Collected Views: I AM HERE
Bruce Lowney, Monumental Pause, 1973. Lithograph on paper. University at Buffalo Art Galleries: Gift of David K. Anderson, 1986
September 16, 2018–January 6, 2019
Pierre Alechinksy, Carlos Almaraz, Karel Appel, Norman Bluhm, Fritz Bultman, Virginia Cuthbert-Elliot. Jim Dine, Sam Francis, Michael Kessler, Bruce Lowney, Barbara Nessim, Charlotte Park, George Segal, Jochen Seidel, Arnold Shives, James Suzuki, Antoni Tapies, Francisco Toledo, and Robert Whitman
In this moment with heightened emphasis on place, regulations surrounding borders, and those situated inside and outside of them, this exhibition considers the landscape. Landscape painting, no matter how serenely rendered, is political, as it presents a view regulated by a boundary, whether it be political, socioeconomic, or physical. Landscapes are unifying: nonspecific or abstracted landscapes allow viewers from vastly different backgrounds to project their own ideas of place — be it home or fantasy — into them. Collected Views: I Am Here presents over 40 works of landscape, a few interiors, and abstractions that occupy the spaces in-between the two, all part of the UB Art Galleries permanent collection. This grouping explores themes of inside/outside, text and image, and place. Of the few interiors and figurative works presented here, the people and animals depicted offer the viewer an isolated glimpse of interiority in relation to an imagined world outside of the scene. Specifically considering the text-based works in the exhibition through the lens of graffiti—a version of painting in the landscape fraught with tension—the work also clearly states, “I am here!” To declare “I am here!” — be it through mark-making, dialogue, or political action, is to exist.
This exhibition is curated by Annie Bielski, an MFA student in the UB Department of Art.