Past Exhibitions in Ketchum 2015
Sleight of Hand
September 25 – November 27, 2015
A BIG IDEA project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts
The visual arts exhibition presents works made by artists who use the history of art as a lens through which to consider the idea of the copy.
Conrad Bakker makes carved and painted sculptures of everyday objects that he places into consumer contexts and exhibitions. The exhibition features UNTITLED: Subscription, replicas of Artforum magazine issues from 1969–1970 with covers bearing images of works by artists like Frank Stella and Donald Judd.
Several of Mark Landis’s artworks, including copies of paintings by Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) and Lionel Walden (1861–1933) alongside the originals, are part of the exhibition.
The Center’s Project Room is filled with a portion of Richard McMahan’s Mini Museum, his decades-long project documenting the history of art through miniature reproductions of both masterworks and lesser-known artworks from ancient Egypt to the present.
Works from well-known artist Vik Muniz’s Verso series replicate the backs of famous paintings, from Leonardo da Vinci’s La Gioconda (Mona Lisa) to Pablo Picasso’s Woman Ironing. Made over the course of six years of visits to museums to see the backs of these paintings in person, the works are covered with stickers and markings that offer commentary on the role of provenance in establishing authenticity.
William Powhida, whose text-based paintings are sardonic reflections on the contemporary art world, recently commissioned a series of reproductions of his works from a company in Shenzhen, China—one of many that employ painters to quickly reproduce everything from masterpieces to family photos in oil paint.
A selection of these copies of Powhida’s works hangs alongside some of photographer Michael Wolf’s images of the painters who work for these companies with their copies of well-known originals. The Center has commissioned the same company to reproduce three iconic paintings from the history of art. Come see if you recognize them and whether you think they measure up to the originals!
Click here to view the exhibition brochure.
Exhibition Video
Photo Gallery
Visual Arts Events
Evening Exhibition Tours,
FREE at The Center, Ketchum
Thursday, October 1*, 5:30pm
Thursday, November 5, 5:30pm
*Inge-Lise Eckmann Lane, a renowned conservator and former Director of Curatorial Affairs and Deputy Director at SFMOMA, will join us for the October 1 tour to share her insights on the role of the conservator in the preservation of the history of art. Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. Favor de llamar al Centro de las Artes para arreglar visitas guiadas en español.
Gallery Walks
Friday, November 27, 5-7pm
Free at the Center. Start your Gallery Walk at The Center!
Defying Gravity: Interventions in Clay
July 10 – September 18, 2015
A Visual Arts Exhibition of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts
Clay is a distinct medium, attracting artists who respond to its physicality and who are interested in grappling with the balance between release and control that its process demands. There is alchemy at work with this malleable, fluid material that through fire becomes fixed, hardened, permanent. The artists in this exhibition celebrate the inherent contradictions in clay—honoring the tension between the opposing forces of stability and instability, motion and stasis, permanence and temporality. Exploding, elongating, puncturing and drawing, these artists extend the boundaries of what clay can do and how it has traditionally been presented. Not exclusively ceramists, all four artists in the exhibition employ drawing and other mediums to articulate their artistic voices. William O’Brien uses drawing as the foundation for all his works, whether working with clay, textiles or paint. Annabeth Rosen makes gestural drawings that are a visual animation of the force behind her ceramic forms. Linda Lopez often incorporates drawings into her assemblages. Alwyn O’Brien found her entry into making sculptural objects through drawing and printing with clay. Each of these artists are making work that celebrates and sometimes challenges clay’s physical properties, resulting in art that is spirited, messy, gleeful and sometimes defiant.
Click here to view the exhibition brochure.
Photo Gallery
Exhibition Video
Visual Arts Events
Evening Exhibition Tours, FREE at The Center, Ketchum
- Thursday, July 30, 5:30pm
- Thursday, September 3, 5:30pm
Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. Favor de llamar al Centro de las Artes para arreglar visitas guiadas en español.
Gallery Walks
- Friday, July 10th, 5-7pm
- Friday, August 7th, 5-7pm
- Friday, September 3, 5-7pm
Free at the Center. Start your Gallery Walk at The Center!
