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New Works by Isaac Farley

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On view in the William R. Jenkins Architecture & Art Library until November 2017.  The artist, Isaac Farley, is now in the third year of an MFA program in painting.

My work is a form of storytelling. I want to tell stories of the lives of everyday people, like my family that is made up of people who were and are workers, either on ranches or in factories, and their desires, struggles, their triumphs, and tribulations.  Stories are rooted in oral traditions and cave paintings and are the basis of human history. When I try to tell a story without words, I think in images.  These images are influenced by movies, photography, and other art, and are most readily translated onto a two dimensional surface.

Often the work deals with America.  Not so much what America is or what it was, but the ideal, and myth of America.  America, the land of equal opportunity, where the truth is spoken, justice is fair and even, and where people live as they choose instead of what others impose on them.

Duality appears often in my work as innate and inborn opposing or balancing forces.  People are simultaneously advanced and primitive, capable of great acts of kindness and cruelty, with the ability to create both great art and terrible destruction.

Camp, acrylic on canvas, 63x72in Jimador Linocut 12x12in (2)

On display in the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library

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Vietnam Sinfonie oder Desastres de la Guerra by Wolf Vostell

Materials from the German artist Wolf Vostell’s  Vietnam Sinfonie oder Désastres de la Guerra (Vietnam Symphony or Disasters of the War) are on display in the Architecture and Art Library’s upper mezzanine.  This piece was performed at the Galerie Van de Loo in Munich in 1972. Vostell is known for his role in the Fluxus art movement in the late 1950s in Europe. He was the founder of the European Happening scene and was one of the first video and installation artists.

Art Revolution: Women Artists from Around the World

On display in the south wing are books dedicated to groundbreaking women artists from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States.  These women challenge traditional assumptions and engage us in conversations that were previously unthinkable through their creative work in video art, photography, performance art, paintings, textiles, sculptures, room installations, drawings, etchings, collages and beyond. This exhibit highlights many different art movements including Hannah Höch’s work as a Dada artist in the Weimar period, Carolee Schneemann’s Fluxus’ work, Ana Medieta’s involvement in the Body art movement, Helen Marten’s contemporary art earning her the 2016 Turner Prize, Germaine Arnaktauyok’s work stemming from her Inuk childhood, Lorna Simpson’s Conceptual Photography and avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama’s installations.