In the Company of Women:
Selections from the Williams College Museum of Art
October 30, 2004-April 17, 2005
Press release
This exhibition looks at the diverse ways artists from different cultures and historical periods have visualized groups of women. In some cases, the context is the everyday world of work, but more often, symbolic or imaginative meaning provides the artistic impetus. Female figures are infused with otherworldly powers that beguile, transport, and occasionally menace the human spectator. The tradition of the powerful woman, whether goddess of wisdom or fetish figure, continues to this day in the visual arts; this exhibition provides the viewer with a gallery fraught with the compelling visual discourse of this “company of women.” Organized by Nancy Mowll Mathews, WCMA’s Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator of 19th and 20th Century Art.

Liza Johnson: if then maybe
September 25, 2004-February 27, 2005
Press release
If then maybe, Johnson’s most recent museum installation piece, examines feminine gestures, specifically the gestures of shame, prevalent in Hollywood cinema. The artist restaged and reshot these typically feminine motions in a decidedly cinematic style, with lush lighting, and beautiful sets, yet she removed them from their storylines. Each short, perfectly circular, video loop is characterized by a static camera focused on a woman caught in an endless moment of speechless vulnerability. With the loops, Johnson creates an unnerving environment in which the women cannot escape the frame. Liza Johnson is a fimmaker and Assistant Professor of Art at Williams College. Organized by Lisa Dorin, Assistant Curator, with the artist.

Hot Printing: Late Work by Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman
October 9-January 2, 2005
Press release
In the early 1920s, Hendrik Werkman (Dutch, 1882-1945), the operator of a small printing establishment in Groningen, began using his printing press more as a mode of self expression than as a means of income. He called his new endeavor “hot printing” as an overt nod to the hot jazz that had ignited his interest. For the next two decades, 1921-1945, Werkman used his press to print mostly his own graphic designs, in small editions, while continuing to accept a limited number of commissions. This exhibition features Werkman’s late works and includes approximately forty examples of his printed journals, calendars, and broadsides. Organized by John Stomberg, Associate Director. We are greatly indebted to the generosity of June and Robert Leibowits.

Ezra Stoller Architectural Photography
June 19-December 19, 2004
Press release
Ezra Stoller is one of the preeminent architectural photographers in the world. His exacting attention to detail and unparalleled ability to translate an architect’s vision into two dimensions have made his images prized by architects, editors, and collectors. This exhibition features Stoller’s photographs of iconic American buildings, including Fallingwater, the Guggenheim Museum, the Seagram Building, the TWA Terminal, and the Yale Art and Architecture Building. Organized by Deborah Rothschild, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Mostly Photography: Art since 1980 from the Collection
January 24-December 12, 2004
Press release
Featuring art made within the last 23 years drawn from WCMA’s permanent collection, including some recent acquisitions. Organized by Deborah Rothschild, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Summer Afternoon: American Watercolors from the Collection
May 22-October 11, 2004
Press release
This exhibition features watercolors with a summer theme, from beach side scenes to still life's displaying the bounty of a summer garden. Artists include Winslow Homer, Charles Demuth, John Marin, and several of the watercolors of Maurice Brazil Prendergast. This exhibition is organized by Ellery Foutch, Curatorial Assistant.

Victoria Palermo: Flo-mation
press release
July 3-September 26, 2004
Candy-colored surfaces so slick they appear wet and sticky to the touch. Drips that defy gravity. Globs bleed into bubbles that meld into tubes that feed into knots, and eventually all ooze into a puddle on the floor. Like bodies in a state of arrested formation, Victoria Palermo’s brilliantly tinted large-scale rubber sculptures bring to mind primordial earth as well as outer space. Wall paper designed by the artist to evoke both psychedelic album covers and 19th century decorative ceramic tile, lines the walls surrounding the freestanding forms, creating an other-worldly landscape in the gallery. Organized by Lisa Dorin, Assistant Curator with the artist.

The Book as a Work of Art: The Cranach Press of Count Harry Kessler
June 29-September 26, 2004
Count Harry Kessler (1869-1937) was one of the most prominent and versatile personalities of his time. In addition to being a diplomat, writer, art collector, museum director, and astute observer of German political and cultural life, he was also the founder of the Cranach Press. Located in Weimar, Germany, the Cranach Press published limited-edition art books that today are counted among the most celebrated accomplishments of 20th-century printing. This exhibition examines the art, design, craftsmanship, and artistic collaboration of the Cranach Press’s most important publications. The exhibition will be displayed in two venues on the Williams College campus: the Chapin Library, which is showing the main part of the exhibition, and the Williams College Museum of Art, which will focus on two publications, The Eclogues of Vergil and The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke. The exhibition was organized by John Dieter Brinks with Robert Volz, Custodian of Chapin Library, and is accompanied by an illustrated book.

