This semester, the Dorsky is going global with art not only from the Hudson Valley, but from around the world.
The first exhibition, “Screen Play: Hudson Valley Artists 2013,” curated by Daniel Belasco, opened at the museum earlier in the summer and will remain on display through Sunday, Nov. 10. After twenty years, this display of local artists has grown into one of the Dorsky’s signature programs.
“This exhibition is about displaying the quality of the contemporary artists right here in the Hudson Valley,” Belasco said. “It includes work from 15 different artists and ranges in form from painting and drawing to performance and video. This year, the overall theme for the exhibit focused on incorporating the modern medium of the screen into the art piece. The screen can be anything from our modern movie and iPod screens to the older silk screens.”
His hope was that the contemporary theme would attract a variety of artists ranging in age from all over the Hudson Valley.
Luckily, there was a range not only in the age of the contributing artists, but the interpretation and medium of the some 220 pieces submitted as well.
The differing ages of the local artists played into their idea of the “screen,” which was exactly the response Belasco was looking for.
A few of these artists come from the programs offered at SUNY New Paltz. Vernon Byron, a graduate from the school’s BFA program, uses film as an “aesthetic framework” for his artwork.
Byron said that his goal with his submitted piece was to capture the movement of animation with graphite on still sheets of mylar.
The newest exhibition across the museum, took more than two years to put together. The collection, “Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art,” curated by Rachek Perera Weingeist, includes work that came from artists across the globe, and will be on display at the Dorsky until Sunday, Dec. 15.
Twenty-seven artists, from Tibet, the United States and Europe, submitted pieces that explore the meaning of traditional Tibetan identity through contemporary works of art.
Weingeist said she hopes that “interest in the region, political and cultural, will be sparked and inspired.” The exhibit features over fifty different art pieces including works of sculpture, painting and video, all of which incorporate the loud voice of the local minority.
The Neil C. Trager Director, Sara Pasti, worked with Weingeist over the past two years to figure out logistical and curatorial aspects of the collection. In the collection’s catalogue “Contemporary Tibetan Art Catalogue: Preface,” Pasti expressed her own inspiration for installing the exhibition.
“As an academic museum, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art has the distinct role of serving both the on-campus academic audiences and the wider community,” the catalogue said.
According to the catalogue, Pasti hopes that “the questions and conversations generated by ‘Anonymous’ will continue to engage, challenge and provoke curiosity in our students, faculty and community members both in the Hudson Valley and around the world for a long time to come.”