Photos: Rose Art Museum fall season features Joe Bradley, Kevork Mourad, Tony Lewis and more

Get a sneak peek the Rose’s fall exhibitions

Joe Bradley, Mother and Child, 2016. Collection of Larry Gagosian. Image courtesy of the artist

This fall, the Rose Art Museum will feature the first large-scale museum exhibition of abstractionist Joe Bradley, new work from painter Kevork Mourad, two exhibitions of work from the Rose’s permanent collection, a video installation by award-winning British artist John Akomfrah, and a mural by Tony Lewis that examines language, memory, and race.  

The Rose will open to the public on Sept. 8, with a daytime open house for the Brandeis community on Sept. 7. The Joe Bradley exhibition in the Lois Foster Gallery and the Tony Lewis Mural in the Foster Stairwell will open in October. Once all exhibitions are installed, an opening celebration that is free and open to the public will be held Saturday Oct. 14 from 6 to 9 p.m.  

More info on this season's exhibitions:

“Body Talk,” Gerald S. and Sandra Fineberg Gallery
These works, which span nearly a century, include the Surrealist-inspired collages and paintings of Joseph Cornell, André Masson, and Max Weber as well as contemporary sculpture, video, and multimedia works by Robert Melee, Jason Rhoades, and Laurel Nakadate. Many of the works dwell on the tension between desire and abjection. “Body Talk” is the first in a series of exhibitions to explore the origins and thematic through lines in the Rose’s permanent collection.

“Buckdancer’s Choice: Joe Bradley Selects,” Lower Rose Gallery
Eccentric figuration and geometric abstraction represent two poles in this playful mix of highlights and lesser-known gems from the Rose collection, selected by artist Joe Bradley in conjunction with his solo exhibition in the Lois Foster Gallery. Open-ended formal dialogues between artworks such as Claes Oldenburg’s “Tray Meal” and Larry Poons’s “Jazio” are suggested alongside pairings that take inspiration from generative historical relationships between artists: writer Philip Roth, represented as a sculptural bust, stands in dialogue with his friend and fellow satirist, painter Philip Guston.

“Kevork Mourad: Immortal City,” Mildred S. Lee Gallery
An exhibition of new work by Syrian-born artist Kevork Mourad - known for paintings made in collaboration with composers, dancers, and musicians - “Immortal City” will feature work created in response to the war in Syria and the destruction of the artist’s beloved city of Aleppo. Mourad’s work asks viewers to stop and uncover the fragments of a culture destroyed: textiles, ancient walls, Arabic calligraphy, and bodies crushed by conflict. Working almost solely in black paint as a way to hone in on the subject, his paintings are both theatrical and lyrical, the line reflecting the music that is such an integral part of his practice. An 18th-century etching from the Rose’s permanent collection by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi will accompany Mourad’s work, demonstrating a centuries-old artistic fascination with the city in ruins.

“Rose Video 11: John Akomfrah,” Rose Video Gallery
The eleventh iteration of the museum’s Rose Video series will feature John Akomfrah’s “Auto Da Fé” (2016), a two-channel video that investigates historic migrations driven by religious persecution. The title of Akomfrah’s video means “Acts of Faith.” The work depicts scenes from eight migrations over the past four centuries, from the flight of Sephardic Jews from Catholic Brazil in 1680 to present-day jihadist-driven migrations from Mosul, Iraq and Hombori, Mali. Akomfrah is the winner of the 2017 Artes Mundi, the UK’s biggest prize for international contemporary art, and his presentation at the Rose represents the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in New England. Organized by Rose Art Museum Assistant Curator Caitlin Julia Rubin.

“Joe Bradley,” Lois Foster Gallery (opens October 15)
This is the first large-scale museum exhibition in North America devoted to Bradley, who is widely known for his powerful abstract paintings and spontaneous drawings. The exhibition features two-dozen paintings, including modular color-field paintings, grease-pencil drawings on canvas, and densely layered expressionistic abstract canvases that record the detritus and spontaneity of the studio environment. These works will be placed in context alongside numerous examples of Bradley’s engaging and intimate works on paper and his recent experiments with sculpture, ranging from minimalistic floor-based works to figurative bronzes based on found amateur sculptures. Curated by Cathleen Chaffee, Senior Curator, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, and organized at the Rose by former curator Kim Conaty. The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication, featuring essays on Bradley’s painting and drawing, and a new interview between Bradley and artist Carroll Dunham.

“Tony Lewis: Plunder,” Foster Stairwell (opens October 15)  
For the Foster Stairwell, Chicago-based artist Tony Lewis (b. 1986) will create a new site-specific project that grows out of his ongoing investigations of the relationships between language, memory, and race. Lewis’s mural—the artist’s first solo museum presentation in the Northeast—will be created on-site in October with the help of Brandeis University students and will remain on view through June 2018. 

Categories: Arts

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