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Artist Jeanne Quinn creates hybrid installations that combine porcelain with unexpected mediums, including paint, electricity, and—perhaps most unexpectedly—balloons. The weight and balance of these inventive works joins the awkward to the elegant; the sublime to the everyday; a sense of fragility with the gravity of form. The exhibition Jeanne Quinn: Ceramic In(ter)ventions, featuring three installations, is on view October 7, 2011–January 7, 2012, at Kemper at the Crossroads, 33 W. 19th Street. Admission is free. |
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| The exhibition opens with a free public reception Friday, October 7, 6:00–8:00 p.m. at Kemper at the Crossroads. That night, visitors will have the opportunity to meet the artist and Kemper at the Crossroads will be open until 10:00 p.m. | |
| Several of Quinn’s works hang from the ceiling like a chandelier, and the artist is influenced by a variety of sources, including the imperfect symmetry of the human skeletal structure, decorative arts, and mapping. Quinn examines ideas of perception; several of her works change as a viewer moves around or through one of the artist’s works as in the exhibition’s installation Everything Is Not As It Seems (2009). Or in the case of the exhibition’s A Thousand Tiny Deaths (2009–11), the work evolves over time as it is on display. |  Above: Jules Olitski, Prince Patutszky Pleasures, 1962; acrylic on canvas, 89.75 in. x 88 in.; Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, Gift of the R. C. Kemper Charitable Trust, 2009.21 |
| In A Thousand Tiny Deaths, Quinn hangs dozens of black porcelain vases and urns that surround inflated balloons; the hybrid forms are then suspended from the ceiling. As the balloons age, they deflate, and Quinn’s delicate vessels with classical references crash to the floor, where the vases’ shards rest from their fall. This unexpected and fragile element make the work performative and dynamic as well as fleeting. | |
| In the exhibition’s full-gallery installation Everything Is Not As It Seems, the artist connects various white porcelain forms (many referencing the human skeleton) with light into a chandelier-like installation. Influenced by Richard Wagner’s idea of the complete work or Gesamtkunstwerk, Quinn combines elements that reference traditional decorative objects into sensually encompassing installations. Viewers become active participants when their perception of the artwork’s forms and light change as they walk around and underneath this suspended installation. | |
| In 1967, he was awarded the Corcoran Gold Medal and William A. Clark Award at the 30th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painters at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The Corcoran then organized a major exhibition of his works that also traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Art, and in 1973, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston organized a retrospective that traveled to the Albright-Knox Gallery of Art in Buffalo, NY, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY. Since then, his works have been included in hundreds of exhibitions and may be found in collections around the world from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to Florence’s Uffizi Portrait Gallery. | |
| A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanies the exhibition Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski and includes essays by E. A. Carmean Jr., independent curator and former curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Alison de Lima Greene, curator of contemporary art and special projects at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Karen Wilkin, independent curator and regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Art in America; as well as select writings by Olitski. The catalogue will be available for $40 in mid-May through the Museum Shop at www.kemperart.org. | |
Exhibition-Related Programs Tour and Workshop: Memories in the Making Tour: Meet Me at the Museum Concert: Dark Matter: Orbit Scavenger Saturdays for Families Camp Kemper: Spray, Stain, and Spackle Jeremy Blake: Fields, Film, and Other Influences About the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art The Kemper Museum (4420 Warwick Blvd.) is open 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Tuesday–Thursday; Thank you |
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