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Modernization: A Preservation of the Past

The Art Gallery and Art History Association present Modernization: A Preservation of the Past in the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture curated by University of Maryland students Zoe Copeman, Matthew Forster, Sophie Huget, Darcy McConnell, and Eloy Areu.

The exhibition seeks to cross time and cultural boundaries, as works from the United States, Italy, Africa, and Japan are united under the roofs of the Michelle Smith Collaboratory and the Art History Graduate Student Lounge.  Each section of the exhibition has its own unique narrative, yet merge under the underlying theme of the connectivity of the past and present.

The exhibition begins with 20^th century American lithographs from the Martin W. Brown Collection. While seemingly grounded in the 1930s, the meaning of these works carry into today’s context, sparking current conversation over bipartisan politics and police brutality that have inundated the news in recent years.

The exhibition takes on a lighter note in the Collaboratory, as it continues with works by Japanese artist Risaburo Kimura and Italian artist Alfred de Giorgio Crimi. The combination of Kimura’s vibrant cityscapes with Crimi’s collage of paper and stamps from around the world seek to inspire communication between technological advancement and cultural preservation. It is our hope that the Michelle Smith Collaboratory, as a place where these two concepts often merge together, will continue this conversation into the future.

Lastly, the final installation of the exhibition comes from the Art Gallery’s extensive African Art Collection. The pieces emphasize the rich cultural heritage of many African tribes, including that of the Yoruba and Sande societies. With two masks celebrating female power along side a colonial figure, the exhibition once again addresses the concept of a continuing past and a present shaped from modernization.

This exhibition will be on view in the Art History Graduate Student Lounge and the Michelle Smith Collaboratory throughout the next one to two years. A perfect excuse to make your way to the Art-Sociology Building’s fourth floor.

 Zoe Copeman, Fall ’15, Art History Association 2015