Moving Pictures: Early Animation and Its Influence
May 1 – July 3, 2015
A Visual Arts Exhibition of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts
Featuring a selection of early animation cels from the collection of Jay and Gretchen Basen, this exhibition considers the history of animation, from its roots in 18th and 19th century magic lantern shows to its impact on contemporary artists. Also on view are hand-drawn animated projections, paintings, drawings and wall drawings by artists Stas Orlovski and Shelley Jordon, and works on paper by Blakely Dadson and Susan Te Kahurangi King.
Click here to view the exhibition brochure.
Exhibition Video
Photo Gallery
Visual Arts Events
Evening Exhibition Tours, FREE at The Center, Ketchum
- Wednesday, May 6, 5:30pm (On May 6, collectors Gretchen & Jay Basen will discuss their extraordinary collection of animation cels and optical devices. Please note this tour is on a Wednesday, not a Thursday.)
- Thursday, June 11, 5:30pm
- Thursday, July 2, 5:30pm (On July 2 Artist Shelley Jordon will speak about her hand-drawn animated films and their connection to her painting and drawing practices.)
Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. Favor de llamar al Centro de las Artes para arreglar visitas guiadas en español. Moving Pictures: Early Animation and Its Influence exhibition has been generously sponsored by Robert and Stephanie Rand
The Brain
February 6 – April 17, 2015
A BIG IDEA project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts
THE BRAIN is both the most complex part of the human body and the least understood. According to the National Institutes of Health, scientists have learned more about the brain in the past ten years than in all previous centuries. Yet so much of how it functions is still a mystery. And that mystery is driving research in numerous branches of neuroscience: neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to change neural pathways in response to injury or changes in environment or behavior); the workings of neurotransmitters; the effects of and treatments for strokes, brain injuries and mental illness; how we learn; why some of us learn differently; and memory—from work on Alzheimer’s and dementia to studies of people whose memories are extraordinarily detailed and permanent. Recently, the relationship between the brain and the arts has become its own field of inquiry: neuroaesthetics. The Center offers this BIG IDEA project as an opportunity for conversation about recent advances in neuroscience as well as a celebration of the wonder and mystery of the brain. Its complexity and capability are what distinguish us as human beings, shaping who we are as individuals and as a species. The exhibition includes the work of DEBORAH ASCHHEIM who has created several bodies of work about the brain, its physical structure and memory; After a number of years of making art about the pharmaceutical industry, painter BEVERLY FISHMAN has recently begun a body of work examining the connection between pharmaceuticals and the brain; REBECCA KAMEN has spent her career creating artwork that illuminates the world of science. Her dyslexia has driven an interest in neuroscience in particular. Recently, she’s begun investigating the work of SANTIAGO RAMÓN Y CAJAL, a Spanish scientist who won a 1906 Nobel Prize for his drawings of brain cells and is considered the father of modern neuroscience; Following a car accident that left him with short-term memory problems; JAMES STERLING PITT began making drawings he describes as calendars, white sheets of paper covered with shapes that have a glyph-like quality; KATHERINE SHERWOOD began her career making tightly controlled paintings full of symbolism. When a stroke left her paralyzed on her right side at the age of 44, she thought her career was over. After a period in which she made no work, she taught herself to paint with her left hand. What resulted were much looser, more intuitive paintings.
Click here to view the exhibition brochure.
Exhibition Video
Photo Gallery
Visual Arts Events
Gallery Walks, FREE at The Center, Ketchum
- Friday, Feb 13, 5–7pm
- Friday, March 13, 5–7pm
Start your Gallery Walk at The Center!
Evening Exhibition Tours, FREE at The Center, Ketchum
- Thursday, Feb 19, 5:30pm
- Thursday, March 12, 5:30pm
- Thursday, April 9, 5:30pm (Artist REBECCA KAMEN will address her work and its connection to that of Santiago Ramón y Cajal at 6:15pm following the April 9 tour)
Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. Favor de llamar al Centro de las Artes para arreglar visitas guiadas en español.