Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880–1910
July 16–December 11, 2005
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In “Moving Pictures,” paintings are placed alongside early films to show how artists and audiences of that period grappled with the new visual technology. The moving pictures on view are drawn primarily from the Edison, Lumière, and American Mutoscope and Biograph companies while the paintings are by such artists as Thomas Eakins, George Luks, John Sloan, and George Bellows. This important exhibition, which includes over 150 paintings, posters, and photographs and 50 films, follows the 1880 experiments of Eadward Muybridge and other motion photographers through the development of moving picture technology in the 1890s and the wave of creativity the new medium generated among American artists. The exhibition catalogue, with an accompanying interactive DVD of the paintings and films, features essays by prominent scholars from the fields of art history, film studies, and American studies. Organized by Nancy Mowll Mathews, Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator, the exhibition travels to three other venues: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, N.C., March-July 2006; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, September-December 2006; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., February-May 2007. Funded in part by The Henry Luce Foundation, the Eugénie Prendergast Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Williams College Center for Technology in the Arts and Humanities (CTAH), H.H. Powers Fund, and the Orrin Simons Fund.

Helen Stoller
July 30, 2005–September 11, 2005
Press Release
Features Stoller’s colorful and lively works of collage and assemblage, as well as five gouache drawings. Her collages express a fascination with shape, color, texture, and balance, presented through everyday objects like newspaper clippings and sandpaper. This exhibition is presented as part of WCMA’s annual Summer Regional Artists Series, and was organized by Deborah Rothschild, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Quilt Masterpieces from Folk Art to Fine Art
June 11, 2005–August 21, 2005
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Experience the true fabric of American history. Twenty-five important selections from The Newark Museum's renowned quilt collection explore the style, design, and meaning of American quilts in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the important social and communal role they played in the lives of those who created them. View works ranging from the early 19th century to the end of the 20th by European Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans, each with its own unique characteristics. Ulysses Grant Dietz, Curator, Newark Museum. Quilt Masterpieces from Folk Art to Fine Art was organized by The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. the exhibition was made possible through the generous support of: The Coby Foundation, Ltd., the New Jersey Commission, and the Bay Foundation.

Photojournalism/Personal Journalism
February 5–July 17, 2005
In the history of photography, scholars frequently discuss photojournalism and fine art photography as separate and discrete categories: photojournalism is often understood to communicate facts, while fine art photography is considered a medium of personal expression. “Photojournalism/Personal Journalism” examines some of the intricacies between these two categories of photography, and looks at how, since the 1950s, the distinctions have become increasingly blurred. Organized by Erina Duganne, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in the History of Photography at Williams College

David Rokeby: Taken
March 12, 2005-June 12, 2005
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Taken is a surveillance installation by the Canadian artist David Rokeby that tracks the movements of visitors within the gallery space and incorporates this information into its visual display, projections on the walls within the gallery. The gallery visitors’ movements are extracted from the gallery space, and their activity is looped back onto itself at 20 second intervals. The result is that every action within the space of the gallery occurs together on the screen, repeating every 20 seconds. History, however, is also critical to this work, as the activity accumulates over time. Thus, the result is a chaotic trace of history, a record of the gallery space as well as the movement of the viewer within that space.

Beyond East and West: Seven Transnational Artists
February 12, 2005-May 15, 2005
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Beyond East and West: Seven Transnational Artists displays recent work by seven important contemporary artists who come from the region stretching from Egypt to Pakistan, but who have lived much of their lives in Europe or the United States. The artists, Jananne Al-Ani, Ghada Amer, Mona Hatoum, Y. Z. Kami, Walid Raad, Michal Rovner, and Shahzia Sikander, draw on their experiences of displacement and knowledge of multiple cultures to offer alternative visions of the contemporary world. The exhibition addresses various experiences of travel, exile, diaspora, alienation, and integration, feelings of longing and belonging, memories of places and people, encounters with divergent views of sexuality and gender, alternate political understandings of the world, and cultural practices that both divide and unite us. Guest curators: David O'Brien and David Prochaska. Organized by Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Book
January 29-April 24, 2005
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Organized by the Walters Art Gallery, this exhibition includes a facsimile version of the original bible commissioned by King Louis IX of France in the mid-13th century. That manuscript, often referred to as the "Crusader Bible," is currently in the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. This exhibition will also feature approximately 20 objects from the Walters' medieval collection that relate to the images in the manuscript.

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.