January 16 – April 17, 2016
"The
Weatherspoon Art Museum at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro is pleased to
present the exhibition Colossus – Rosemarie Fiore: Falk Visiting Artist.
Inventive mechanics, choreographed
performance, and chance surprises come together in the work of Rosemarie Fiore.
For the past fifteen years, the artist has been painting with colored smoke
fireworks. Unlike the gunpowder based explosives frequently associated with the
term firework, these silent devices release
plumes of bright pigments, rather than colored flames. Fiore crafts tools that
both hold the smoke canisters and allow her to contain and direct the particles
they release. With small versions of these tools, she can work alone, merely
tilting her wrist or bending a finger—to guide the smoke across a sheet of
paper. With larger tools, she must enlist multiple people to bend, lift, and
pull together.
Regardless
of her exact tool and process, Fiore’s paintings result from the combination of
direction and chance—she selects the color of smoke canister and steers its
release, but variances in heat, air current, and rates of combustion ensure
that its marks defy prediction.
"The
artist is truly working in partnership with her tools and materials," says
Curator of Exhibitions Emily Stamey, "and the results are stunning."
Stamey also notes that "we are fortunate to be able to present not only
these dynamic paintings, but also a selection of the tools Fiore used to create
them, and those tools are likewise exciting artworks in their own right."
Until
recently, Fiore’s drawings comprised frenetic arrays of dots and dashes,
complex fields of marks with vivacious energy. Her more recent paintings,
however, offer quieter compositions—just a handful of circular forms appear to
hover and pulse rather than dash and dart. These new works invite a more
measured, meditative consideration.
Fiore
comes to Greensboro as a Falk Visiting Artist. Since 1982 the UNCG Art
Department has partnered with the Weatherspoon to bring nationally and
internationally recognized artists to campus through this program. While here,
Fiore will work closely with UNCG graduate students and give a public lecture
about her work.
Rosemarie
Fiore received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her
BA from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Her earliest Firework Drawings were developed at the
Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program in New Mexico; the Smoke Eclipse paintings were created at Sculpture Space in Utica,
New York; and her newest tool, Colossus,
was built here at UNCG with help from Art Department faculty and students. She
lives in the Bronx and is represented by Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles.
As the Spring 2016 Falk Visiting Artist at the Weatherspoon and the
Art Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Fiore will
present a lecture about her work and meet with MFA graduate
students. Special thanks to Christopher Thomas, Studio Foundations
Coordinator, Department of Art, UNCG and the 2014/15 Falk Visiting Artist
Committee.
Image top: Rosemarie Fiore, Firework
Drawing #26, 2009, lit firework residue on Fabriano paper, 41 x 48 in.
Museum purchase with funds from the Dillard Fund for the Dillard Collection,
2010.
Related
Education and Public Programming
Artist
Lecture: Rosemarie Fiore
Thursday, January
28, 6 pm
This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating
is limited. Doors open 30 minutes prior.
Noon @ the
'Spoon Public Tour
Tuesday, February
9, 12 pm
Noon @ the 'Spoon features a 20-minute tour of a
new exhibition. Offered every second Tuesday of the month. Free.
For
a complete, updated list of programs, visit http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
About the Weatherspoon
Art Museum
Mission
The
Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets modern and contemporary art for
the benefit of its multiple audiences, including university, community,
regional, and beyond. Through these activities, the museum recognizes its
paramount role of public service, and enriches the lives of diverse individuals
by fostering an informed appreciation and understanding of the visual arts and
their relationship to the world in which we live.
History
The
Weatherspoon Art Museum at The
University of North Carolina at Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941
and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the
campus, community, and region and its early leadership developed an
emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and
contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of
Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and
other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish
the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection.
Other prescient acquisitions during Ivy’s tenure included a 1951
suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Woman
by Willem de Kooning, a pivotal work in the artist’s career that was
purchased in 1954, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to
enter a museum collection.
In
1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone
Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell Giurgula. The museum has
six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of
exhibition space. The American
Association of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its
accreditation in 2005.
Collections +
Exhibitions
The
permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is considered to be one of
the foremost of its kind in the Southeast.
It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th
century to the present. Of the nearly 6,000 works in the collection are pieces
by such prominent figures as Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Al
Held, Alex Katz, Henry Tanner, Louise Nevelson, Mark di Suvero, Deborah
Butterfield, and Robert Rauschenberg. The museum regularly lends to major
exhibitions nationally and internationally.
The
Weatherspoon also is known for its adventurous and innovative exhibition
program. Through a dynamic annual calendar of fifteen to eighteen exhibitions
and a multi-disciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the
museum provides an opportunity for audiences to consider artistic, cultural,
and social issues of our time and enriches the life of our university,
community, and region.
Weatherspoon Art Museum
The
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Spring
Garden and Tate Streets, PO Box 26170
Greensboro,
NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu"
- A Press Release
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