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UB Anderson Gallery to show Adams’ work
By ANNE REED
Reporter Contributor
"Bruce Adams, Half Life: 1980-2006," the first comprehensive survey of more than 70 paintings and works on paper by the artist, will open with a public reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 9 in the UB Anderson Gallery.
In conjunction with the exhibition, which will be on view free of charge in the Anderson Gallery through March 25, Adams will deliver a lecture and lead a workshop in the Museum Studies Room on the second floor of the gallery at One Martha Jackson Place near Kenmore and Englewood avenues.
The lecture, entitled "Ideas Made Visible," will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 20. It will be free and open to the public.
The workshop, "Artist as Educator: Blank Canvas to Finished Product," will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. March 21. It is open to educators, art educators and college-level art-education students at a cost of $10. Pre-registration is required and can be done by calling 829-3754.
Known primarily as a figurative painter, Adams has wielded his brush in a variety of styles—from the expressionistic to photorealist—to generate a system of signs that exuberantly combine a variety of source materials, juxtaposing pulp cultural, archaeological, technological and art historical references.
Adams began his career as a professional artist in Buffalo in the early 1980s. Along with such contemporaries as painters David Salle and Eric Fischl and photographers Sherrie Levine and Louise Lawler, Adams used appropriation techniques to critically evaluate societal structures and the role of governments, the media and museums. His "Research and Development" series from the early to mid-1990s is a culmination of ideas he had been exploring throughout the 1980s. The series deals with representations of class, gender and ethnicity in relation to the ideal American citizen.
"Men at Work" (1994-95) shows "Leave-it-to-Beaver" dads bent over varied objects—statues, vases, bombs, etc.—absorbed in what looks like scientific analysis or conservation. By placing pinup posters on the walls behind these men, Adams re-contextualizes the girlie magazines that are often found hidden underneath parents' beds in countless suburban homes and offers a tongue-in-cheek commentary on sexual repression in the American nuclear family.
In the last series in the exhibition, "Paintings of Pictures of People with Paintings" from the early 2000s, Adams employs a photorealist style to document people in museums looking at paintings. He has removed all traces of architecture, allowing the people and paintings to co-exist in white expanses, highlighting the dynamic between audiences and artwork.
Adams received bachelor's and master's degrees in art education from Buffalo State College and has been an art instructor in elementary and high schools in the Town of Tonawanda for more than 25 years. He returned to his alma mater as an adjunct professor from 1991-94. Adams has shown extensively in the region at Big Orbit, Upton Hall and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. His work is featured in numerous public and private collections.
Among his many honors, Adams received the Citibank Award at the 41st Western New York Exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, as well as the Benjamin's Gallery Award at the 42nd Western New York Exhibition. Other awards include the New York State Art Educator of the Year award from the National Art Education Association in 2000 and the New York State Art Educator of the Year award from the New York State Art Teachers Association in 1999. He received a grant from New Forms Regional Initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1990.
An active member of the Buffalo arts community, he lectures and publishes widely and served as president of the board of directors of Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center from 2003-06.
The UB Anderson Gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday.