For nearly the entire history of the medium, violins have appeared in photographs in ways that signify talent, status, geography, and culture – and have often been presented as beautiful objects unto themselves. This exhibition, featuring 250 original photographs, spans a period of more than 175 years from the 1840s to today, and includes examples of nearly every photographic process.
In/Humanity: Combat and War in Art
War and combat are inextricably part of the human experience, and art helps us make sense of the ways such conflict brings out the worst—and sometimes the best—in us. This exhibition, in conjunction with the WVU class “The Holocaust in East European Literature and Film,” brings together objects in the Art Museum’s collection for viewers to consider how creative expression in any medium helps us to both understand and reckon the violence of war and combat that permeates our world.
Interior Lives/Deep Focus: Reflections on "Interior Chinatown: A Novel"
Location: Stewart Hall, Second Floor
This off-site exhibition explores themes related to the 2022-23 Campus Read
common reading experience, Interior Chinatown: A Novel
by Charles Yu. It features several objects from the collection of the Art Museum
of WVU that explore how visual artists have chosen to express diverse aspects
of both personal and collective identities.
Learn more: Interior Lives/Deep Focus: Reflections on "Interior Chinatown: A Novel"
Virtual Tour: Interior Lives/Deep Focus: Reflections on "Interior Chinatown: A Novel"
Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt
Marie Watt (Seneca, b. 1967) is one of the country’s most celebrated contemporary
artists, whose work draws on personal experience, indigenous traditions, proto-feminism,
mythology, and art history. Drawing on the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer
and his family foundation,
Storywork
is a comprehensive look at Watt’s 30-year career, including more than 60
original prints and sculptural works. The exhibition also showcases Watt’s deep
veneration for indigenous narratives, especially those informed by her own Seneca
heritage.
Water Between Us: Art and the Campus Read
Location: Stewart Hall, Second Floor
This off-site exhibition explores themes related to the 2021-22
Campus Read common reading experience,
The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú. It
features several photographs of Mexico and its people from the 1930s by American
photographer Paul Strand alongside a series of lithographs that look at borders,
boundaries, and the social and political implications of mapping and identity co-created
by visual artist Enrique Chagoya and poet Alberto Rios—all from the collection
of the Art Museum of WVU.
From the Mountain: Malcolm Davis and the Art of Shino
McGee Gallery
Malcolm Davis (1937–2011) was an internationally recognized ceramic artist who
maintained a studio for more than 25 years in Upshur County, West Virginia. He
discovered ceramics later in life and became a successful potter and teacher renowned
for developing a Japanese-style glaze widely known as “Malcolm Davis Shino.” Featuring
more than 70 objects on loan from private collections, this exhibition celebrates
Davis’ artistic commitment to both beauty and function through a diversity of forms
designed for everyday use.
Learn more: From the Mountain: Malcolm Davis and the Art of Shino
Virtual Tour: From the Mountain: Malcolm Davis and the Art of Shino
True Colors: Picturing Identity
True Colors: Picturing Identity features selections from the New York collection of James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett exhibited for the very first time in West Virginia—including major works by Keith Haring, Deborah Kass, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol, among others. Together with objects from the Art Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition considers how contemporary artists use the human figure in painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, and photography to explore and express diverse aspects of both personal and collective identities.
Rauschenberg in China: The Lotus Series
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) was a groundbreaking and influential American artist who worked in diverse mediums over a six-decade career, including painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and printmaking. This exhibition highlights Rauschenberg’s extended artistic interest in China, from photographs made during his first trip there 1982 to the final large-scale graphic works he completed shortly before his death: The Lotus Series.
In Conversation with Walker Evans: Four Photographers
In conjunction with Walker Evans American Photographs, on display in the Upper Gallery, the Art Museum is featuring the work of four contemporary photographers in an adjacent gallery installation. Matt Eich, Mitch Epstein, Andrea Modica, and Jared Thorne each make pictures that resonate with Walker Evans’s photographs in distinctive ways, both visually and conceptually—and sometimes unexpectedly. Together they demonstrate how Evans’s work continues to influence artists today, nearly a century after he first visited the region.
Learn more: In Conversation with Walker Evans: Four Photographers
Walker Evans American Photographs
The Art Museum of WVU is the first venue on a national tour of an installation that
celebrates photographer Walker Evans’s landmark solo exhibition at New York’s
Museum of Modern Art in 1938.