The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) Presents Warhol: Unidentified in the Collection Teaching Gallery, showing 83 photographs of unidentified subjects
Part of Warhol x 5, a collaboration of five Hudson Valley university art museums all presenting complimentary exhibitions in 2018
On view April 8 – May 27, 2018 Opening reception on Sunday, April 8, 2018 from 1:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY, March 2018 – Warhol: Unidentified presents 83 photographs by Andy Warhol whose subjects are currently unidentified. These photographs were gifted to CCS Bard in 2008 by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program through which the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts donated over 28,500 photographs by Warhol to educational institutions across the United States. Warhol: Unidentified is part of Warhol x 5, a collaboration of five Hudson Valley university art museums that have coordinated to present complimentary exhibitions on Warhol in 2018 centered around these donations. Warhol: Unidentified is on view in the CCS Bard Collection Teaching Gallery in an archival display designed to facilitate the study context of the material.
The gift that CCS Bard received includes images of well-known figures like Bella Abzug, Cheryl Tiegs, Dorothy Hamill, and Sitting Bull, artists Joseph Beuys, Francesco Clemente, and Julian Schnabel, as well as the CCS Bard Founder Marieluise Hessel, but the curatorial team chose to focus on the images of unidentified people. Alex Kitnick, part of the team of faculty and staff who organized the exhibition wrote: “We look at these unidentified images differently than celebrity portraits. Though Warhol once claimed that ‘everybody looks alike and acts alike’ celebrity, certainly a name, sets people apart. The label ‘unidentified’ has an air of mystery or unreality about it; one might think of Unidentified Flying Objects, or hear a wisp of criminality (consider unidentified assailants or victims). For Warhol, these unidentified people possessed a secret power: ‘When you just see somebody on the street, they can really have an aura,’ he once wrote. Indeed, there is an erotics of the unknown and the unspoken.”
The “Unidentified” photographs will be shown alongside eight photomechanical prints of legendary portraits and images from the 1970 Multiples, Inc. publication, Artists and Photographs by Lawrence Alloway, which come from CCS Bard’s own holdings of Warhol’s work.
Warhol: Unidentified is organized by Marcia Acita, Director of Exhibitions and Operations, CCS Bard; Lauren Cornell, Director of Graduate Program and Chief Curator, CCS Bard; and Alex Kitnick, The Brant Foundation Fellow in Contemporary Arts, Bard College.
Participating institutions in Warhol x 5 are The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, the Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, State University of New York, and the University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York.
Also on view:
2018 Spring Exhibitions and Projects - Presenting 15 exhibitions curated by CCS Bard Master’s Degree Candidates, featuring the work of more than 50 major international and emerging contemporary artists including Frances Barrett, Bernadette Corporation, Youmna Chlala, Susan Cianciolo, Moyra Davey, Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, Glen Fogel, Hervé Guibert, Leigh Ledare, Park McArthur, and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz.
General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found on its website at: www.bard.edu/ccs.
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BARD COLLEGE CONTACT:
Mark Primoff
Director of Communications
Tel: +1 845.758.7412
Email: [email protected]
CCS BARD CONTACT:
Ramona Rosenberg
Director of External Affairs
Tel: +1 (845) 758-7574
Email: [email protected]
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