The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College announces Studio/Archive, an exhibition featuring contemporary art from the Tang collection that examines studio portraiture and archives as tools for agency, empathy, and justice. The exhibition runs from Saturday, February 3, through Sunday, June 19. An opening reception will be Saturday, February 10, at 5 pm.
The works on view, many of them recent acquisitions, include nineteenth-century daguerreotypes, vernacular photography, contemporary portraiture, and video. Organized to complement the Tang Museum's presentation of Lessons of the Hour by Sir Isaac Julien, this exhibition aims to extend the conversation around the power of photography to (re)frame ourselves and the world around us through the photographic lens.
Among recent acquisitions to be on view for the first time at the Tang are:
- Ja'Tovia Gary's An Ecstatic Experience, 2015, a six-minute video purchased by the Tang in partnership with the New Media Arts Consortium, a collaboration of the art museums at Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Colby College, Middlebury College, and Skidmore College
- Kahlil Robert Irving's My Memory Media - [(mom moments MoMA) angled ironed + "Pearl Paint"(*****)], 2021, a mixed-media ceramic sculpture that includes image transfers, purchased with funds from Ann and Mel Schaffer
- Anette Kelm's Big Print #4, 2007, a close-up photograph of fabric with a flower print, a gift of Michael and Eileen Cohen
- Vernacular photographs of Black portraits, not dated, from a gift of Peter J. Cohen
Other artists with work on view includes Mike Disfarmer, Elger Esser, Zanele Muholi, Vik Muniz, Alice O'Malley, Joachim Schmid, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Malick Sidibé, Sanlé Sory, Mickalene Thomas, and Huang Yan.
Studio/Archive is organized by Dayton Director Ian Berry.
About the Tang Teaching Museum Collection
The Tang Teaching Museum collection is central to the museum's mission of object-based learning. Since opening in fall 2000 with about 3,500 objects, the collection has grown to more than 18,000 works, representing a wide variety of materials, subject matter, and time periods. It is filled with oddities of material culture and masterworks by renowned contemporary artists alike. Recent acquisitions include works by artists who are part of the Tang's exhibition history; works added to ROOM•MATE: Living with Tang Art, the art-loan program for students; and major works in contemporary photography, such as the full set of prints of Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency as well as work on view in Studio/Archive. https://tang.skidmore.edu/collection
About the Tang Teaching Museum
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York's Capital Region, the Tang's approach has become a model for college and university art museums across the country—with exhibition programs that bring together visual and performing arts with interdisciplinary ideas from history, economics, biology, dance, and physics, to name just a few. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, and a robust publication and touring exhibition program that extends the museum's reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum's award-winning building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of art and ideas. The Museum is open to the public on Thursday from noon to 9 pm and Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 pm. https://tang.skidmore.edu