Futurescape
Barry Rosenberg, who directs the Contemporary Art Galleries in the School of Fine Arts building, sent me an email about the new exhibition just opened in CAG: Futurescape. Here’s an excerpt from the exhibition press release:
A century after Cubism and Futurism, a time when painting was the predominant visual art forum, it is once again emerging as a medium well-suited to reflecting the conditions of our time. However, the glorification of progress is gone, replaced by apocalyptic and unnerving images that resonate with the uncertainty of our times. Optimism that was once a hallmark of the avant-garde Modernists has given way to cynicism of our own Postmodern era.
What unites the paintings in Futurescape is the artists’ ability to blur the lines between figuration and abstraction, and collapse art history with references ranging from early Modernism to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. They employ surprising overlapping, multiple layering, and unexpected vanishing points. The exhibition reveals that artists are again interested in the dynamism and conditions found in today’s urban environments and that they are exploring and finding new ways to compress and expand time and space. This is the focus of Futurescape.
The artists in the exhibition come from both coasts and also from Europe. Their creative endeavors describe places on the edge of believability and touch upon consumer culture, utopian societies. Some showcase hallucinatory and Buckminster Fuller-inspired architectural environments and others offer sober visions of urban life or present escapist fantasies by way of rich narratives. What’s common throughout is the luscious, tactile and seductive ways they conjure up their imagery. They are masters of their trade. Artists include: Thomas Eggerer, Jules de Balincourt, Francesca DiMattio, Yoon Lee, Benjamin Edwards, Nicola López. Jacob Feige and Tomory Dodge.
If you’ve never visited the Contemporary Art Galleries, they are located off the main lobby in the Fine Arts Building, at 830 Bolton Rd., Storrs.
