Fall Exhibitions 2008

September 5 – October 25, 2008
Opening Friday, September 5 from 5:30 – 8 PM
6:30 PM The Artist Talks with Richard Hunt


MAIN AND EUCLID AVENUE GALLERIES
Richard Hunt: Shaping the Spirit
Richard Hunt’s abstract, lyrical, smaller bronze and stainless steel sculptures and his maquettes for his huge public pieces, with photomurals of the completed works, fill two galleries.  Richard Hunt, an eminent Chicagoan whose work has been lauded since the early 1960s, was the first African-American artist to have a one-person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and has received more commissions for sculpture than any American artist. His early works in bronze and some recent stainless steel pieces were cast at a Cleveland foundry. His bronze sculpture Sentimental Scale and Wedge (1977), commissioned by the City of Cleveland, stands beside the Justice Center.

Richard Hunt
Tower of Aspirations
2002
Welded stainless steel 45’H x 16’W x 16’D
Springfield Village Park Augusta, Georgia
Image courtesy of the artist


Richard Hunt
We Will
2005
Welded stainless steel 35’H x 8’W x 8’D
Heritage Building, Chicago, IL
Image courtesy of the artist

November 7 – December 20, 2008
Opening Friday, November 7, 5:30 – 8 PM

6:30 PM The Artist Talks with T.R. Ericsson and Scott Westover, Curator of the Progressive Corporation Art Collection in the Euclid Avenue Gallery

7:15 The Artist Talks with Curtis Mitchell in the Main Gallery

MAIN GALLERY
Curtis Mitchell: Personas
In his most recent series Personas, Curtis Mitchell appropriates eloquent film moments, as the scene in The Godfather when Don Corleone dies while chasing his grandson in an apple orchard. Mitchell projects himself and the viewer into the roles of the protagonists by altering the film to hide their faces, places a photographic print on the floor on which he has exactly recreated their footsteps, and makes an accompanying sculpture.

For The Sculpture Center exhibition, Mitchell will show excerpts of two films. The gallery will be arranged in such a manner that the viewer will block certain parts of the film while watching it, thus creating the interaction with the protagonists and placing that person into the various roles.

Curtis Mitchell’s work, often seen at New York galleries, was last shown in this area at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA, in 2003, at P.S.1 MoMA in 2006, and this summer at Maisonneuve, Paris, in The Word Is…/Bill Albertini, Jan Kopp, Curtis Mitchell. Mitchell, a New Yorker, is the fall 2008 Visiting Professor of Sculpture at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Curtis Mitchell
Godfather
2007
9 x 11 x 21 ft.
video projection, altered C-Print, rubber matting, logs, paint.
Image courtesy of the artist.

EUCLID AVENUE GALLERY
T.R. Ericsson: Heaven leans its heavy hand in a flashing drop of dew so its giant sky won’t break in pieces.
This installation is under development. The exhibition will focus on the launching of the 14th edition of Thirst, Ericsson’s long running self-published limited edition artworks that often take the form of a magazine, and the theme of narcissism. The viewer will be placed into the role of Narcissus searching for Echo, and Ericsson will look at his own work from the vantage point of this theme.

Ericsson’s artwork is based upon the lives of his immediate family of grandparents, uncle, mother, and father, and his upbringing with them in Cleveland. All Ericsson’s family on his mother’s side died over a 5 year period. He often exhibits sculptural objects that he has made in response to these losses, actual objects and memorabilia that he unexpectedly inherited, and self-published magazines about these experiences. With these objects he explores the lives and creates “portraits” of his family members and, obliquely by association and by his choices and omissions, of himself. Ultimately the objects and installations activate in the viewer the emotions that the artist has experienced.

The Sculpture Center exhibition is being held in conjunction with Narcissus at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, 740 W. Superior Ave., Suite 101, Cleveland (Nov. 15 – Dec. 20, opening Nov. 15), an exhibition of Ericsson’s recent graphite drawings for the series by the same name.

Ericsson divides his year between Cleveland and New York. His most recent exhibition was at Heidi Cho Gallery in New York (Oct. 2007). His work is held in the collection of the Progressive Corporation.

Gallery Hours: Wed - Fri: 10am - 4pm, Saturday: noon - 4pm, or by appointment
Always Free and Open to the Public. Groups and Tours by Appointment.

For more information call 216.229.6527 or go to info@sculpturecenter.org.

The Sculpture Center is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to the advancement of the careers of emerging Ohio sculptors and the preservation of Ohio outdoor sculpture as a means to provide support for artists and to effect the enrichment, education, enjoyment, and visual enhancement of the Cleveland community and greater region.

The Sculpture Center is supported by an anonymous donor, individual donors to Friends of The Sculpture Center, Studio Techne Architects, and the Bernice and David E. Davis Art Foundation, the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, and the Ohio Arts Council.

Gallery hours: Wednesday through Friday, 10 AM to 4 pm, Saturday 12 noon to 4 pm or by prior appointment (Free Parking, Handicapped accessible)