Ayad Alkadhi's "I am Baghdad XI" (2008) is one of the pieces currently on view at The Johnson Museum as part of the “Tarjama/Translation" show, which runs through October 3. Image provided
A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY ART FROM THE ARABIC SPEAKING WORLD, an early 20th Century photography exhibit, two striking new sculptures, and a host of work from the permanent collection just barely scratch the surface of a wide variety of art currently on view at the Johnson Museum at Cornell’s campus this late summer and early autumn. Though the museum is currently undergoing a massive $22 million expansion, all but the fifth floor galleries remain free and open to the public. On Friday, September 10 from 5-7:00pm, the Johnson will welcome the general public to an opening reception, featuring free refreshments and live music.
The most striking show currently on exhibit is “Tarjama/Translation,” which includes the work of 28 artists from Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Turkey among other countries. Featuring contemporary artists whose works use different methods of translation, the show, which runs through October 3, encompasses a variety of media and artistic strategies, examining the different ways that artists engage with people, objects, images, and ideas traveling across geographic spaces, media forms, histories, and personal contexts.
Organized by ArteEast, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, and curated by Leeza Ahmady as well as Cornell professor Iftikhar Dadi and Cornell Art History PhD Reem Fadda, “Tarjama/Translation” treats the multiple processes of translation as dynamic and complex, from linguistic and textual devices to the persistence of historical memory and the transformations engendered by increasing globalization.
According to Alexander, the exhibition “focuses on the common yet complex theme of cultural, artistic and critical translation, while making connections between these artistic concersn on translation and other trends in contemporary art.”
Though a viewer is first confronted with Sharif Waked’s wall-sized stencil and John Jurayj’s abstract canvases, virtually a third of the show encompasses video work. These vary from the documentary, to the comic to the obtuse. Esra Ersen’s “I am Turkish, I am Honest, I am Diligent…” depicts a group of schoolchildren and includes 48 separate school uniforms. Gulsun Karamustafa’s piece “The City and Secret Panther Fashion” is playful and subversive, depicting an ensemble of female characters secretly meeting where they dress up in panther patterns. Mitra Tabrizian’s piece comes off as a send up as a Hollywood movie, as a hitman follows around a dissident writer. The most impressive aspect of much of the work is the way in which the artists grapple with their own locations and disclocations: these include not only the national but also linguistic, gender and sex.
(John Jurayj, one of the artists in “Tarjama/Translation” will speak at the Johnson Thursday, September 9th in the gallery space.)
DOWNSTAIRS FROM THIS OVERWHELMING DIVERSITY, a more focused show depicts 20th Century pictorial photography as the medium was slowly adopted as an art form. At the end of the nineteenth century, Alfred Stieglitz changed the way artists approached the photographic process, pushing them and himself to create works that would place photography among the fine arts, beyond its traditional role as a mere recorder of events. The exhibition explores the work of Stieglitz, his friends and colleagues, and the next generation of photographers who were inspired by them.
The exhibition, which draws from the Johnson’s permanent collection and is on view through October 10, focuses on the point at which photography was becoming appreciated as an art form. Taken together, the 1886 exhibition of art photography, the “New York, Philadelphia and Boston Joint Exhibition Series” and the 1901 Steiglitz-curated show at the Arts Club in New York, which included the work of Gertrude Kasebeir, Clarence White, and Max Weber, the photography of over six hundred European and American photographers was thus introduced to an appreciative audience.
In addition to these two shows, the following are also noteworthy.
“Monumental: Contemporary Figurative Sculpture” (through September 12). Two life-size figurative sculptures by Dutch artist Folkert de Jong and American sculptor Will Ryman that were recently donated to the Museum show that the figure is alive and well in contemporary sculpture, addressing a wide variety of topical issues.
“Sublime Form: European Decorative Design (1900-1920)” (through October 3). At the beginning of the last century, many artists trained as painters, sculptors, and architects recognized the need for good design in the decorative arts and began to create works that could be used and lived with. This exhibition will highlight the work of the Wiener Werkstätte from a private collection, alongside works from the Museum’s collection.
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, located on the campus of Cornell University, is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. The Museum is accessible for mobility-impaired visitors, and a wheelchair is available in the lobby. Metered parking is available in the lot next to the Museum. For more information, please call 607 255-6464. Visit the Museum’s website at www.museum.cornell.edu.