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October
28, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, please contact:
Dr.
Graziella Marchicelli, SAMA Fine Arts Curator
(814)
472-3920
Travis
Mearns, Public Relations Coordinator
(724) 238-6015
SAMA CELEBRATES ABSTRACT ART
WITH
PERMANENT COLLECTION EXHIBITION
Johnstown – The Southern
Alleghenies Museum of Art at Johnstown’s latest Permanent
Collection exhibition celebrates the Museum’s vast
collection of abstract art. Rhapsody in Color: Abstract
Art from the Permanent Collection, features 28 works in
painting, watercolor and print. The exhibition opens
November 12 and remains on view through January 23.
The exhibition showcases
contemporary abstract artists’ use of color as a primary
vehicle of expression, said SAMA Fine Arts Curator, Dr.
Graziella Marchicelli. “Through a careful selection of works
from the permanent collection, this exhibition provides a
fresh look at abstract art and reveals its wide range of
pictorial vocabularies,” she said. “The exhibition
highlights a number of varied, experimental techniques, from
the artists’ use of staining, spraying, pouring, soaking and
sponging paint onto the unprimed canvas to their experiments
with bronze, aluminum, ceramic, synthetic media and
computers.”
The Museum
will hold a Lunch a l’Art program at 11:30 on Thursday,
December 2. Dr. Marchicelli will give a gallery tour and
discussion on abstract art and the exhibition. Cost for the
program is $11 or $8 for Museum members. Reservations are
required by November 30 and can be made by calling the
Museum at (814) 269-7234.
The most
significant artistic development in non-representational art
in America took place in the late 1940s and 1950s with the
introduction of Abstract Expressionism by painters, Jackson
Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett
Newman. The new aesthetic was a form of art in which the
artist expresses himself purely through the use of color and
form. This radical aesthetic resulted in the first American
art movement to have international impact. Pollock became
the best known of the group, famous for his method of laying
a canvas on the floor of his studio and walking around it,
flinging and dripping house paint to create intricate laces
of color and texture. Newman, likewise, became one of the
most influential Abstract Expressionist painters. He was a
master of vast spatial effects and rich evocative color
creating a new visual vocabulary known as Minimalism.
Influenced by Newman’s minimalist visual vocabulary,
sculptor, Tony DeLap synthesizes elements of painting and
sculpture to create wall sculptures. His work explores
curved geometric shapes and saturated singular color
producing ambiguity of dimension by
emphasizing the structural continuity between the surface of
the work and the wall behind it. DeLap is one of the
abstract artists featured in the exhibition.
Other
prominent abstract artists featured in Rhapsody in Color
include Helen Frankenthaler, Alexander Calder, Rob Fisher,
Josef Albers, Marco Spalatin, Paul Jenkins, Richmond Burton,
Knox Martin, Abe Ajay, Charles Olson and Walasse Ting.
For 27
years, SAMA has collected and exhibited 19th- and
20th-century American art to the rural
communities of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Established by
Sean M. Sullivan, T.O.R., the Museum first opened its doors
in June 1976 with 47 paintings, sculptures and drawings and
a collection of 20 etchings by John Sloan. Since that time,
the collection has grown to number more than 3,000 works of
art by some of this country’s finest artists.
The Southern Alleghenies Museum of
Art at Johnstown is located in the Pasquerilla Performing
Arts Center on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at
Johnstown. Hours of operation are 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday. The Museum is open to the public free
of charge. For more information, call the Museum or visit
www.sama-art.org.
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