Maya Lin If we had a God’s-eye view of our world, would it affect our actions? Would we make different choices if we could see the interconnectedness of our waterways and oceans? Would we reconsider our wasteful habits? Maya Lin’s…
Jun Kaneko (Japanese, b. 1942)Untitled, 2003Glazed ceramicGift of Alan Ginsburg. 2017.17 Jun Kaneko Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, and he currently maintains a studio in Omaha, Nebraska. Kaneko is a pioneer in the realm of monumental ceramics,…
How The Secret, Alachua, FL by photographer Michael Bühler-Rose helps expand our sense of what cultural exchange might mean.
A pioneer of conceptual photography, Lorna Simpson is best known for her large-scale works combining images and text. Simpson’s photography often questions and challenges conventional views on gender, sexuality, race, identity, and culture in the United States. Many of her pieces created between 1985 and 1995 incorporate text to complicate the meaning of the image and provide commentary on a variety of issues. Explore Simpson’s works from the Rollins Museum of Art collection
Gain insights into the works of American Photographer Carrie Mae Weems that are featured in the permanent collection at The Rollins Museum of Art.
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1963) Untitled (Woman with Daughter), From the Kitchen Table Series, 1990 Silver prints, triptych 28 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches each. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2014.1.26. © Carrie Mae Weems. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shaiman Gallery, New York.
Carmen Herrera has been described as a “quiet warrior of her art” in her uncompromising commitment to abstraction over decades of scant recognition.(1) Born in Havana in 1915, she later moved to New York and then, in 1948, to Paris,…
Francisco Zúñiga was born in 1912 in San José, Costa Rica where his father, Manuel María Zúñiga worked as a sculptor of religious statues. At a young age Zúñiga became his father’s studio assistant and quickly learned how to work…
As I walked up the steps of the Rollins Museum of Art this morning, I couldn’t believe the summer had passed so quickly. On May 16, I started my dream internship as the Association of Art Museum Directors intern at…
Gertrude Käsebier was an early supporter of the Pictorialism movement, which sought to reverse the idea that photography could not be painterly. Joining the likes of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen in the Photo Secession group, she adopted several older, labor-intensive printing styles, used alternative chemicals that yielded more nuanced tonal ranges, and reworked her plates with paintbrushes and other methods before printing. In the pictorialists’ hands, photography was art and being a photographer was a professionalized artistic craft.
As an artist and activist, Ringgold’s career has been dedicated to exploring themes of race and gender equality. She grew up in the creatively fertile Harlem Renaissance, a time and place where perceptions of black culture and identity were redefined. Her work incorporates the narrative traditions of quiltmaking and African American history with great resonance, serving as platform to share her story and that of those before her.
Travieso’s work is ripe with environmental concerns and a call for action. The jarring effect ofhis spliced paintings serves as commentary regarding the negative impact of humaninterference in natural ecosystems, frequently referencing species’ endangerment andextinction. These themes reflect a compassion for the vulnerable and under resourced, alikely byproduct of growing up in communist Cuba. He also credits his use of bright andexpansive color palettes to the lack of art materials available to him on the island at the startof his artistic career. Lonesome George raises important questions regarding the ties between man and nature, asking for careful consideration as we inch closer to the pointwhere humans become victims of their own circumstances and reflecting on the ripple effectsof even the smallest actions.
Danh Vo’s We The People sheds light on the fragility and malleability of the concepts of freedom and democracy. Created as a series of 250 pieces, it recreates a full-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, originally constructed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. Vo intentionally broke up the replica, its many pieces entering the permanent collections of museums worldwide. The fragments’ diasporic trajectory recall the multiplicity of individual journeys that made their way at the foot of Lady Liberty as they reached Ellis Island. Inherently woven into its many segments is the lingering symbolism of the immigrant dream. But the stakes of that dream have changed, revealing the intricate power systems controlling the arm of democracy.
Marcus Jansen (American, b. 1968) Plot #2, 2018, oil, enamels, mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in. Given by Barbara and Theodore Alfond in honor of Anca Giurescu, Ena Giurescu Heller, and Eliane Heller – three generations of courageous…
James McDougal Hart (American, 1828-1901), Summer Landscape, 1857, Oil on canvas, 12 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. Purchased with funds from the Michel Roux Acquisitions Fund 2007.7 (This was originally published in Spring of 2021) Like Dr. Grant Hamming describes…
At its simplest definition, Magical Realism is a genre of art (including visual art and literature) characterized by the inclusion of fantastical elements or events in an otherwise realistic setting. The term was most famously first applied by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier to describe what he saw as a growing trend in Latin American literature of the time, and is most famously associated with Latin American art. Although Magic Realism is often labeled as Surrealism, the key difference is that Surrealism is based in images of the subconscious, of dreams, and Magic Realism deals in, well, reality.
