STATE OF THE ART 2020: CONSTRUCTS
Darwin
2018
Oil on canvas
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.32
April 24, 2022 - September 11, 2022
State of the Art 2020: Constructs is an exploration into how contemporary art – produced all across the country including regions outside traditional art centers – reflects the present moment.
A construct is a summation of parts. It’s the relationships between a network of small ideas coming together that
build any single, weighty concept. The artworks in this show tackle extremely complex topics—from those affecting
humanity as a whole to more personal but no less complicated questions of self. The exhibition begins at a macro level: looking at artists concerned with environmental issues on
a global scale. From there, the lens narrows, focusing
on artists investigating specific locations and their
relationships to people. In the final section, all eyes are on the individual, with artworks that explore personal identity.
These 21 artists, a group of the 61 artists from the
original State of the Art 2020 exhibition, represent a taste of American art created in recent years. The approaches, backgrounds, and details of these artists’ practices vary widely, but the echoes across works and sections of the show speak to broader trends in contemporary art in this country. Reorganized around the theme of “constructs,” this focused exhibition invites visitors to consider how these artists put this theme in action.
The national tour of State of the Art 2020 is sponsored by Bank of America with additional support from Art Bridges.
Platinum Sponsor
Shari and John Hicks
Silver Sponsor
John and Charlotte Suhler
PLANET
In Search of Fun
2018
Oil on Canvas
48 x 46 in.
Represented by Alvarez Gallery
Jena Thomas (b. 1987)
In Search of Fun
2018
Oil on canvas
Represented by Alvarez Gallery
Lori Kella (b. 1974)
Euclid's Mirror
2019
Archival pigment print
Courtesy of the artist
Euclid’s Mirror
2019
Archival pigment print
Courtesy of the artist
In an effort to document a fragile and ever-changing ecosystem, Lori Kella builds and photographs small-scale dioramas of artificial landscapes which blend reality and pure fiction. Part of a larger series titled “Vanishing Shoreline,” Euclid’s Mirror and Slip into the Fog and Vanish (Painted Turtle) reimagines the shoreline of nearby Lake Erie where Kella lives and works.
PLACE
Locations often carry threads of memory and tradition. This links people and objects to specific places and frequently aids in the creation of identity. The artists in this section re-contextualize objects, highlight particular details, and explore changing histories, but always with a connection back to a specific place. For these artists, the sites they reference are more than just a spot on a map. Each one is the summation of ideas, sounds, people, and stories—the small parts that collectively reveal the fullness of a place.
Exodus
2019
Vintage saris from India, Sharjah and artist’s Indo-Guyanese family and rope net
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.29
Suchitra Mattai (b. 1973)
Exodus
2019
Vintage saris from India, Sharjah and artist's Indo-Guyanese family and rope net
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.29
Suchitra Mattai weaves vintage Indian saris from her own family with saris from the United Arab Emirates and India. A woman’s garment from the Indian subcontinent, a sari is often a long strip of cloth that can be draped around the body in different ways. For Mattai, Exodus “connects diasporic communities of South Asians across the globe, giving voice to generations of women while also probing questions of displacement resulting from European colonization. Focusing on this period is both a means of tracing my family’s history in Guyana and of fostering discussion around contemporary issues surrounding labor and gender.”
SELF
Wampum
2019
Color video and sound
06:23 minutes
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.22
Elisa Harkins (b. 1978)
Wampum
2019
Color video and sound
06:23 minutes
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.22
Drawing on her Cherokee/Muscogee heritage, Harkins uses her musical compositions and performance practice to explore/investigate the preservation of tradition and the fluidity of translation.
Ronald Jackson (b. 1970)
In a Day, She Became The Master of Her House
2019
Oil on canvas
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.85
In a Day, She Became The Master of Her House
2019
Oil on canvas
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.85
HAPPENINGS
Composition for Gravity in the Void and Composition for in the Dark Later, 2015 - present
Mulberry bark, pigment, sun, water, dust, repurposed paper, hair
Courtesy of the artist
ARTIST TALK
Hong Hong
Saturday, April 23
1 PM – 2 PM
Sarasota High School Alumni Auditorium
FREE for ALL
Interested in exploring the paper-making techniques used by Hong Hong? This program will be followed by a free hands-on paper-making workshop by a local teaching artist in Thomas McGuire Hall at 2 pm.
