BUAG Announces Spring 2018 Exhibitions
Boston University Art Galleries (BUAG), the consortium comprised of the Stone Gallery, Annex, and 808 Gallery, is pleased to announce upcoming exhibitions and programming.
Serving the Boston University community, as well as the greater Boston and New England public, BUAG is committed to a culturally inclusive and interdisciplinary interpretation of art and culture. Located on the Boston University campus, the Art Galleries maintain an ongoing schedule of temporary exhibitions in four locations that focus on contemporary international, national, and regional art developments.
Exhibition and Gallery Events are free and open to the public.
Cover Image: Beverly Semmes, Olga, 2008, Ceramic, Rayon velvet, silk velvet, and taffeta, 84 x 82 x 84 inches. Courtesy the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York.
In the spring of 2018, Boston University Art Galleries presents the following exhibitions:
Forms & Alterations
February 2 – March 25, 2018 | 808 Gallery
Film Screening – Outfitumentary, a film by K8 Hardy
Wednesday, February 7, 7:00 pm | Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA
Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
February 2 – March 25, 2018 | Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery
February 2 – March 25, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, February 2, 6:00-8:00pm with Fashion Show and Performance by Qwear
Location: 808 Gallery (808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston)
Forms & Alterations considers how concepts of gender and identity are expressed, constructed, and questioned through the intersections of performance and strategies of dress, clothing, and textiles. The exhibition highlights contemporary practitioners working between the disciplines of fine art and experimental fashion who employ the material and visual language of clothing in order to subvert and perform the relationship between clothing, gender, and the body. Through the appropriation of DIY aesthetics, the innovative use of material and form, and a performative approach to personal style, the participating artists challenge fashion’s commodification of the body and mainstream conventions of dress. With particular attention to the artistic practices of women and LGBTQI artists, Forms & Alterations addresses the body as a creative and contested site in which gender norms are redefined and negotiated through clothing and self-styling.
In an opening night fashion performance, the acclaimed queer fashion platform, Qwear, will be joined by several QTPOC performers of diverse cultures, origins, genders, and sexual orientations in the premiere of Qwear’s first apparel collection. Qwear’s unique approach to fashion design, where the models are the designers, gives the audience a chance to be guided by a queer expression that is immersed in the history of the House Ballroom Scene while also confronting the gendered space of the 808 Gallery’s original use as a 1930s Cadillac Showroom.
Participating artists are Lisa Anne Auerbach, A.K. Burns, CarWash Collective (Beverly Semmes and Jennifer Minniti), Susan Cianciolo, Claire Fleury and Alesia Exum, Genevieve Gaignard, K8 Hardy, Katherine Hubbard and MPA, Susan Metrican, Beverly Semmes, Stacy A. Scibelli, Qwear, Sarah Zapata, and Andrea Zittel.
Image caption: Katherine Hubbard + MPA, Untitled, 2010, Unique photo print, 4×6 inches. Courtesy the artists and Higher Pictures, New York.
Film Screening
Outfitumentary, a film by K8 Hardy followed by a Q&A with the artist
Wednesday, February 7, 7:00pm
Location: Brattle Theatre (40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA)
Tickets: Please see bu.edu/art for ticket information.
K8 Hardy’s structuralist and experimental film Outfitumentary is both performance and video record of the artist’s changing sense of self and style over an eleven-year period. In 2001, before the ubiquity of Instagram and selfies, K8 Hardy set out to document her daily outfits on a fairly consistent, if not daily basis. Hardy used the same mini-DV camera and filmed in ever-changing living spaces and art studios in New York. The resulting 80-minute film is an affecting and personal exploration of queer identity and the way in which the materiality of the body and its subsequent “outfitting” – in private and public life – serves to refine, define, and probe the body politic.
The screening will be introduced by the artist and followed by a Q&A.
Image credit: Outfitumentary film still, Directed, produced, photographed and edited by K8 Hardy. Co-Produced by Madeleine Molyneaux. A Hardy Studio Production in association with Picture Palace Pictures. All film stills courtesy the artist; Hardy Studio: Picture Palace Pictures.
Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
February 2 – March 25, 2018
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 14, 7:00pm
Location: Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery
This exhibition presents photographer Lee Friedlander’s images of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a critical yet generally neglected moment in American civil rights history. On May 17, 1957—the third anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, which outlawed segregation in public schools—thousands of activists, including many leaders from religious, social, educational, labor, and political spheres, united in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C. At this first large-scale gathering of African Americans on the National Mall, an event that was a forerunner of the 1963 March on Washington at which Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, protestors called on federal authorities to enforce desegregation, support voting rights, and combat racial violence. Friedlander photographed many of the illustrious figures who attended or spoke at the march, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Mahalia Jackson, and Harry Belafonte, and he wove among the demonstrators on the ground to capture the energy and expressions of the day.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the work of three contemporary artists—Sheila Pree Bright, Whitney Curtis, and Nancy Musinguzi—will be shown in the Stone Gallery and Annex. Centering around present-day social justice movements, the photography of Bright, Curtis, and Musinguzi builds bridges between current events, the historic moment of the Prayer Pilgrimage, and Friedlander’s iconic images.
As part of Let Us March On, the BUAG will present the following programs:
Gallery Talk
The Photographic Book
Thursday, February 15, 5:30pm | Stone Gallery
A Conversation with Professor Kim Sichel, Associate Professor, History of Photography and Modern Art, Boston University Department of History of Art and Architecture, and Peter Kayafas, Director, Eakins Press Foundation and publisher of Lee Friedlander: The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
Panel Discussion
They Were Always Marching: African American Women and the Civil Rights Movement
Wednesday, March 14, 6:00pm | Stone Gallery
Exhibition closing reception will immediately follow the event.
This panel will explore the instrumental role and agency of African American women in the Civil Rights Movement, from local civic gatherings to shaping national policy. The efforts of women during this era were often overshadowed by their male counterparts.This panel discusses the powerful contributions of women of color in the creation of social and political change historically and today.
Let Us March On is organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and curated by La Tanya S. Autry, Curator of Art and Civil Rights at the Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College and former Marcia Brady Tucker Fellow, Yale University Art Gallery. Made possible by the Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund and the James Maloney ’72 Fund for Photography.
Above image credit: Lee Friedlander, Mahalia Jackson (at podium); first row: Mordecai Johnson, Bishop Sherman Lawrence Greene, Reverend Thomas J. Kilgore, Jr., and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., from the series Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957, printed later. Gelatin silver print. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander, HON. 2004. © Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Boston University Art Galleries
- 808 Gallery – 808 Commonwealth Avenue
- Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery – 855 Commonwealth Avenue
- The Annex – 855 Commonwealth Avenue
Hours:
- Tuesday – Sunday: 12-5pm
- Open until 8:00pm on Thursdays
- Closed Mondays and major holidays
Dedicated to serving the Boston University community, as well as the greater Boston and New England public, the Boston University Art Galleries are committed to a culturally inclusive and interdisciplinary interpretation of art and culture. Located within walking distance on the Boston University campus, the Stone Gallery, Annex and 808 Gallery maintain an ongoing schedule of temporary exhibitions that focus on contemporary international, national, and regional art development. Gallery hours are Tuesday–Friday from 11am–5pm, Thursday to 8pm and Saturday and Sunday from 1pm–5pm. (Closed Mondays and holidays). For more information, visit bu.edu/art/.