Woodstock, NY – An exhibition titled “Focus: Art and Social Justice” opened Friday, January 28, at Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, 28 Tinker Street.
The gallery includes works by a select group of Hudson Valley artists who engage with themes of political or social justice. The opening reception is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 29th from 4-6pm
For this exhibition, the jury selected 11 artists from among 54 entries, the jury selected by Nina Stritzler-Levine, Professor of Curatorial Practice at the Bard Alumni Center. Artists cover a wide range of topics, including women’s rights, the Black Lives Matter movement, political freedom, immigration, and immigrant agricultural work.
In making her choices, Stritzler Levine was particularly inspired by the work of Hannah Arendt, the major political thinker of the twentieth century. Arendt is best known for her theory of the “banality of evil,” which questions the forces and motives behind atrocities and heinous crimes against humanity.
The show encompasses a range of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture and photography, and unites in its goal to encourage dialogue, build community and motivate individuals to promote social change. In a press release for the exhibition, the museum said that the exhibition also provides him with a welcome opportunity to examine his role and responsibility within the social and cultural landscape. By better understanding the questions of fairness and diversity that arise from advocating work of this nature, the museum gains insight into its own efforts to communicate, build community, and harness the power of art to do good, according to the release.
Exhibiting artists are Nick Abramson, Joanne Parker, Samantha Brinkley, Dorothy Broadhead, Barbara Esmark, Dan Goldman, Diane King, Norm Magnuson, Barbara Masterson, Jason Mons and Sobrina Troch.
Stritzler-Levine, along with her role at the Bard Alumni Center, is the Director of the Focus Project. She is the former director of the Bard Center Alumni Gallery, where she also served as director of curatorial affairs and head of gallery publications. She works in the fields of modern and contemporary architecture and design, and curatorial theory and practice, with a particular focus on alternative modernity, gender, race, class, gender, and the intersections of architecture and contemporary art. Several of her exhibitions and publications have won critical acclaim including “Eileen Gray”, “Artek and Altus”, “Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor” and “Joseph Frank: An Alternative View of the Modern Home”.
The exhibition runs through Sunday, March 13th. Exhibition hours are from noon to 5 pm from Thursday to Sunday.
Call (845) 679-2940 or visit woodstockart.org for more information.