Generous suppport for this project provided by Art Bridges.
Born in 1989 in Hefei, Anhui, China, Hong Hong earned her BFA from State University of New York at Potsdam (2011) and MFA from University of Georgia (2014). Since 2015, she has travelled to faraway and distinct locations to create site-responsive, monumental paperworks. In this nomadic practice, traditional methods of Chinese papermaking coalesces with painting, monastic rituals, and feminist performances. Hong’s research investigates the voyages of bodies, both plant and human, across borders and between continents. Recent projects map interstitial relationships between globalization, climate, exile, time-passing, and the Chinese Diaspora through cartographic, symbolic, and material languages.
ART ACTIVITY
Paper-making Workshop
Saturday, April 23
2pm – 4pm
Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza
FREE for ALL
Interested in exploring the paper-making techniques used by Hong Hong? This program will be followed by a free hands-on paper-making workshop by a local teaching artist in Thomas McGuire Hall at 2 pm.
At 2 p.m., join Ringling College printmaking professor Eszter Sziksz for a workshop making paper out of recycled materials. Eszter has a passion for papermaking and enjoys sharing the delightfully unpredictable art of handmade paper. Her art practice blends papermaking, installation, and video elements.
Generous suppport for this project provided by Art Bridges.
FRIENDS AND FAMILY DAY
Celebrate Earth Day
Sunday, April 24
10 am – 5pm
Programs are FREE for ALL
Join us for a full day of activities in celebrating our planet and all it offers us.
- Engage in an immersive theatrical experience from 10 am – 11 am.
- Experience live performances in Thomas McGuire Hall from 11:30-12:30 and 1-2 pm.
- Take part in the Recycled Community Sculpture from 2-4 pm.
- Enjoy our newest exhibition State of the Art 2020: Constructs, which highlights the theme of Planet and our human impact.
Adobe Brick, mirror, lime wash, and mica, 15 x 5 x 8 ft.
Public Art + Performance Factory on 5th Art Space, Albuquerque, NM.
Photos courtesy of Joanna Keane Lopez
PERFORMANCES
Clay Song
Sunday, April 24
11:30 am – 12:30pm | 1-2 pm
Thomas McGuire Hall
FREE for ALL
Please join us in a series of performances for the activation of Joanna Keane Lopez’s work Clay Song. The performances will feature multidisciplinary artists and performers Nizhonniya Austin, Karima Walker, Kateri López, Gregorio Glassman, and Joanna Keane Lopez.
This site-specific installation rethinks the idea of la resolana, a New Mexican architectural term that Lopez interprets as a “south-facing side of a wall where people congregate” in the bright sunshine. The artist designed this adobe brick wall as a threshold that represents unity, duality, and multiplicity. The mud-plastered façade is finished with materials that Lopez locally harvested and mixed with a glittery silicate mineral called mica. Handmade bricks constitute the core of the sculpture. The circular yellow mirror symbolizes the sun while the mirrored surface of the wall offers opportunities for reflection. In keeping with the tradition of la resolana, Lopez invites New Mexican performers to activate the structure when it is on display.
The performances coincide with the public opening of State of the Art 2020: Constructs and Friends and Family Day: Celebrate Earth Day.
Joanna Keane Lopez (b. 1991, New Mexico) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work brings together large-scale installation, adobe, architecture, and sculpture as a reimagining of landscape and place. By working with materials of adobe, alíz, paper, and natural dyes her practice acts to address conceptions of sculpture in engagement with land. Through the passing down of knowledge of vernacular architectural techniques of the greater Southwest, Keane Lopez creates work that seeks healing and reparation of fragmentation towards land, home, family, and community that is connected to her own multi-generational roots in New Mexico.
Keane Lopez has been supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She has exhibited nationally at institutions which include: The Momentary of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, SITE Santa Fe, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, and Blue Star Contemporary, and participated as artist in residence at A-Z West and Ucross Foundation.