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By Jamie Hendrix-Chupa, Exhibition Interpreter and Content Manager
SOU Theatre Class of '27
| | Jason Stopa, Roman Garden Arch, 2020, oil on canvas, Courtesy of Peter Fischer; and Interior Pleasures, 2019, oil and acrylic on canvas, Courtesy of Monica King; displayed on one of the mural walls in the Main Gallery. | | |
The environment an artist creates for displaying their work can inform their creative intent in interesting and vivid ways. From examining their work within the studio to the way museums put it on display, each place the artwork lives gives it character. In Jason Stopa’s solo exhibition at the Schneider Museum of Art, “Modern Language”, you’ll find a striking scene. Each wall in the Main Gallery has been painted in a mural, a geometric and calculated pink-and-blue lattice design that evokes barn doors made with painter’s tape. The mural creates a world for Stopa’s paintings to exist in. This is commonplace in Stopa’s exhibitions, as he believes that his work is heightened by its environment. As he writes in an article from art magazine Hyperallergic, “My own work often employs a similar language – a painted wall or 'stage' that will hold individual canvases while altering the spatial relationship between them, even as it references the imagery found in the paintings.” In exploring “Modern Language”, it is clear why Stopa employs this staging in his work. As an artist, Jason Stopa has a very clear idea of the artistic world that he wants to create. He is also a writer, curator, and art critic, so he spends his life thinking about and researching art. It is no wonder that his environments are so carefully crafted. Read Jason Stopa’s article in Hyperallergic below, and explore the world of “Modern Language” at the Schneider until December 13th.
https://hyperallergic.com/419840/painting-as-total-environment/
| | Jason Stopa, Garden of Music (after Bob Thompson), 2023, oil on canvas, Courtesy of Diane Rosenstein Gallery | | |
Multiple paintings that are featured in “Modern Language” were a part of the exhibition “Garden of Music” at Diane Rosenstein Gallery in 2023. The title and theming of this exhibition came from Bob Thompson’s painting Garden of Music (1960), which depicts a group of jazz musicians playing together in an Eden-esque utopia. Abstractions of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, among others of jazz fame, are a part of this merry band. Stopa’s work, Garden of Music (after Bob Thompson) (2023), takes this utopia into the abstract, using colors and shapes derived from Thompson’s work. The musicians present in Thompson’s Garden of Music may not be there in Stopa’s painting of the same name, but their melodies and rhythm are. And the utopian future that Stopa’s work is set in is inspired by the same disillusion-fueled optimism that is present in many of Thompson’s works. In the curated show, "Angel of History", you can see a Bob Thompson painting that inspires Stopa to this day. However, Jason Stopa himself has stated that utopia is not actually something to strive for. As he says in an interview from BOMB Magazine:
“When modernist politicians, architects, and artists sought after utopia, art risked becoming propaganda or becoming fodder for reactionary forces. The comingling of politics and art during the October Revolution in 1917 is a great example. Utopias are impossible. The definition of the word is: not a place. As an artist, this means leaning into contradiction in order to grapple with that middle ground.” –Jason Stopa
Read the entire interview with Jason Stopa from BOMB Magazine below!
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2023/06/21/jason-stopa-interviewed/
| | South African artist Marlene Dumas, photographed by Ove Kvavik. | | |
Marlene Dumas was born in South Africa in 1953, though she currently lives and works in the Netherlands. Her work is primarily focused on the human body and how the human form can inform art and, on a larger scale, the world. As a white woman of African descent, she began creating art to address her own political concerns and thoughts on personal identity and race conflict. She began her artistic career in 1973, though she had been doing art for herself as early as 10 years old. Being a white person in South Africa during that time meant that, from an early age, she felt the impact of Apartheid. Her early childhood works have informed some of her current works, which makes Dumas's pieces both historically significant in her life and represent her lifelong process. Her work is almost exclusively portraiture, and she has used the likeness of her friends and lovers as well as celebrities or anyone she can find in magazines. Rather than simply painting portraits, Dumas aims to depict the wide range of emotions that can be conveyed by the human body. Because the emotions are so nuanced and complex, a great many of her works have been seen as erotic or sexual in nature. However, as with any other nude art, Dumas's body of work brings into question how we see the human body in the context of fine art. Is nude artwork always inherently sexual, or is it simply a representation of our base selves? Consider the reason why art students learn from looking at the nude body, or think of why Michelangelo's David is so influential. Dumas's work has recently been acquired by the Louvre, and is on view there according to an article as recently as November 7th. Currently, a piece by Marlene Dumas is on view in the Entry Gallery at the Schneider. It is a piece that depicts nudity, so please be advised of this when you visit. However, it may be interesting to step back from assumption and try to examine it with the idea of the human body as an art form in mind. Read an interview with Marlene Dumas at the link below to learn more about her process.
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/marlene-dumas-hilton-als
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