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2003

The Blanton's new curator of Latin American art, Gabriel Perez-Barreiro, emerges this fall with his first major exhibition for the Blanton. Lo feo de este mundo investigates works by artists who reject ideas of beauty in favor of the ugly, deformed, and imperfect. The exhibition features more than 40 works by Latin American artists such as Jose Luis Cuevas, Antonio Berni, and Liliana Porter, who reveal a concern with the darker side of life and an implicit rejection of the progressive theories of modernity.

Painted egg cartons, a drawing on a leaf, a written action statement, video documentation of nude “happenings” and a perforated canvas hung away from the wall play off more conventional works as the Blanton's curator of American and Contemporary art, Annete DiMeo Carlozzi, guides visitors through the artistic production of four maverick women artists active in the 1950s–1980s: Yayoi Kusama, Lee Lozano, Ana Mendieta, and Joan Semmel.

Still only beginning to reveal the wealth and personality of the recently acquired Leo Steinberg Collection, the Blanton's curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings, Jonathan Bober, presents a second selection of 100 works, illustrating the history of prints and printmaking from the 16th through the 20th centuries. These range from rarities of Italian Mannerist engraving and the German “Little Masters,” to masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse.

This final installment of the Projections series of contemporary film and video works, selected by the Blanton's assistant curator of American and Contemporary art, Kelly Baum, showcases videos and films by emerging and established women artists. The works provocatively challenge gender stereotypes, assert female empowerment, and reveal how women from a variety of backgrounds approach feminism.

This experimental exhibition presents four contemporary works of art that explore notions of personal, racial, and cultural identity. A key component of the Visualizing Identity project is the iTour—a handheld, multi-media device designed to enhance visitor learning by providing video, audio, and textual information as well as interactive experiences.

Among American painters, the period 1958–1963 was a one of intense experimentation and increased activity that resulted in a profusion of new modes of representation. This exhibition is the second installment in an exploration of the burst of artistic activity that took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Blanton's collection of paintings from 1958–1963 is particularly rich, and Painting Explosion, Part II allows the public to become acquainted with an even broader cross–section of the museum's permanent collection. While many works from Part I will remain on view, others will be replaced by additional paintings from the Blanton's permanent collection, offering a fresh perspective on this historic period.

In July 2002 the Blanton Museum of Art acquired the print collection of noted art historian and critic Leo Steinberg, adding 3,200 prints to the Blanton's holdings and includes masterpieces by Marcantonio Raimondi, Albrecht Dürer, Parmigianino, Cornelis Cort, Hendrick Goltzius, Claude Lorrain, Rembrandt, and Francesco Piranesi, as well as William Blake, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Jasper Johns, and many other artists both known and unknown to contemporary scholars. This exhibition marks the first time these works have been on view to the public. It is the first in a two-part series of exhibitions revealing the many strengths of this exceptional collection, believed by many to have been one of the last great collections of prints in private hands.

In each installment, the full breadth of the collection is demonstrated in works illustrating the history of prints and printmaking from the 16th through the 20th centuries. The frontispiece of Prints from the Leo Steinberg Collection, Part I, Marcantonio Raimondi's so-called Stregozzo [The Witches' Procession], is one of the largest and most intriguing engravings of the High Renaissance. Superb reproductive prints of the works of Michelangelo include Giorgio Ghisi's first interpretations of figures from the Sistine Ceiling and Nicolas Beatrizet's Annunciation after the master's lost drawing. There are several exceptionally rare and fine etchings from the School of Fontainebleau, a stunning group of engravings by Hendrik Goltzius and his followers, and singular impressions of some of the major etchings of Italian Baroque. Grand-scale reproductive printmaking is represented at the beginning of the tradition by Hans Witdoeck's engraving of Rubens's Elevation of the Cross, and at the conclusion by Raphael Morghen's Last Supper after Leonardo da Vinci. Part I concludes with some especially delicate French landscape etchings, Picasso's Blind Minotaur from his Vollard Suite of 1933–34, and Jasper Johns' Ale Cans, the lithograph created as the cover illustration of Steinberg's seminal essay on the artist.

Visit the Blanton's screening room in the back of the downstairs gallery for a changing exhibition of projected videos and films by contemporary artists. Each installment brings together works by diverse artists exploring common themes in distinctly different ways.

The late 1950s and early 1960s was a period of great transition in American art. Among American painters, especially those based in New York City, this time was one of intense experimentation and increased activity that resulted in a profusion of new modes of representation. Thanks to the foresight of Mari and James A. Michener and other donors, the Blanton's collection of 20th-century American paintings represents the period 1958–1963 in extraordinary depth and breadth. Painting Explosion features more than 40 works from the Blanton's collection that survey the wide spectrum of artistic styles and concerns prevalent during this historic era. The exhibition includes major works by Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Larry Rivers, Ellsworth Kelly, Helen Frankenthaler, and Adolph Gottlieb—signature paintings with which the Blanton's collection is often identified—as well as lesser known but important works by Robert Motherwell, Al Held, Robert Indiana, Yayoi Kusama, Ludwig Sander, Leon Golub, Norman Lewis and others.

This selection of more than 40 paintings from the 15th through 18h centuries includes works by Jacopo da Empoli, Sebastiano del Piombo, Luca Cambiaso, Veronese, Guercino, Claude Lorrain, Peter Paul Rubens, Sebastiano Ricci, and many others. It features works from the Suida–Manning Collection, which, acquired by the Blanton in 1998, is widely recognized as one of the greatest privately assembled collections of Renaissance and Baroque art in the world.

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