Dorsky Museum to open winter/spring 2010 exhibitions
Carolee Schneemann, Aggression for Couples and Exercise for Couples, 1972, gelatin silver prints with hand coloring and collage, courtesy the artist (detail).
Following a record-breaking year for attendance, in large part due to the popular 2009 “Hudson River to Niagara Falls” exhibition, The Dorsky Museum is poised to open another series of exhibitions this February that should continue the steady flow of visitors.
The opening reception for its winter/spring 2010 exhibition is set for 5-7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5, in The Dorsky Museum.
The headlining exhibit, Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises, is the sixth exhibition in the Dorsky Museum’s Hudson Valley Masters series and will feature 75 works spanning the career of pioneering painter, filmmaker, writer and performance/installation artist Carolee Schneemann. Schneemann has lived and worked in New Paltz since 1969. The exhibition will be on display from Feb. 6 – July 25.
From the mid-1950s to the present, Schneemann’s work helped to transform the definition of art, especially art related the body, sexuality, and gender. Her work is crucial to an understanding of abstract expressionism, politicized and personal feminisms, performance art, body art, collaborative practices, drawing, post-documentary photography, film as art, printmaking, installation art and many other developments in art since the latter half of the 20th Century.
Museum Director, Sara Pasti said, “Carolee Schneemann is an internationally-known artist who has had a strong creative influence on the work of several generations of artists. We are also pleased to present three concurrent exhibitions, which include an exhibition of works from the Dorsky Museum’s permanent collection curated by Amy Lipton, photographs by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Renee C. Byer, and the photographic panorama of the riverbanks of the Hudson River by Greg Miller, exhibited last year and extended for an additional two months due to popular demand.”
Across the hall in the Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and the North Gallery, two exhibitions will be on view from January 30 – April 11: Body, Line, Motion: Selections from the Permanent Collection and Renée C. Byer: “A Mother’s Journey” and Selected Photographs.
Renee C. Byer, from “A Mother's Journey,” 2005, archival pigment print, courtesy the artist and The Sacramento Bee.
In the North Galley, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and James H. Ottaway Visiting Professor Renée C. Byer presents her “A Mother’s Journey” series, along with other early and recent photographs. This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Media’s annual James H. Ottaway Visiting Professor program.
Byer was born in Yonkers, but grew up in nearby Rosendale where her father, Walter, was chief of police. She is a 1976 graduate of Rondout Valley High School. Her interest in photography began when she studied at Ulster County Community College, where she graduated in 1978.
Suggested admission to The Dorsky Museum is $5. For more event details, reservations, accessibility or directions, visit www.newpaltz.edu/museum or call (845) 257-3844. The Dorsky Museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
