Biennial 26: South Bend Museum of Art

Biennial 26: A Window Into Contemporary Midwestern Art

On view June 18 - September 11, 2011
South Bend Museum of Art | Warner Gallery








Exhibition reception: Friday, July 1, 2011 | 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Artists' panel at 6:00 p.m.; remarks by juror Betsy Carpenter

This exhibition features the work of twelve Midwest artists selected by juror Betsy Carpenter, Curator of Visual Arts/Permanent Collection, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

The exhibition is, as its title suggests, a window into contemporary Midwestern art, and provides a "core sample" of current artistic practices, offering insight into something vast and complex via a relatively small representative group. Visitors to the exhibition will be treated to a vast cornucopia of ideas, techniques and styles, and will emerge with a broader knowledge of contemporary artistic practices and thought.

In her Juror's Statement, Carpenter remarks:
"...there is a very Pollock-like all-over sensibility to much of the work on view that through the use of light, texture, patterning and color suggests the complete dissolution of the edges of the artworks and a continuousness of the imagery that seems to move in all directions simultaneously."
"...still other artists in the exhibition have mediated or hinted at (reality) through images and objects that intuit experience, memory, doubt and transformation."
"Each artist has created a singular body of work that makes a formal statement, revels in materials or process, and in some cases, carves out a conceptual territory all its own."

The Biennial is open to all artists residing in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin; these twelve were selected from among hundreds of entries. By deliberately limiting the selection, each artist is able to exhibit a greater body of work.

The following artists were selected by Carpenter from a pool of 279 submitting artists:

· Eleanna Anagnos (painting and sculpture) of Lake Forest, Illinois
· Michele Corazzo (painting and drawing) of Chesterton, Indiana
· Dana Depew (painting) of Cleveland, Ohio
· Ghosh (video installation) of Athens, Ohio
· Joyce Haughey (mixed media collage) of Trafalgar, Indiana
· Lori Larusso (painting) of Lexington, Kentucky
· Andrea G. Miller (sculpture) of Madison, Wisconsin
· Judith Mullen (painting and sculpture) of Wheaton, Illinois
· Ben Pond (drawing) of Toledo, Ohio
· Michael Bill Smith (painting and installation) of Ogden Dunes, Indiana
· José Velazco (photography) of South Bend, Indiana
· Michael Willett (painting and installation) of Champaign, Illinois