna, Italy, and lives and works in her native Reykjavik. She exhibits widely in Europe, Japan and Australia. Horizons has been travelling around the United States for the past three years, and the figures evoke a different feeling with each context in which they are placed.
“[The figures] sometimes seem to communicate with each other and at other times are striking in their isolation, but in each case, they make the viewer a part of their conversation,” said Lynn Boland, GMOA’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art.
An Installation by Anthony Goicolea
Beginning Jan. 30
A Georgia native and UGA alumni, Brooklyn-based artist Anthony Goicolea will create an original work of installation art for the Georgia Museum of Art’s reopening. Goicolea’s works have been displayed in many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography. His exhibition at GMOA will include a work titled “Snow scape,” a 60-foot-long photomural depicting a winter narrative. Seventy photographs of three frozen and barren landscapes will be displayed for the first time as one continuous work. Goicolea’s work will be on display in the Patsy Dudley Pate Balcony.
Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art will enjoy exclusive access to these exhibitions as well as to the museum’s permanent collection at a private reception on Jan. 30. Non-members can join at the door and receive access that day. For more information on the Friends of the Museum or to join, call 706/542-0437 or join online at www.georgiamuseum.org. GMOA will reopen its doors to the general public on Jan. 31. For a complete schedule of GMOA’s reopening events, see www.georgiamuseum.org.