Events

There is one truth that permeates Dean Dablow’s art: any attempt to depict a thing alters how it is perceived, making the depiction subjective. Rather than creating an interpretive framework that is intuitively understood by viewers, Dablow focuses on creating well-designed compositions. He works in this manner because he feels interpretation is unavoidable and uncontrollable. Being as interpretation is so inherently human, he makes work that is purposefully ambiguous, relying on individuals to make it relatable. The result of this strategy is an oeuvre overflowing with rich points of reference that are ultimately inconsequential to Dablow, but effective nonetheless.

Dablow has purposefully engaged with a variety of media over the course of his career, often mining one for all it is worth before moving on to another for a time. While this progression is sequential and can be tracked chronologically, Everything Is Abstract is laid out in our gallery spaces in a non-linear fashion. This is meant to be more indicative of Dablow’s goals as an artist. It is an homage to his process rather than a staid accounting of it. Each gallery houses a variety of his work that runs the gauntlet from pithy or profound to ominous or joyous. The sensibility of individual works of art may vary, but the unifying feature of the exhibition is the slow reveal achieved by each of them. Dablow’s excellent sense of design is at play in this regard because viewers must discover for themselves an artwork’s truth. The truths you perceive may vacillate between a visceral sense of wonder or an impending sense of doom, but regardless of the sensations you feel, it is crucial to understand they are yours.

Everything Is Abstract is a retrospective featuring examples of Dean Dablow’s work beginning in 1974, and running through 2016. Dablow was born in Superior, Wisconsin, in 1946. He holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and is currently Professor Emeritus at Louisiana Tech University. Dablow was one of only two Northeast Louisiana artists to be featured in A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana. His work resides in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, the former Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Masur Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and others.

This installation of Kelli Scott Kelley’s series Accalia and the Swamp Monster marks the first time it will be on view alongside a wide selection of preparatory sketches, as well as Bird and Squirrel, the video that inspired the series. Accalia and the Swamp Monster is a loosely autobiographical coming of age story that references fairy tales, mythology, and Louisiana bayous in a manner that feels primordial and otherworldly. Kelley’s work feels archetypal, as though we are familiar with its narrative arc and imagery. This is the case because, as a society, we know enough about Beowulf, Artemis, anthropomorphic creatures, Joan of Arc, and other references to intuitively understand Kelley’s various nods to bygone eras. It is her use of bald cypresses, pirogues, and other familiar imagery that makes Accalia’s trials and tribulations so personal to those who make Louisiana their home.
Kelley’s work is decidedly feminine. Not only is the heroine based on Kelley herself, but her paintings are executed on re-purposed antique linens, handcrafts typically associated with women and domesticity. Accalia’s actions in the story undermine traditional cultural notions of femininity, while the materiality of the linens acknowledges them as a cultural construct to some degree. These complexities ring true when the re-purposed linens, including table runners and handkerchiefs, are thought of as items used by many people over a long period of time. It directly addresses the sense of shared cultural experience so important to many functional items, while also mirroring the transmission of oral traditions like storytelling.

