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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > September > 16 > Entry
Austin Museum of Art announces new exhibit initiatives
In an effort to do more with less during recessionary times, the Austin Museum of Art has re-jiggered its exhibition plan and beginning in November it will present three distinct exhibits at a time at its downtown digs at 823 Congress Ave.
“Reconfiguring our galleries and exhibition schedule will give the community access to a greater variety of artworks and experiences,” said Dana Friis-Hansen, AMOA executive director and chief curator, “and help us better harness reduced resources. As we considered how to do more with less in a tightened economy, we decided the best route was to draw on both the museum’s and the community’s artistic assets.”
In effect, the move ups the number of exhibit the museum will offer from five to eight or so each year to a total of 10 annually. The museum has had to make across the board budget cuts twice in the past year due to the recessionary economy.
Featured exhibits, including traveling shows, will continue to occupy the front and central galleries. Up right now is ‘Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something.’ Coming in November is ‘David Bates’ a retrospective of the Dallas artist.
In the side galleries, the museum will feature loosely thematic exhibits culled from its permanent collection. ‘Collection Selections’ will change roughly every six months and will give the museum a chance to show things that it normally keeps in storage.
Also taking up residency in the galleries come November is the ‘New Works’ series, a quarterly exhibit series that will introduce the latest from innovative local artists. The first year will feature shows by Jade Walker, Luke Savisky, Sunyong Chung and the Okay Mountain collective.
Here’s the ‘New Works’ series schedule for the first year:
Jade Walker, ‘Spectator Sport’
Nov. 21, 2009 -Jan. 31, 2010
Walker creates a bulbous fabric and found object installation that explores ideas about gender and sports.
Luke Savisky
Feb. 13 - May 9, 2010
There’s little about human experience that Luke Savisky doesn’t examine in his film art. Known for stretching the limits of visual media, Savisky uses manual film montage, direct projection techniques, kinetic sets and sculptures and unusual projection surfaces in unlikely environments.
Sunyong Chung
May 22 - Aug. 15, 2010
Ceramic artist Sunyong Chung pushes the traditional Japanese nerikome technique into new territory with her monumental sculpture and her imagery offers new riffs on traditional ceramic art imagery.
Okay Mountain. ‘Untitled (Spin Off).’
Aug. 28 - Nov. 14, 2010
From the Okay Mountain collective comes a fresh look from both ends of the camera lens at mass media. Who is watching who after all? With a studio audience mural and television soundstage installation, ‘Untitled (Spin Off)’ will consider what goes on behind the scenes.
Images: Chuck Close, ‘Self Portrait’ (top). Jade Walker, ‘Figure 1-5,’ installation view (bottom).
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