Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

The Worcester Art Museum Schedule of Exhibitions & Events

The Worcester Art Museum is proud to announce March 2010 line-up of exhibitions and events. Opening March 7, WAM welcomes Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, featuring candid shots, images of live performances, publicity portraits and album cover art of some of your favorite rock stars. See it first on March 6 during the opening BASH with special VIP Exclusive Party!

Enhance your Museum experience by joining a tour, lecture, gallery talk, concert, performance, family day or party. A variety of youth, teen and adult classes and workshops are offered. Dine in the Museum Café featuring an eclectic menu, open Wednesday through Saturday, 11:30am – 2pm, browse The Museum Shop for unique mementos. FREE admission for 17 and under. Get out of the cold and make WAM one of your stops this winter!

EXHIBITIONS NOW ON VIEW

Intaglio: Italian Etchings and Engravings
Through March 7, 2010
Intaglio, a word derived from an Italian verb meaning “to incise,” is used in English to describe a family of print making techniques. For centuries the intaglio processes of engraving, etching, drypoint, and aquatint reproduced pictorial images providing the finest detail. This exhibition presents a selection of Italian prints that reflect the history of intaglio printmaking, from its inception in the fourteenth century through the era of its domination of printed pictures in the eighteenth century. These original works of art present a rich and fascinating range of subjects and styles, from the Renaissance through the Rococo period. Among the printmakers whose work will be included in this exhibition are Giulio Campagnola, Marcantonio Raimondi, Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, Pietro Testa, Giambattista Tiepolo, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The exhibition provides instructive examples of the intaglio techniques of engraving, drypoint, etching and aquatint.

A Miniature Milestone: The Marianne E. Gibson Portrait Miniature Gallery at 20
Through April 8, 2010
The portrait miniature, one of the Worcester Art Museum’s greatest strengths in American art, is paradoxically one of the smallest physical types of objects within its collections. Although not as large as easel paintings or sculptures, portrait miniatures do tell a “big” and important story in American art. This installation celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Museum’s miniature milestone by featuring a selection of miniatures spanning the history of the medium, from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, by known and unknown artists, in a variety of styles. Rediscover the large impact of some of the Museum’s small marvels.

Through August 22, 2010
Recent art practices continue to evolve in the shadow cast years ago by Marcel Duchamp, whose simple yet extraordinary act in 1914 of selecting a common bottle rack and signing it wrenched that object out of the “useful” context and placed it in the context of “a work of art.” If art offers an opportunity to rethink our engagement with the world around us, those artists who are drawn to exploring materials that are familiar yet altered as to their origins and uses seem equally invested in material experience as a way of deepening our perceptual capacities so we might arrive at new understandings of what matters. Drawn primarily from the Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition considers works spanning two decades (1988–2008) by a roster of leading contemporary artists including Claire Barclay, Willie Cole, Melvin Edwards, Heide Fasnacht, Tony Feher, Jim Isermann, Jim Lambie, Tim Rollins and K.O.S. and Doris Salcedo and Yinka Shonibare.

WALL at WAM: “Actions Speak” THINK AGAIN (David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman)
Through September 2010
THINK AGAIN’s (David John Attyah and S.A. Bachman) WAM project focuses on the connections between political brutality and public policy, and reconsiders social problems like HIV/AIDS and violence against women. The project promotes dialogue between art and public response, between global reality and local action. Actions Speak is a hybrid of text, photography, drawing, etching, sculpture, and digital design. The mural’s iconography—a mass of paper bones entangled in the cords of monumental microphones— links political discourse directly to individual bodies. The murals’ cascade of words associated with brutality and stigmatization is echoed in a corresponding projection on the Museums’ façade. Streetside, the projection of an open microphone, awaiting a speaker, accompanies a succession of words from the mural, out of which emerge words of empowerment and positive action. Upcoming projections 3rd Thursday of each month, after dark: February 18, March 18.

Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present
March 7 – May 30, 2010
Rock & Roll became the American rite of passage in the twentieth century. Each generation since World War II has created various concoctions of African-derived blues and European folk ballads, mixed with American jazz. The visual expression of this music, and its history, are represented in the exhibition Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present. Rock & Roll captures the anxiety of youth, its pentup fury, and awakening sexuality. The photographs reflect these feelings and ideas, with all their contradictions, excitement and energy. The exhibition includes the work of photographers who used their cameras to explore and interpret the music, striving to share its creative energy. Among them are candid shots, photographs of live performance, publicity portraits, and album cover art. Who Shot Rock & Roll was organized by the photography historian Gail Buckland, for the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog available in The Museum Shop.

About the Worcester Art Museum
Located on Salisbury St., in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Worcester Art Museum opened in 1898 and is one of America’s most respected art museums. The Museum is world-renowned for its 35,000-piece collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photography, prints, drawings and new media. Special exhibitions showcase masterworks, seldom-seen gems, and important works on loan. The Museum also features a café, shop, and library and offers year round classes for children and adults. Enhance your Museum experience by joining a tour, lecture, gallery talk, concert, performance, family day, party or other event offered throughout the year. Docent led public tours are offered Saturdays at 11am and Sundays at 1pm, September through May.

www.worcesterart.org