Ridderhof Martin Gallery

Exhibition on view: April 5th- June 28th

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 5th, 5-7pm

Last Portraits Documentary Screening: April 5, 7pm, in Pollard Hall 304

Affiliated talk by Armin Langer: Jewish Past and Present in Amsterdam, April 9, 4pm, in Combs Hall 139

Photo of Judith Trijtel, 1943 by Annemie Wolff © Monica Kaltenschnee, The Netherlands

This powerful exhibition presents rarely captured humanity and emotion in its striking depiction of life in Nazi occupied Amsterdam. Annemie Wolff was born in Germany but moved to Amsterdam in 1933 because of the anti-Semitic policies of the new Nazi regime; some of her greatest work comes from the era of the Second World War and the German occupation of Western Europe. This exhibition features never before seen portraits of both Jews and gentiles who lived in South Amsterdam between January and October of 1943–three years into the five-year long German occupation of the Netherlands.

Amazingly, these photographs were not discovered until 2008– some fourteen years after Wolff’s death. A Dutch historian of photography, Simon Kool, discovered 100 rolls of film–which contained the portraits of 434 individuals during the occupation–in the attic of Wolff’s heir. Once the portraits were discovered a search began to locate the people who were pictured or any of their remaining family. To date over half of the people photographed have been identified through research and interviews.

This compelling exhibition includes 26 photographs, as well as didactic materials, which allow one to examine Wolff’s work through not only the lens of the history of photography, but also the lenses of history, religion, and sociology, as well as through one’s own cultural or personal experiences.

Margaret Sutton, Untitled (Seventeen costumed figures), ink on board, 1950s. Accession Number 1993.11.0181

University of Mary Washington Convergence Gallery

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 19th 2018, 5-7 pm

Exhibition on view: April 19th – September 18th, 2018

Exhibition curated by Professor Och’s ARTH 317: Laboratory in Museum Studies class: Yoko Aita, Sara Farnor, Campbell Hartley, Cheyenne Johnson, Myranda Morrison, Mary Novitsky, Mele K. Richardson, Olivia Sanderson, Jessica Schmitt, Kyle Welty, and Erin White.

September 6 – October 14
duPont Gallery
Opening Reception: September 6, 5-7pm

Booby Trap, Ashe Laughlin. Oil on Canvas on Board

An exhibition featuring the UMW Studio Art Faculty:

Debra Balestreri
Carole Garmon
Larry Hinkle
Rosemary Jesionowski
Ashe Laughlin
Jon McMillan
Chris Musina
Jason Robinson
Joliza Terry
Jake Urbanski
Sarah Spencer White

Ridderhof Martin Gallery
September 6 – October 14
Opening Reception: September 6, 5-7pm
Artist Talk in the Gallery: September 7, noon

Jeffrey Abt, Wandering Gallery project (translation and representation), open, multiple media, 2006

Abt’s work reflects his interest in museums, the mechanics of presenting work in a museum, and the visual culture of museums. “Museums as Viewing Machines” will display two bodies of work, Abt’s Museum series, and his Wandering Gallery project.

The Museum series focuses on the visual parallels between galleries and sacred spaces, particularly religious sanctuaries. Abt is intrigued by environments created to foster contemplation, whether for the purposes of studying artworks or for spiritual introspection.

The Wandering Gallery project explores the behind-the-scenes, never-ending cycle of unpacking and packing, installation and de-installation, documentation, and interpretation associated with changing exhibitions.

These works, in proximity, invite viewers to reflect on the nature of the places where they see works of art, especially museums, with regard to their architectural interiors, as sites of transience where objects come and go, and the mechanics by which works are presented.

Jeffrey Abt is a Professor in the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History of Wayne State University. He has a BFA degree from Drake University and he studied at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem before completing an MFA at Drake. Abt pursued curatorial and exhibitions work at the Wichita Art Museum, the Special Collections Research Center of the University of Chicago, and the University’s Smart Museum of Art, before coming to Wayne State. He’s an artist and writer, his artwork is in museum and corporate collections throughout the United States, and he has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in America and abroad. Abt’s writings include the books American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute published in 2012 by the University of Chicago Press and Valuing Detroit’s Art Museum: A History of Fiscal Abandonment and Rescue published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. He is also a co-editor of the Museum History Journal.

Ready-Made Dream
Sue Johnson
Ridderhof Martin Gallery
October 25 – December 2
Opening Reception: October 25, 5-7pm
Artist Talk: October 26, noon

The exhibition features floor-to-ceiling vinyl panels and decals that the artist has designed—transforming the gallery into the interior of an ideal, modern home. As the exhibition title suggests, Johnson envisions a world in which the home is nostalgic and familiar, yet, also reduced to an empty space existing simply to house various things.

duPont Gallery
October 25 – December 2
Opening Reception: October 25, 5-7pm

Crowns: an exhibition of ceramic works curated by Jessica Gardner
While many artists have made works about relationships and their lives in general, this exhibition seeks to explore women’s specific experience in motherhood. Inviting women, who’s established body of work lends itself to evolving and exploring the relationships formed in motherhood: relationships to self, to children, to spouses, to other mothers and so forth. Each of these artists publicly discusses her role as a mother and the impact motherhood has on her studio practice, whether it be direct collaborations with her child/children or shifts in the body of work created. Also, each artist represents a different stage in the experience of motherhood.

This exhibition is featuring works by: Stephanie DeArmond, Carole Epp, Kathryne Fisher, Jessica Gardner, Eva Kwong, Rhonda Willers, Janis Mars Wunderlich, Summer Zickefoose