Museum Modern

Warhol photos are among three exhibits taking place this summer. 

Three works from three exhibits that will be at the University Art Museum this summer: from left: Alex Bradley Cohen’s “Self-Portrait Yellow Glasses;"  Frances Stark’s “This Is Not Exactly a Cat Video: w/ David Bowie’s 'Starman;'” and Andy Warhol’s “Unidentified Boy (Wavy Blond Hair).”

ALBANY, N.Y. (June 20, 2018) — The University Art Museum will host three shows this summer, all opening Friday, June 29, and running through Sept. 15.

“Younger than Today: Photographs of Children (and sometimes their mothers)” by Andy Warhol features more than 50 Polaroids and photographs related to childhood, sibling and maternal relationships. “Younger Than Today” is part of “Warhol x 5,” a collaborative project curated from the holdings of University at Albany Art Collections; The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College; the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase; the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz; and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College.

All five colleges borrowed works from each other’s collections in order to present thematic exhibitions that focus on a different facet of Warhol’s photographic and print output. The respective exhibitions will be on view simultaneously during the spring and summer 2018 semesters.

UAlbany’s portion of the exhibit includes Polaroids and photographs of young children and adolescents taken by Warhol between 1974 and 1985. Warhol captures the vulnerability, poignancy and the lack of artifice that belong distinctly to the zone of the child. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by University Art Museum Curator Corinna Ripps Schaming and art historian Robert R. Shane.

“Mickey Mouse has grown up a Cow,” curated by Joe Mama-Nitzberg, presents videos by Kalup Linzy, Yoshie Sakai, Frances Stark and Abbey Williams. Seen in relationship to the work of Andy Warhol, especially his film practice, these videos address aspects of the representation of children and parenting. The exhibition’s title, a lyric from David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” connects Bowie’s gender-fluid glamour and his gift for iconic appropriation with Warhol’s far-reaching influence on a range of artists.

Frances Stark’s “This Is Not Exactly a Cat Video: w/ David Bowie’s ‘Starman,’” 2007, and Abbey Williams’s “OMG,” 2015, cast their own children in their works and incorporate Bowie songs in video soundtracks. Kalup Linzy’s “First Soap Opera,” 1994, and Yoshie Sakai’s “Koko’s Love: Episode 1,” 2014, owe a debt to the soap-opera like experimentation found in Warhol’s films.

“In ‘Mickey Mouse has grown up a Cow’ we find innocence, sentimentality, tenderness and nurturing alongside irony, critique and mourning,” says Mama-Nitzberg. “This ability to encompass seemingly opposing tendencies is what is perhaps the most Warholian trait of all.”

“Triple” brings together emotionally resonant new works by three artists who are redefining figurative painting and the contemporary portrait. Alex Bradley Cohen, Louis Fratino and Tschabalala Self move freely between abstraction and figuration in paintings that celebrate the complexities of identity, community and personal relationships.

From Cohen’s and Fratino’s intimate portraits of friends and partners to Self’s bold depictions of black female characters, these three young artists portray the world on their own terms. Unafraid to embrace and disregard traditional painting strategies simultaneously, their work reflects the generative possibilities of figurative painting at this precise cultural moment.

Public Programs

• Curator Talk with Corinna Ripps Schaming: noon on Wednesday, Aug. 1.
• Conversation with curator Joe Mama-Nitzberg and artist Abbey Williams: 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept.11.
• Art Lab with artist Christine Snyder (MFA ’16): 1-3 p.m. on three Saturdays: July 14, Aug. 25 and Sept. 15.

Museum Summer Hours: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; closed July 4. Regular hours resume Aug. 28: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; noon-4 p.m. Saturday.

For more information, call (518) 442-4035 or visit the Museum website.

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