Summer 2021 at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum
Joe Karlovec | Private Property: June 8-Sept. 4, 2021
Edward Rice | Beyond Depiction: June 15-Sept. 4, 2021
Lynne Clibanoff | Inside Out: June 22-Sept. 4, 2021
We don’t often think about the nature of space. Often, our spaces – whether they’re domestic, professional, or public – become so familiar that we cease to notice them after a period. However, when we are confined to one space, such as during the extended period of the Covid pandemic, that same area can feel limiting or oppressive. As a consequence, many individuals in the past year spent time rethinking and redefining their use of space. Three nationally renowned artists bring their work that centers on space and our perspectives on it to the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simon B. Chapin Art Museum over a period spanning June 8-Sept. 4, 2021. The overlapping exhibitions, which involve textile installations, oil paintings and 3-dimensional cast paper, allow viewers to consider spaces from a multitude of viewpoints. Joe Karlovec, Edward Rice and Lynne Clibanoff each focus on a theme of architecture in their work, making this series of exhibitions a cohesive visual and sensory experience.
“Our exhibition-schedule theme for the year is ‘new perspectives,” said Liz Miller, curator of the Art Museum. “This is what ties together all of the exhibitions. Immediately, one recognizes architecture as the subject of all three, but it is the underlying tones found in each of the artists’ work that really make a connection. Each artist beckons the viewer with their work to examine a particular space/spaces and/or architectural element(s). Joe Karlovec does so with his dynamic, large-scale fiber collages; Edward Rice with his stunningly precise and alluring Southern architectural oil paintings; and Lynne Clibanoff with her miniature, three-dimensional dioramas of various interiors.”
Karlovec’s exhibition, titled Private Property, opens June 8 and consists of 12 large-scale photographic images woven into textiles using a jacquard loom. Karlovec uses the textiles to create multi-dimensional fiber collages that surprise the viewer with their texture and intensity. The artist’s works center on landscape urbanism and environmental justice, often reflecting the areas of the Midwest’s rust belt, where Karlovec was raised, and coastal Florida, including West Palm Beach, where he works and resides.
Southern architecture is the backdrop for Edward Rice’s work, and his retrospective exhibition Beyond Depiction, opening June 15, is a collection of 36 architectural images spanning the last 26 years of his award-winning career. Rice’s paintings capture the impression of their subjects while simultaneously bringing attention to individual details such as a door, a window, or a cornice. A native of North Augusta, Ga., Rice has exhibited his paintings at museums throughout the South and is a recipient of the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award from the South Carolina Arts Commission.
Lynne Clibanoff creates small-scale box constructions with architectural detail that leaves viewers moving around — looking around corners, up stairways, or through windows. Her exhibit Inside Out, which opens June 22, features a series of her miniature, 3-dimensional paper sculptures that blend familiarity and imagination. Empty rooms beckon the reader to explore and consider the possibilities of perspective and space in Clibanoff’s works, which highlight the tension between visual illusion and reality.
The subject matter of these exhibitions is particularly timely in Summer 2021, noted Miller, when the public is emerging from a year of physical and spatial isolation that often yielded innovation.
“The viewer might find themselves thinking about their own relationships to the physical spaces in which they live and work as they move through these exhibitions,” said Miller. “We’ve all been thinking more and more about our environments and how we might adapt them to better suit our needs, both physically and mentally, after having been cooped up in our homes – for many of us, working remotely – since the onset of the pandemic. We’ve changed spare bedrooms and basements into office spaces and gyms. Dining and coffee tables may have found new uses as school and office desks.”
Private Property, Beyond Depiction and Inside Out each invite the reader to reflect on their relationships to space and the people with which they share those spaces.
“Though the changes to our home environments posed all kinds of challenges,” said Miller, “we were given a rare opportunity – and lesson, even – to remember to slow down and appreciate the unexpected gift of time spent with our loved ones from the comforts of home. These three exhibitions come at a time when these thoughts are all still fresh in our consciousness, and it may be through this lens that we experience them.”
Admission to the Art Museum is free; donations are welcomed.