Art and Design Commons^™

Risd Business: Sassy Signs & Sculptures, Alejandro Diaz, Judith Tannenbaum

Journals

Exhibition Notes, Number 42, Fall 2012. Ranging from quaint stereotypes of Mexican identity to current socio-economic and art-world commentary, Alejandro Diaz’s text-based works and installations use language as a form of cultural critique and resistance. Conceptual and campy, his humor infused politics and choice of everyday materials are emblematic of his ongoing involvement with art as a form of entertainment, activism, public intervention, and free enterprise. His projects take place outdoors on city streets as well as inside galleries and museums.

The Dorothy And Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works For Rhode Island, Alison W. Chang

Journals

Exhibition Notes, Number 41, Summer 2012. RISD Museum was the recipient of fifty contemporary works from the celebrated collectors Dorothy and Herb Vogel. Both worked as civil servants throughout their lives so they never had extraordinary means with which to build a collection, but acquired more than 4000 works since their marriage in 1962. Their commitment to minimal and conceptual art is well-known, but their taste was much broader and included work rooted in Abstract Expressionism as well as figurative compositions. Most of the collection was given to the National Gallery of Art. The gift to Rhode Island is part …

Dan Walsh | Uncommon Ground, Judith Tannenbaum

Journals

Exhibition Notes, Number 40, 2012. Dan Walsh has been devoted to abstract painting since he arrived in New York in the early 1980s. Naturally his work has evolved over the past three decades, but he has remained consistently attached to Minimalism’s basic language of geometry and grids.

Painting Air: Spencer Finch, Spencer Finch, Judith Tannenbaum

Journals

Exhibition Notes, Number 39, Winter 2012. Spencer Finch, an artist known internationally for artwork that captures fleeting or intangible natural phenomena and sensory experiences, received his MFA in Sculpture from RISD in 1989. In the two decades since, Finch has created drawings, watercolors, photography, and video as well as sculpture and installations—selecting mediums and methods that seem best suited to conveying his fascination with light, color, and atmosphere. His focus of attention ranges from a speck of dust seen in a shaft of light in his studio to grand glaciers in New Zealand.

As a graduate student Finch worked in …

Pilgrims Of Beauty: Art And Inspiration In 19th Century Italy, Crawford Alexander Mann Iii

Journals

Exhibition Notes, Number 38, Spring 2012. In the 19th century Italy was the most desirable destination for travelers from every corner of Europe and beyond. Thousands crossed mountains, even oceans, to go there, leaving their "barbarous” homelands to study and admire Italy’s unsurpassed aesthetic and cultural riches. A poem in the New England Magazine in 1831 described the goals and ideals of visiting Italy on a European Grand Tour, calling those who did so "pilgrims of beauty.” Like religious pilgrims of centuries past, these lovers of art participated in a ritual journey, a powerful shared experience of Italy’s magnificent landscape, …