Tag Archive for Rogan

13 Students Curate German Prints Exhibit at Davison Art Center

by Olivia Drake • February 9, 2016

An exhibition titled “Passion and Power: German Prints in the Age of Dürer” is on display in the Davison Art Center through March 3. The show opened Feb. 4.

Curated by 13 Wesleyan students as part of their museum studies seminar, the exhibition includes more than 80 prints and rare books from the permanent collection of the Davison Art Center and Wesleyan’s Special Collections and Archives. Pictured, Amanda Larsen ’18 discusses a pamphlet from 1521 written by Martin Luther.

Wesleyan students Flora Donovan ‘16, Rachel Earnhardt ‘17, Julia Goetze, Parker Green ‘16, Lara Hetzel ‘17, Melissa Joskow ‘18, Amanda Larsen ‘18, Daniel Lee ‘16, Sharifa Lookman ‘17, Anna Model ‘16, Page Nelson ‘17, Penny Snyder ‘16, and Madeline Woods ‘16 curated the exhibition as members of ARHA 360-Museum Studies, taught by Clare Rogan, curator of the Davison Art Center and adjunct professor of art history (pictured at far right). Eight of the student curators are pictured.

by Lauren Rubenstein • January 27, 2016

Shirin Neshat’s “Ghada” and “Sayed,” from the Our House Is on Fire series, 2013. Images courtesy of Gladstone Gallery.

The Davison Art Center has been awarded two photographs by the Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, as part of a gift from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to 33 leading colleges and universities around the world. The prints, titled “Ghada” and “Sayed,” are part of Neshat’s Our House is on Fire series, an exploration of Egypt after the Arab Spring, which was supported by the Foundation.

“Shirin Neshat is one of the most important photographers of our time, and these deeply moving portraits evoke our common humanity. Looking closely at the photographs, you can see a veil of calligraphy—the text in Persian for the poem A Cry, by Persian poet Mehdi Akhaven Sales,” said Clare Rogan, curator of the Davison Art Center. “These fascinating images prompt us to consider humility, complexity, and the interlocking role of the arts, letters, contemporary life, and politics—all topics perfect for teaching here at Wesleyan.”

In Our House Is on Fire, Neshat investigates the universal experiences of pain and mourning on both national and personal levels. Traveling to Egypt, the artist invited various people to sit before her camera and to share their stories of loss, culminating in her new portrait series. Photographing her subjects up-close and with notable directness, Neshat creates a poignant connection between subject and viewer. She then overlays the images with a nearly indecipherable veil of text, inscribing calligraphy across the folds of each face, thereby mirroring the way in which a national calamity has become embedded in the personal history of each individual.

by Kate Carlisle • October 8, 2014

Francisco Goya’s portrait of the French printer Cyprien Gaulon will be on exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The print is owned by Wesleyan’s Davison Art Center.

One of Davison Art Center’s most important works – an early 19^thcentury Francisco Goya lithograph – will be shown in a major art exhibit in Boston this fall.

The print, a portrait of the printer Cyprien-Charles-Marie Nicolas Gaulon, was made at the end of Goya’s life, between 1825 and 1826, and is one of only two known “first state” copies of the work (the other is in France’s Bibliotheque Nationale). Gaulon taught Goya lithography during the artist’s senescent exile in Bordeaux.

“It’s a portrait of a friend, the man who taught him this technique, towards the end of his life,” said Clare Rogan, curator of the DAC. “It’s a view onto Goya’s life at the time.”

The print was lent last month to the Museum of Fine Arts, where it will be exhibited in “Goya: Order and Disorder” Oct. 12-Jan. 19. The largest Goya exhibit in North America in 25 years, the show will include everything from the portraits of aristocrats that established his reputation to the prints and drawings that carried the Spanish artist’s fame beyond his country.