Two contemporary art exhibitions opened at the Columbus Museum of Art last week. This spring, CMA has the intention of encouraging patrons to “engage with the art of your time” with an emphasis on contemporary artists.
The work of Wendy Red Star (b. 1981) and Lesley Vance (b. 1977) will be on display until Sept. 3.
Wendy Red Star: A Scratch on the Earth features more than 40 works by Red Star, making it her most comprehensive exhibition to date and a mid-career overview organized by the Newark Museum of Art. Lesley Vance: always circled whirling, the artist’s first solo exhibition at a public institution, features 27 works of Vance’s fluid abstraction style.
Wendy Red Star: A Scratch on the Earth
Red Star’s exhibition is named for the translation of the Apsáalooke (Crow) word Annukaxua, which refers to the U.S. government policy enforced after 1880 to keep the Crow people on their reservation. There was no word for border in the Crow language prior. She explores the effect of this arbitrary delineation on her cultural heritage.
“Growing out of this historical narrative in which arbitrary borders were repeatedly imposed on the Apsáalooke, the exhibition explores how boundaries between cultural, racial, social and gender lines have been subsequently reinforced and how they blur across time and space,” guest curator Nadiah Rivera Fellah says. “The Apsáalooke word also implies a historical shift in self-perception for the Crow people and the seeds of a post-colonial, post-reservation identity.”
The exhibition features maps, photos, textiles, self-portraits and a full-size sweat lodge with a 360-degree video screening inside documenting the Montana landscape.
Many of the works reflect on the legacy of colonialism for the Crow people, including the decimation of their matriarchal culture. Red Star uses mixed-media photography, conceptual art and representations of reservation life to confront the denigration of Crow culture and showcase her distinctive view of American history.
Lesley Vance: always circled whirling
The CMA organized Vance’s exhibit which features work she has completed since 2012, including newly commissioned works for always circled whirling.
Vance is inspired by objects, the physical world and other paintings. The newly commissioned works are directly inspired by pieces from the museum’s collection.
Her technique is created by starting with an abstraction and filling in the piece from there, all on one layer, which leads to “familiar and strange” shapes and experiences, according to Tyler Cann.
Cann, senior curator of modern and contemporary art at Honolulu Museum of Art, curated always circled whirling. Cann was the CMA’s former director of exhibitions and Pizzuti family curator of contemporary art.
“It’s like an inverse collage in a way,” Vance says. She says she considers herself a process-based painter.
“If you were to think about a shape for the history of modern and contemporary painting –always moving forward, doubling back, branching off and turning inward – it might look a bit like one of Lesley Vance’s paintings,” Cann says.
Claire Miller is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at cmiller@cityscenemediagroup.com.
