Discovering Art -- Rochester Style

Three Fujins by Hung Liu (1995) -- Oil on canvas and lacquered bird cages

No trip to Rochester is complete without a visit to the Memorial Art Gallery. I was a bit disappointed with my timing, though. I was a couple of weeks early for an exhibit featuring the work of Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha. And so I had to content myself with enjoying works from the Museum's collection. It was much more than a consolation prize.

I fell absolutely in love with Three Fujins by Hung Liu. The painting is incredibly striking, with its inscrutable subjects and actual bird cages hanging from the canvas. But the story behind the work is what really grabbed me.

Three Fujins is part of Liu's "Last Dynasty" series in which she recreated people from photographs documenting the Qing dynasty. The wall card explained that the women pictured here were concubines from the Qing court in the late 1800s. The birdcages represent the women's captivity and powerlessness. Which brings me back to those amazing faces. What is going on in their minds? To learn more about Liu and her extensive body of work, click here. And if you happen to be in New York, an exhibit entitled "Hung Liu: This Land..." will be on display at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery from Oct. 24 - Dec. 7.

Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnet XIV (Sarah Ann) is another work dealing with the oppression of women -- Mormon women, in this case. In her Seer Bonnets series, Ellsworth is creating a bonnet for each of Joseph Smith's 35+ sister wives. Her interest is not merely as an artist. An ex-Mormon herself, Ellsworth's great-great aunt was one of those wives.

When designing her bonnets, Ellsworth drew upon the long-held Mormon belief that Joseph Smith and other prophets used a seer rock to receive and translate messages from God. Ellsworth's bonnets are made from hundreds of steel pearl-tipped corsage pins that mimic the shape of a these mythical stones. According to her website, these pins "allow these resilient wives to see messages and translate them into visions." Is that any more preposterous than receiving messages from a rock? The pain the wearer would suffer from all those pins sticking into her head is intended to represent the suffering of the wife. All the better to open her to those transmissions.

Ellsworth is a multi-disciplinary artist whose other mediums include sculpture, performance art and videography.  Her Plural Wife Project--which hypothesizes that many sister wives were gay--is pretty interesting.  For more about Ellsworth and her work, click here. And to read a bit more about Smith's seer rock, click here.

The Gardener (Melissa with Bob Marley Shirt) by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres (1997/2007)

I always love a good hyper-realistic sculpture, so The Gardener (Melissa with Bob Marley Shirt) by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres caught my eye. The sculpture is just one piece in a body of work dedicated to capturing their South Bronx community.

The artists' collaboration began back in the early '80s when the two met at Ahearn's exhibit "South Bronx Hall of Fame."  Torres soon found himself a model for one of Ahearn's "lifecast sculptures." The rest, as they say, is history.

The duo's art is the product of extended interaction with their sitters. The wall card for Melissa explained, "We were working with neighborhood friends to create free-standing figures that define aspects of community...Melissa was constantly in the studio...and she was an active gardener...Her favorite sweatshirt featured the image of Bob Marley with his words, 'We Africans must fight if necessary for we are confident in the victory of good over evil.'"

To read more about the artists and to see some of their unusual murals, click here.  And to see some great pictures from the original installation of Banana Kelly Double Dutch, click here. I particularly enjoyed seeing the photos of the girls who were the models for this installation.

The Council by Bill Stewart (1991)

While I saw some exciting art at Memorial Art Gallery, that was to be expected. What surprised me was the fabulous sculpture I came upon at the Rochester Airport when getting in some steps before my flight.

I circled round and round this sculpture, pausing to look at each of the intriguing animals. What kind of council were they a part of and what business were they discussing? The base contains two quotes that provided some clues. The first came from an Eskimo Hunting song:

"In the very earliest time
When both people and animals lived on earth
A person could become an animal if he wanted to
And an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
And sometimes animals
And there was no difference.
They spoke the same language."

The second, from early environmentalist Chief Seattle, reads:

"What are human being without animals?
If all the animals ceased to exist,
Human beings would die of a great loneliness of spirit
For whatever happens to the animals
Will happen soon also to human beings
...All things connect."

I overheard a passenger comment "That sculpture is really weird" to his companion as they passed by on the way to their gate. Sure, it doesn't reflect what we see in our everyday lives. But that's what makes it so interesting. I loved the textures and the creatures and envisioned a time when they ruled their own little part of the world. And in my fellow traveler's defense, at least he noticed the sculpture was there.

All in all, these art outings were a reminder to myself to get rid of expectations and be open to what ends up in my path. You never know what you'll discover.