Current Exhibitions
David Hockney: Six Fairy Tales
January 25 - March 25, 2012
David Hockney, The boy hidden in a fish from Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the
Brothers Grimm, 1969, etching, edition 85/100. © David Hockney.
David Hockney: Six Fairy Tales presents the full series of 39 etchings that Hockney produced in 1969. The fairy tales he represents, from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, are: The Little Sea Hare, Fundevogel, Rapunzel, The Boy Who Left Home to Learn Fear, Old Rinkrank, and Rumplestilzchen.
Widely known as the Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) were German academics who collected and published over 200 German folktales in the early 1800s. Hockney read the tales and selected six as the topics for his etchings, which took a year to produce. For each one, he drew directly onto copper plates. Instead of illustrating the most dramatic events in the stories, a method he thought “too ordinary,” he focused instead upon specific details that captured his interest. Mindful that the tales are medieval, Hockney visually referred to painters of the period such as Carpaccio, Uccello and Da Vinci, sometimes quoting them directly. The results are vivid images that encapsulate the mood and magic of these timeless stories.
The completed portfolio, bound in 1970, included a miniature version that proved so popular 60,000 were eventually printed. This exhibition includes Hockney’s miniature book and several other publications of Grimms’ fairy tales, demonstrating their ongoing popularity and myriad artistic interpretations.
The Grimm brothers set out to preserve Germanic folktales in 1806, traveling throughout Germany to collect stories told to them by people they met. The final version of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), published in 1857, contained 200 numbered stories plus 10 “children's legends.” It is the basis for most editions and translations published after the Grimms’ deaths. It is the best known and most reprinted book in the German language after Martin Luther's bible, and has been translated into 140 languages.
David Hockney resides in East Yorkshire, England, and is one of that country’s most important and popular 20th century artists.
Robert Warrens: Fiction & Fantasy
January 25 - March 25, 2012
Sylvia's Bestiary in an Almost Parallel Universe, 1998, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Sylvia Schmidt Fine Art. © Copyright 2006 Robert Warrens
Robert Warrens: Fiction & Fantasy presents the narrative paintings and sculptures of one of Louisiana's most acclaimed artists and influential art educators. Born in Wisconsin, Warrens arrived in Baton Rouge in 1967 to join the LSU art faculty and remained for 31 years. A veteran story teller, Warrens has remained true to his personal aesthetic throughout his long career and continues to produce artworks in his signature style—depicting the human condition provocatively, with whimsy and humor.
Warrens came into his own as a professional artist in the 1960s, a tumultuous period characterized by political assassinations, student demonstrations, the Vietnam War, race riots, the sexual revolution, and an expanding drug culture. Many artists seeking new ways to express their emotional sensibilities turned to abstraction in its various guises. From the 1950s through the 1970s art critics particularly championed minimalism, which pared art down to its simplest, “purist” state. Narrative or thematic content was considered distracting and thus inappropriate.
The regard for narrative in visual art has fluctuated over time. Storytelling has been an aspect of the visual arts dating back at least to the ancient Egyptians. Renaissance artwork frequently depicted popular historical subjects and Bible stories, and 19th century paintings featuring great moments in history and domestic dramas found favor. Early 20th century modernists, by contrast, sought to purge storytelling from the visual arts. Like the later minimalists, they thought storytelling was best pursued by writers, not artists.
Unswayed by the constant barrage of art trends, Warrens stuck to the representation of real-life subjects, albeit with his often bizarre twist. Among his influences were the stylized images found in comic books and Pop art. In the 1960s, Pop artists put everyday objects to the task of portraying popular culture, thereby implying a narrative structure that may not have been intended. The vibrant environment of Warrens’s adopted Louisiana home with its unique traditions of storytelling, Mardi Gras masquerading, and political caricature no doubt also made a strong impression. Not long after settling here, Warrens first incorporated fantasy into his real-life imagery, and subsequently developed his now well-known mythology of odd creatures, animated objects, and flying humans set in lusciously colored, bizarre scenarios. He masterfully uses fantasy as a tool to elicit from his own imagination—and that of the viewer—the consideration of a subject from another perspective, albeit one that might seem upside down. He revels in presenting the ridiculous side of serious situations.
Warrens’s observations of mankind’s flawed struggle have an amusing autobiographical slant. In the 1980s, for instance, he produced a seminal body of work devoted to his personal experience of the torturous daily anxiety faced by the artist in his studio. Set within claustrophobic interiors, brushes and easels transform into terrible beings ready to devour the struggling artist. Commenting upon the ills of pollution, he presents the ironic beauty of industry and its proliferation upon the natural landscape in garish hues. More recently Warrens produced a series of dreamlike works that allude to his personal experience of devastation and loss suffered from Hurricane Katrina. Warrens first began to experiment with three-dimensional space in the 1980s, producing fanciful, funky constructions that successfully convey his satirical statements. In Warrens’s idiosyncratic fantasy world, anything is possible.
John Clemmer: New and Selected Works
January 28 - March 25, 2012
John Clemmer, Floral Circle, 2008, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
This exhibition celebrates John Clemmer's many contributions to the arts in Louisiana. Born in 1921 near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, Clemmer moved with his family to New Orleans when he was seven. Following high school, he received a scholarship to the New Orleans Art School. His teachers included Paul Ninas, Xavier Gonzales, and Enrique Alferez. By 1951,he was executive director of the now famous Arts and Crafts Club, director of the affiliated New Orleans School of Art, and teacher of drawing, painting, and basic design in the Tulane School of Architecture. He later began to teach at Newcomb College, and after 27 years, he left his post at the School of Architecture to chair the Newcomb Art Department, where he remained until 1986.
Clemmer's work reflects a restless, highly personal investigation of the modernist enterprise. Style, subject matter, and media have steadily evolved over the years, and many influences and inspirations have informed his work. In 1999, the New Orleans Museum of Art presented a major retrospective documenting 60 years of the artist's work.
A Child Likes: Prints by Adalié Brent from the LASM Collection
January 28 - May 6, 2012
Adalié Brent, A Child Likes, 1970–1971, silkscreen. Collection of the Louisiana Art & Science Museum.
A Child Likes takes a playful look at what is important as seen through the eyes of a child. This charming selection of silkscreen prints was a collaborative effort undertaken by Adalié Brent (1920–1993) and her daughter Joanna, who contributed the text. In 1971, the results were bound into a limited edition hand–silkscreened book that holds timeless appeal for children and adults alike.
Brent was well known in Baton Rouge as a teacher, painter, graphic designer, and designer of stained glass, textiles, murals, and jewelry. A strong command of religious symbolism informs her devotional works, such as those produced for the Catholic Life Center, St. Joseph's Academy, LSU's Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and LASM. Support for this exhibition has been provided by Jerry Fischer and John Turner.
