Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose
Akron Art Museum • Karl and Bertl Arnstein Galleries
Through May 7, 2017

Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose showcases the work of 51 remarkable contemporary artists whose work has been featured in the pages of Hi-Fructose magazine. Informed by street art and graffiti, tattoo art, comics and animation, these artists also draw inspiration from art history, Old Master artists and folk traditions. Richly layered narrative imagery, renderings in vivid color or brooding gray tones, stylized figures and imagined creatures are just some of the recurring elements in the internationally influential magazine founded ten years ago by Annie Owens-Seifert and Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert. Turn the Page offers the opportunity to view lush original works of art beyond the flat worlds of paper and digital screens, where they are most often seen. In person, the artists’ skill and the richness of the works they create is even more evident.

The artists represented come from a variety of backgrounds and live around the world. Their diverse practices incorporate both new and traditional artistic processes, from video to oil paintings, bronze and ceramics. With their art, they tell stories and create visual experiences both beautiful and grotesque. They make statements on a variety of issues, including the risks facing the natural world, war, social justice, sexuality, and human struggles both personal and universal. For a complete listing of the 51 contemporary artists in the exhibition and related programming, visit AkronArtMuseum.org.

Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose is organized by the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.  Generous funding is provided by the City of Virginia Beach, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Tourism Corporation, as well as other MOCA supporters.

Its presentation in Akron is supported by Ohio Arts Council, the Calhoun Charitable Trust, Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, LLC and the Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau. Media sponsorship is provided by Western Reserve PBS and 91.3 The Summit.

 

Gross Anatomies
Judith Bear Isroff Gallery
Through July 30, 2017

The sculptures, drawings, prints and paintings on display in Gross Anatomies feature grotesque representations of the human form. Drawn entirely from an Akron-based private collection, the artworks in the exhibition transgress social norms, amuse, titillate and befuddle us, and in some cases, gross us out. The bodies depicted in Gross Anatomies morph and decompose. They have piecemeal forms, assembled from disparate parts. They openly engage in impolite bodily functions. These grotesque creatures may confuse us, appearing as two opposite-seeming things at the same time, such as cute and creepy.

Due to their in-between, misfit nature, grotesque images have a subversive power that threatens to overturn social conventions. Their strange, and often humorous, forms present opportunities for typically hidden or taboo subjects to surface. Contemporary artists turn to grotesque themes to address issues related to inequity by creating parallel worlds with alternative power structures. Some artists in this exhibition employ their subject matter to explore negative emotions they may not otherwise feel comfortable expressing; others seek simply to shock, or to challenge commonly held notions about sex, gender, mental health or the body. The works on display in Gross Anatomies depict bodies behaving outside accepted conventions of etiquette and science in ways that both disgust and delight, while never failing to provoke thought and discussion.

Gross Anatomies is organized by the Akron Art Museum and supported by funding from the Ohio Arts Council.

 

Family

Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Gallery

Through August 13, 2017

Family is a fundamental social construct in every culture. In addition to parents and children and others related by blood or by law, partners, friends, neighbors, church members and colleagues may assume the role of family in instilling values, offering protection and establishing and maintaining cherished traditions. Family offers a source of stability, yet births and marriages, dissolutions of relationships, aging and death recurrently alter its structure and dynamics. Many of these events are accompanied by formal rites of passage. Other, more subtle changes in family relationships occur from day to day and may only be recognized over the course of time.

These varied relationships are a rich resource for artists, as reflected in photographs dating from 1940 to the present that record the estranged as well as fond exchanges that characterize families. Images by 18 artists, including Diane Arbus, Mike Disfarmer, TR Ericsson, Danny Lyon, Mary Ellen Mark and Carrie Mae Weems, offer insights into the intimate, spontaneous, prescribed and strained interactions that distinguish the families we inherit, create and adopt. Works on view were selected with an expansive definition of family and to stimulate conversations about the intentions of the artists and the individual perspectives each visitor brings to the exhibition.

Family is organized by the Akron Art Museum and supported by funding from the Ohio Arts Council.

 

 

Please Touch

The Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Gallery

March 2 – July 16, 2017

The exhibition Please Touch shakes off all of the traditional hands-off museum goer behavior and asks visitors to use their sense of touch to experience the artwork. For Please Touch, the Akron Art Museum commissioned regional artists Jay Croft, Jordan Elise and Christopher Lees, and Erin Guido and John Paul Costello to create new works that engage audiences of all ages in new and unique ways. Inspired by childhood games, puzzles and lift-the-flap books, each artist has created a touchable work that visitors can manipulate as they make meaning of it in their own way.

Please Touch is organized by the Akron Art Museum and supported by a generous gift from The Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation.

 

Exhibitions on view (For the Blue Box in Member Content)

Turn The Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose | Through May 7, 2017

Karl and Bertl Arnstein and Judith Bear Isroff Galleries

 

Gross Anatomies | Through July 30, 2017

Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Gallery

 

Please Touch | March 2 – July 16, 2017

The Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Gallery

 

Serial Intent | June 3 – September 10, 2017

Karl and Bertl Arnstein Galleries

 

Akron Art Museum

One South High Street

Akron, Ohio 44308

Akronartmuseum.org

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