Looking Forward: Gifts of Contemporary Art from the Patricia A. Bell Collection

MONTCLAIR, N.J. - Sept. 3, 2013 - PRLog -- The 2013–2014 season at the Montclair Art Museum (MAM) will mark its Centennial Year with exhibitions that highlight the Museum’s collections and that focus on New Jersey. Looking Forward: Gifts of Contemporary Art from the Patricia A. Bell Collection, opening September 22, 2013, will honor the collector Patricia A. Bell, a resident of South Orange, NJ, whose gifts of more than 40 works to MAM over the past decade have been crucial for developing the Museum’s contemporary art collection into a significant reflection of the current art world since the 1990s. Shown together here for the first time, her gifts have both shaped and strengthened MAM’s contemporary art collection, culminating in the launch of a new, more focused contemporary art program with the hiring of Alexandra Schwartz, curator of contemporary art, two years ago. The exhibition, co-curated by Schwartz and Gail Stavitsky, chief curator, will be on view through the Museum’s 100th Birthday Party, a community celebration of its Centennial, on January 15, 2014.

The diverse range of works Bell has contributed has informed every permanent collection exhibition of recent years at the Museum. Artists whose work is represented among Bell’s gifts include John Baldessari, Dawoud Bey, Sarah Charlesworth, Chuck Close, Willie Cole, Sharon Core, Gregory Crewdson, Nan Goldin, Sarah Hobbs, Jasper Johns, Justine Kurland, Louise Lawler, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Kiki Smith, Alec Soth, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Jack Whitten. The works on view in this exhibition address a variety of concerns shared by many artists today, including themes of racial and cultural difference in American life, issues of gender in contemporary society, and the artifice of photography.

Bell served on the Museum’s Board of Trustees from 2004–2010 and is currently a member of the Museum’s Art Committee. Having begun collecting art in 1989, she has observed, “When an artwork comes into my home, I feel as though I’ve made a connection to the soul of the artist. … There are lots of different ways to tell history, but art is one of the most interesting ways of keeping track of what’s going on.”

RELATED EXHIBITIONS

Robert Barry: One Billion Colored Dots
September 22–December 15, 2013

The pioneering conceptual artist Robert Barry, based in Teaneck, New Jersey, donated this major, limited edition work to the Montclair Art Museum. It comprises 25 volumes—each volume is composed of 2,000 printed pages, each page with 40,000 dots, each volume containing 40,000,000 dots, thus presenting 1,000,000,000,000 dots over the span of the 25 volumes. Additionally, each volume has been printed in a single color. The edition contains one volume in each of the following colors: red, blue, orange, violet, green, yellow, maroon, blue green, light green, ochre, light purple, light grey, dark blue, pink, yellow green, purple, light orange, red violet, light yellow, silver, light blue, grey, gold, white, and black. Thus Robert Barry has given sublime material form to the concept of one billion—a quantity that is beyond our quotidian comprehension.

Born in 1936, Robert Barry is one of the major protagonists of Conceptual art. When, in 1972, Barry took up residence in Teaneck, he was a young artist and lecturer at Hunter College, where he had studied art. His work has been exhibited extensively in Europe and the United States, including such New York venues as Leo Castelli, Holly Solomon, and Yvon Lambert galleries. He has received many commissions, for the Musée d’Orsay and other institutions, as well as the recently opened ARTLANTIC public art project in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Barry’s One Billion Colored Dots is complemented by a selection of works by his longtime friend and fellow pioneer of Conceptual art Sol LeWitt. Unique illustrated postcards sent by LeWitt during his travels to Barry as well as original works on paper and prints will be on view.

Robert Barry: Diptych, Window-Wallpiece for the Montclair Art Museum
September 22, 2013–Summer 2014

Located in the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Art Stairway, this site-specific installation uses allusive words on the walls and windows to successfully engage the viewer. It was first installed at the Museum in 2005-6.

RELATED EVENTS

MSU/MAM Art Talks
Women Artists of the New Millennium/Panel Discussion
Thursday, September 26, 7 p.m.
$12 Members, $15 Nonmembers, FREE for MSU staff and students. Call 973-259-5137 or visit montclairartmusuem.org for tickets.

Explore the evolving status and concerns of women artists who followed the pioneering feminist artists of the 1970s with the authors of The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium, a book published this September by the authors of the earlier, prize-winning book After the Revolution: Women who Transformed Contemporary Art. Eleanor Heartney, contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress, will moderate the discussion. Panelists include co-authors Nancy Princenthal, Helaine Posner, and Sue Scott. Discussion will examine history of women artists and the careers of an international selection of women artists born after 1960.

This series is a collaboration between the Master of Fine Arts degree program of Montclair State University and the Montclair Art Museum.

MAM CONTEMPORARIES
MAM Contemporaries is a dynamic group celebrating contemporary art at the Montclair Art Museum. Leading one of the first groups of its kind in the area, MAM’s Curator of Contemporary Art Alexandra Schwartz will guide participants who want to explore, learn, and deepen their knowledge of the contemporary art world.

Throughout the year, MAM Contemporaries will present exciting events covering all aspects of the contemporary art world including visits to artists' studios, special tours of museum exhibitions, trips to private collections, visits to galleries in Chelsea and the Lower East Side, tours and talks at auction houses, and VIP access to art fairs. Visit montclairartmuseum.org for details.

ONLINE PRESS SITE
The Museum will maintain a site dedicated to the exhibition for journalists seeking further information, including a checklist and images. Please visit montclairartmuseum.org/press-room (http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/press-room.php).

GROUP TOURS
Group tours may be booked by calling 973-259-5136 or by emailing tours@montclairartmuseum.org.

SPONSORSHIP
Looking Forward: Gifts of Contemporary Art from the Patricia A. Bell Collection is made possible with generous support from Merrill Lynch.

All Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum members.