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‘Be Not Afraid of Greatness:’ Shakespeare’s First Folio Coming to UConn

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Recent news coverage of the discovery in Scotland of a previously unknown first edition of William Shakespeare’s collected works has brought increased interest to the national traveling exhibition “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.” That exhibition is coming to UConn in the fall, and will be on display at the William Benton Museum of Art from Sept. 2 to 25.

First Folio, title page.
First Folio, title page.

The “First Folio” is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays published by two of his fellow actors in 1623, seven years after the Bard’s death on April 23. The collection includes 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost, including “Macbeth,” Julius Caesar,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Comedy of Errors,” and “As You Like It.”

The national tour is being hosted by one institution in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing this year. The tour is a partnership between The Folger Shakespeare Library, Cincinnati Museum Center, and the American Library Association.

Table of contents from the First Folio.
Table of contents from the First Folio.

“As an institution with a strong history of championing the dramatic classics through our resident theater, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, we are very proud to have the opportunity to host this exhibition for our state,” says Anne D’Alleva, dean of UConn’s School of Fine Arts. “This is an important document in the life of the arts, and for our students and wider community to experience here on campus.”

During the month-long run of the exhibition, UConn will also present a variety of related academic and cultural programming in its venues, including the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, libraries, and lecture halls. The activities will include a Connecticut Repertory Theatre production of a Shakespeare play, workshops for high school English teachers, a festival of Shakespeare in film and popular culture, a puppet adaptation of “Macbeth,” a menu from the Elizabethan era served at the Benton Museum café, and other events.

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

 

 

MFA Exhibition Explores Aspects of Self-Discovery

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Sculptor Amanda Bulger and painter Kamar Thomas arrived in Storrs as MFA students in art through different paths.

Bulger grew up on her family’s farm in Wisconsin making art inspired by the rural landscape, and studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Thomas first arrived in Connecticut as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University in Middletown, and returned to his home in Jamaica to teach art before heading north again to eastern Connecticut to create large, colorful paintings that draw viewers to the canvas.

Their creations are part of the cohort of works that is “The 2016 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition: Are We All Here?” at the William Benton Museum of Art, continuing through May 8.

Thomas calls his series of large, colorful self-portraits “Schizophrenic Masculinity.” The series  explores his journey of self-discovery during his time as a student in the United States at Wesleyan and at UConn.

“It was really about coming the U.S. and discovering I was black,” Thomas says about the inspiration for his paintings. “Outside of the U.S., [being black] doesn’t mean the same thing. There isn’t the culture and expectations that are here, having to reconcile those expectations and struggling with that, finding it in many ways. I would say it shows the more activist side of my life, struggling with those questions and just growing up, to be many things at once.”

His creative process involves painting his face with different colors and taking photos that he can use as the foundation of painting on large square canvases, each with a different dominant hue. He says working with a large image both helps him to better see his work through the thick eyeglasses he wears while also allowing him to stay engaged more fully with the painting because he must use his entire body while painting.

“And for the subject matter I’m dealing with, faces and masks, it’s the best format for the size,” Thomas adds. “I call it overwhelming intimacy. If you’re ever that close to someone’s face, you’re either making love or a fight is about to happen.”

Bulger says she was attracted to UConn because it would allow her to live in a familiar rural environment that also provides the found objects from farm life that she uses to create her sculptures. By sheer coincidence, she asked her sculpture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire to write a recommendation, not realizing that Jason Lanka, now an assistant professor of art at Sheridan College in Gillette, Wyo., was a 2005 MFA graduate from UConn.

“[Coming to Storrs,] I wouldn’t be suffering from a shift from being on the farm to moving to the city,” Bulger says. “Judith [Thorpe, MFA director,] told me in my interview that there are cows on campus. That kind of sold me.”

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“The 2016 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition: Are We All Here?” continues at the William Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, through May 8. For more information, go to the Benton website.

Protesting Inequalities in the Art World

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When a group of women artists first put on gorilla masks to protest gender and racial inequalities in the art world, their use of humor on advertising handouts and posters called attention to the paucity of works by female artists in gallery and museum exhibitions.

Posters on display as part of the Guerrilla Girls exhibition at the Benton Museum. (Amy Jorgensen/UConn Photo)
Posters on display as part of the Guerrilla Girls exhibition at the Benton Museum. (Amy Jorgensen/UConn Photo)
Taking the names of dead women artists in order to be anonymous, and wearing the masks to protect themselves against possible retaliation, they called themselves the Guerrilla Girls. More than three decades later, they say there is still work to be done. “When we started in 1985, you could hear curators and gallery people saying that women and artists of color were not making art that is part of the contemporary dialogue,” says Frida Kahlo, one of the founders of Guerilla Girls. “No one would say that now.” Kahlo’s namesake is the 20th century surrealist Mexican painter known for her self-portraits and as the subject of the 2002 Salma Hayek film “Frida.”Thirty-nine off-beat “guerrilla-advertising” posters, advertising, and other works are part of the “Guerrilla Girls: Art, Activism, and the ‘F’ Word” in the center gallery of the William Benton Museum of Art through May 22. The exhibition is drawn from the 89-pieceGuerrilla Girls Portfolio Compleat (1985-2012) recently acquired by the museum.

Among the works in the exhibition is a 1989 billboard poster that addressed concerns at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The poster depicts a nude woman wearing a gorilla mask lying on a couch with a headline asking: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5 percent of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are female.”

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“Guerrilla Girls: Art, Activism, and the ‘F’ Word” continues through May 22 at the William Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs. For more information, go to the Benton Museum’s website.

Interactive Exhibit Prompts Dialogue on Race

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With 82 percent of adults aged 18-29 using Facebook and a doubling of Pinterest and Instagram usage since 2012 according to the Pew Research Center, it is not surprising that Millennial college students want to share information using a variety of media, including art in a museum.

This is reflected in the interactive exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art “IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race,” which was designed by students in the School of Fine Arts as a collaborative classroom response to the 2015- 2016 UConn Reads theme of “Race in America.” The exhibit continues through March 13.

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

With 82 percent of adults aged 18-29 using Facebook and a doubling of Pinterest and Instagram usage since 2012 according to the Pew Research Center, it is not surprising that Millennial college students want to share information using a variety of media, including art in a museum.

This is reflected in the interactive exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art “IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race,” which was designed by students in the School of Fine Arts as a collaborative classroom response to the 2015- 2016 UConn Reads theme of “Race in America.” The exhibit continues through March 13.

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race” continues at the William Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, through March 13. Also at the museum is “Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art,” also through March 13. For more information go to the Benton website.