The Dorsky opens two new exhibitions on April 8

NEW PALTZ – On Friday, April 8, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art will hold an opening reception for two new exhibitions: The Upstate New York Olympics: Tim Davis and Thick and Thin: Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz, from 5 to 7 pm. The museum’s curator, Brian Wallace, organized both exhibitions.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS

The Upstate New York Olympics: Tim Davis

Tim Davis Upstate New York Olympics (logo), 2010 Digital image Image courtesy the artist and Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York

Combining his ongoing interests in performance, photography, sculpture, and poetry, Tim Davis has developed a series of video and installation works and objects entitled The Upstate New York Olympics. By turns uncanny, bold, ridiculous, illegal, and downright dangerous, Davis’ “events” document, and powerfully comment on, the artist’s concerns with the fundamentals of performance art, personal expression, regionalism, and the risks and rewards of the creative life. Bronze trophies and other commemorative objects, project documentation, and a small artist-designed publication accompany a suite of 12 to15 videos. The Upstate New York Olympics opens on March 30 and runs through July 17.

On Thursday, April 28 at 7 pm in SUNY New Paltz Lecture Center Room 100, Tim Davis will present a lecture and slide show of his work.

Thick and Thin: Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz

Ken Landauer Rock Box, 2009 Stone, cherry wood Courtesy the artist

Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz, independent artists and a married couple, have produced distinct bodies of work that complement one another in process, form, and effect but have never before exhibited or made work together. Landauer’s drawings and objects play with scale and humor to provoke realizations about our expectations about representation and abstraction. Swartz’s sculptures, installations, and architectural interventions shift our perceptions of space, form, and light. Together and separately, their works address the ways we make sense of the world. This exhibition includes a selection of recent and new works. Thick and Thin runs through October 23.

On Sunday, May 1 from 2-3 pm in The Dorsky Museum, curator Brian Wallace will host a curator’s gallery talk on this exhibition.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Malawi-born Tim Davis, a graduate of Bard College and Yale University – and a recipient of the
Rome Prize from the American Academy in 2007 – is an artist and poet whose
exhibition/publication projects include Permanent Collection and My Life In Politics. Davis teaches at Bard College and is represented by Greenberg Van Doren Gallery; his work is in the collection of many institutions, including the Dorsky Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirschorn Museum.

Ken Landauer (Colgate University; Rhode Island School of Design) lives in Stone Ridge, NY, and has exhibited installations, sculptures, and other works at The Fields/Art Omi, at Socrates Sculpture Park, with the Public Art Fund, and at AH Gallery. Julianne Swartz has created solo projects for BBC 3, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Josée Bienvenu Gallery; her work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and in other group exhibitions at Tate, the New Museum for Contemporary Art, and the Aldrich Museum.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, located at SUNY New Paltz, is fast gaining wide recognition as the premier public showplace for exhibition, education, and cultural scholarship about the Hudson Valley region’s art and artists from yesterday and today. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, the Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums within the SUNY system.

These exhibitions are among a series of exhibitions and events celebrating the museum’s tenth anniversary year. The Dorsky was officially dedicated on Oct. 20, 2001. Since then it has presented over one hundred exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects, and in-depth studies of artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, and Carolee Schneemann. Tenth Anniversary Year exhibitions will highlight The Dorsky’s focus on the art and artists of the Hudson Valley, a unique region that has served as a source of inspiration and nourished artistic creation and innovation since the time of the Hudson River School painters.

For more information about The Dorsky Museum and its programs, visit http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum, or call (845) 257-3844.