New exhibition celebrates UW art faculty’s diversity
A stroll through the 1999 art faculty exhibition, opening at the Elvehjem Museum of Art Saturday, Jan. 30, will reveal virtually the entire scope of late 20th century American art forms.
 Elaine Scheer’s “Huairou.”
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Details The UW–Madison 1999 Quadrennial Exhibition will be on display at the Elvehjem Museum of Art from Saturday, Jan. 30, through Sunday, March 21. An opening reception is planned Friday, Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. at the Elvehjem. Artists taking part in the show will discuss their work throughout February in the museum. For a listing of speakers and dates, check the university events calendar. |
A tradition dating from 1974, the quadrennial show will bring together 40 faculty, staff, emeriti, lecturers and affiliates from the UW–Madison Department of Art. Among the ranks are printmakers, video and computer-aided artists, photographers, graphic designers, ceramic artists, bookmakers, sculptors, woodworkers, painters, jewelers and metalworkers.
In honor of the university and state sesquicentennials, the 1999 exhbition reflects the scope of diversity found in the department, according to current chair Laurie Beth Clark.
“The quadrennial exhibitions, of which this is the seventh, are the quintessential fusion of the art department’s commitment to research, teaching and public service,” Clark says. “The exhibition showcases our creative work, which is the department’s equivalent to research. Students in our classes can see how their classroom activities link directly to creative work. For the rest of the community on and off campus, the group show provides access to pieces produced here but often on display elsewhere, nationally and internationally.”
Not surprisingly, perhaps, it took a yeoman effort from Jerl Richmond, Elvehjem designer/chief preparator, to mount more than 140 pieces in the show. The exhibition will take over almost the entire museum, from the first floor to the third. Richmond says organizing it proved a considerable challenge; he settled on a “yearbook” format, eschewing conceptual groupings that typically are the currency of exhibition design.
“The art faculty exhibition is unique because of its eclectic nature,” he says. “This project has an energy and life all its own.”
The use of new technology in the show was another new frontier for the museum. Not only have department faculty turned more often to electronic media for their creative work, they also employ computers to give shape to ideas and store them, conceptualize various treatments of a work, plan how to use installation space and more.