Juror, Holly E. Hughes
Godin-Spaulding Curator & Curator for the Collection
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Reception with Gallery Talk by Hughes
Postponed due to flood, date to be determined
The 53rd Annual Juried Competition is sponsored by CenturyLink Security Systems
$3,200.00 in total prizes. Includes Best-in-Show $1,000, People’s Choice, and Best Packed. Additional awards to be determined by the juror.
Participating Artists
Carolyn Adams (LA), Ransom Ashley (LA), Lester Berman (NM), Jayson Bimber (IN), Nancy Brown (CA), Marie Bukowski (IL), Richard Buswell (MT), Critz Campbell (MS), Adam Christensen (UT), Elizabeth M. Claffey (IN), Beau Comeaux (LA), Black Conroy (MD), Hannah Cooper McCauley (LA), Carla Crawford (CA), Tanya Gadbaw (IL), Louise Glass (NH), Lindsay Godin (IA), Frank Hamrick (LA), Garrett Hansen (KY), David Heo (IL), Cindy Holmes (TX), Michael Hower (PA), Richard Hricko (PA), Kei Ito (MD), Andy Johnston (GA), Marcus Journey (LA), Caitlin Margaret Kelly (NC), Emily Kenas (NY), Tray LaCaze (TX), Lauren Lake (AL), Drew Leventhal (PA), Ryan Lewis (MI), Lauren Lohman (TX), Harry Longstreet (WA), Rodrigo Lopez Gomez (NY), Jenna Lynch (CT), Shona Macdonald (MA), Amanda Maciuba (KS), Stephen Marc (AZ), Loren Marple (NH), Zachary McCauley (LA), Dan McCormack (NY), Tony McDonald (LA), Joseph A. Miller (NY), Ryan Napier (AZ), Lake Newton (TN), Soon Ee Ngoh (MS), Darren Oberto (IL), Shelby Orr (TX), Ji Yeon Park (RI), Jim Pearson (IL), Robert Pena (TX), Victoria Pendzick (NY), MaLynda Poulsen (ID), Marina Povalishina (CA), Lisa Qualls (TX), Todd Reed (IL), Gina Robbins (IL), Jimmy Salmon (TX), Suzanne Schireson (RI), Gary Schmitt (IN), Steven Silberg (MD), Paul Sisson (CO), Cara Sullivan (AR), Paul Valadez (TX), Mark Vargo (LA), Harei Waja (TX), Margi Weir (MI), Peggy Wyman (MO), Timur York (NY), Zach Zecha (PA), and Zijie Zhu (NY).
About the Competition
The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. This long-running juried competition also showcases some of America’s best curatorial talent. Recent jurors include Sandra Firmin, Colorado University Art Museum; Kelly Shindler, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; George Shackelford, Kimbell Art Museum; Liza Simone, Phantom Galleries, Los Angeles; Alison Greene, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; David Houston, currently Bo Bartlett Center; and Miranda Lash, currently Speed Art Museum.
This year 384 artists, representing 42 states and Washington D.C., entered 1070 works of art for consideration by our juror. From that group, Hughes selected 72 works of art by 72 artists representing 30 states. Our exhibition will truly give you a sense of best studio practices by artists working all over the country. Upon seeing the entries this year, Hughes became interested in how artists’ work related to the historical genres of still life, portraiture, history painting, genre painting, and landscapes. Come and see what is happening everywhere, here!
Juror, Holly E. Hughes
Godin-Spaulding Curator & Curator for the Collection.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Holly E. Hughes is the Godin-Spaulding Curator & Curator for the Collection. Ms. Hughes, who is the first Albright-Knox Art Gallery curator to hold an endowed position at the museum, centers her curatorial practice on researching and organizing exhibitions that consider in-depth the museum’s Collection. She also works closely with artists in developing site-specific installations and oversees the management of the Fine Art, Digital Assets, Library, Archives, and Special Collections. Most recently, Hughes co-curated the exhibition, Monet and the Impressionist Revolution 1860–1910, which illustrates Monet’s seminal contributions to the development of modernism. She also co-curated the large-scale exhibition, Screen Play: Life in an Animated World, which to date comprises the largest survey of contemporary artists employing animation as a predominant tool in their practices. Other projects she has organized in the past three years include a comprehensive portraiture exhibition drawn entirely from the museum’s Collection entitled Eye to Eye: Looking Beyond Likeness (2015), as well as Dan Colen: Shake the Elbow (2015); Arturo Herrera: Little Bits of Modernism (2015); Sweet Dreams, Baby! Life of Pop, London to Warhol (2013); One Another: Spiderlike, I Spin Mirrors (2014), an exhibition focused solely on female artists from the Collection; and Kelly Richardson: Legion (2013), a major mid-career survey of her immersive video works. Forthcoming projects include organizing a mini-survey exhibition of emerging artist Torey Thornton in 2016 and an exhibition of large-scale drawing, which will open in spring 2017.
Past projects include an installation at Buffalo’s Central Terminal with artist Spencer Tunick (2004) and the exhibitions Bodily Space: New Obsessions in Figurative Sculpture (2004); Op Art Revisited: Selections from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (2008); Ingrid Calame: Step on a Crack…(2009); and Videosphere: A New Generation (2011). From 2002-2005, she served as the museum’s Project Director for The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, a large-scale exhibition that marked the first collaboration between two American art museums (the Albright-Knox and the University at Buffalo Art Galleries) and a major Chinese art institution to focus on contemporary Chinese art. Additionally, from 2002-2011, Ms. Hughes was the Adjunct Professor for Museum Studies at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. Hughes holds a BA in Fine Arts with a concentration in Photography and a minor in Art History from Buffalo State College, and a master’s degree with a major concentration in Contemporary Art and a minor concentration in Indigenous Art from the State University of New York at Buffalo.