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Memorial Project Vietnam
Press Release
June 12–September 6, 2004
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba creates lyrical, graceful, and spellbinding films that explore Vietnamese history and identity. Memorial Project Vietnam includes two films that are linked by a common underwater setting, vivid, saturated color, choreographed movements, and hypnotic soundtracks: Memorial Project, Nha Trang, Vietnam, Towards the Complex—For the Courageous, the Curious, and the Cowards, 2001 and Happy New Year—Memorial Project Vietnam II, 2003. The use of water as the setting for both works in the exhibition helps to give them a specifically Vietnamese sensibility. This exhibition was organized by the UC Berkeley Art Museum MATRIX Program.

Stones of Assyria: Ancient Spirits
from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II
Two of the first objects to enter the Williams College Museum of Art's collection are re-examined in an installation that investigates their original function and location in a 7th c. BC palace in Iraq and the fascinating 19th century story of how they ended up at a small New England college. Organized by Vivian Patterson, Curator of Collections; Barbara Robertson, Director of Education; and Elyse Gonzales, MA '00.

Labeltalk 2004: Max Beckmann’s Jahrmarkt
March 6 – June 20, 2004
press release
In 1921 Max Beckman (German, 1884-1950) created one of his most compelling graphic works, Jahrmarkt, a portfolio of ten rich drypoints that exemplify his longstanding fascination with circuses and carnivals. A pristine copy of this portfolio was recently acquired by the museum and will be the subject of Labeltalk 2004. Five Williams College professors—from Art History, German, History, Philosophy, and Theater—will write texts exploring Jahrmarkt from the perspective of their disciplines. Organized by Stefanie Spray Jandl, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator for Academic Programs.

Michel Auder: Chronicles and Other Scenes
in MEDIA FIELD
February 14-May 23, 2004
press release
This exhibition presents a selection of works by Michel Auder who has been making films and videos since 1969. Working within the circle of Andy Warhol, Auder developed his own artistic method that oscillates between the role of insider and outsider, detached voyeur, and participant. Auder’s body of work includes psychological self-portraits, video diaries, documents of his travels, family life, portraits of his contemporaries in the world of art, and underground culture. His work successfully fuses a raw gaze with documentary and confessional modes of video-making. Chronicles is organized in conjunction with the art history course “Avant-Garde Film: Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol,” taught by C. Ondine Chavoya, Assistant Professor of Art.

Antoin Sevruguin and the Persian Image
January 10-May 2, 2004
Press Release
Antoin Sevruguin and the Persian Image presents selected views of Iran created by Antoin Sevruguin, one of that nation’s most inventive photographers. Influenced by both Western and Eastern artistic traditions, Sevruguin brought a new sense of artistry to Iranian photography. The exhibition includes 35 black-and-white photographs made from original negative and vintage prints housed in the archives of the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art. The exhibition was organized by the Sackler Gallery and is circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES).

Forbidden Image? Persian and Mughal Painting from the Collection
January 10-April 25, 2004
Press Release
Perhaps the most common misconception about Islamic art is that the representation of the human figure is strictly forbidden. In actuality, there is a rich tradition of depicting people, as evidenced by paintings in the museum’s collection. This exhibition will include 12 Persian and Mughal paintings and drawings ranging from the 15th to 19th centuries and depicting a variety of men and beasts. Organized by Holly Edwards, Lecturer in Art, with Stefanie Spray Jandl, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator for Academic Programs, in conjunction with Professor Edwards’s course "Forbidden Images?", Art History 472.

Pop Art from the Collection
August 2, 2003-February 1, 2004
press release
Chavoya, Assistant Professor of Art, in conjunction with hFeaturing work from WCMA’s collection, Pop Art includes some iconic selections of the movement, including Robert Indiana's Love and Andy Warhol's screenprint of Marilyn Monroe. Other works include silkscreens by Larry Rivers, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein, along with selections by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Lynda Benglis. Organized by C. Ondine is course "Pop Art," Art History 265.

Nicole Cohen: My Vie en Rose
July 19-February 8, 2004
press release
Media Field is transformed from a mini theater to a French salon as Los Angeles-based artist Nicole Cohen presents a new installation of video projections inspired mostly by the decorative and fanciful painting Trente Ans ou La Vie En Rose (1931) by the Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy (1877-1953). Roughly translated, My Vie En Rose refers to "the good life," the condition of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Cohen draws parallels between the painter's trademark representations of the lightness, humor, and sheer enjoyment of life and the overabundant desire for pleasure and fantasy that she has encountered since settling in southern California. Cohen creates small-scale digital prints of lush interior spaces onto which she projects video images of figures engaged in a number of indulgent, low-stress activities typical of fun-loving Angelinos.