On view
Degrees of Separation illustrates a touchstone among photographers—the fragile nature of our connection to other human beings and to the world around us. Featuring several key new acquisitions, the story unfolds through images ranging from portraits to landscapes, grainy vintage snapshots to large-scale digtital photographs.
The artists represented in this exhibition grapple with the potential of technology as they “build their own world.” They re-purpose and manipulate technologies of the past and present in ways that range from playful to ironic to analytical.
The patterns of nature find reflection in the functions of human life—the motion of ocean waves echoes the measured inhalation and exhalation of breath; flower petals reach for the sun, unfurling and then collapsing, more slowly but similarly to the way a heart contracts and expands. The new media artists in this exhibition use technology to replicate these vital signs, but also to explore the inner source of life, those elements unseen but often sensed.
This exhibition is the first in new series that features recent work by artist from Pacific Rim countries and cultures who explore new narrative territory using animation, digital techniques, video, and film. Plastic Life looks a the ways artists weave the past and the present; the local and the universal; the ancient and the futuristic.
For centuries, people have admired artists’ magical ability to depict reality—the virtuoso dab of paint that becomes a pearl in a Vermeer painting, for example. What is realism in the 21st century, when our world has taken on a virtual as well as physical dimension? Real and HyperReal contrasts traditional realism rooted in careful observation of our immediate, visible world with new riffs on realism that mirror the expansive realities of the information age.
The Let’s Look at Art exhibition is a fully immersive experience designed to inspire creativity and support the inquiry process. The exhibition features a selection of thematically linked artworks from the Museum’s Permanent Collection, accompanied by multi-sensory activities that link daily experiences with the transformational experiences of dramatic play, interpretation, and creation.