IZHAR PATKIN: THE WANDERING VEIL AND SURREALISM AND MAGIC Two major exhibitions January 27 – April 5, 2015 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art
The Boca Raton Museum of Art celebrates its 65th anniversary with two major exhibitions on view to the public January 27 through April 5, 2015. Izhar Patkin: The Wandering Veil features an installation of monumental works, which envelope viewers with ghostly images appearing to float on air. Surrealism and Magic brings a survey of artwork and personal artifacts that illustrate the inspiration of magic, the occult, and arcane that influenced Surrealist painters such as Kurt Seligmann, Roberto Matta, Salvador Dali, and others. Both exhibitions are accompanied by a schedule of lectures and panel discussions that can be found at www.bocamuseum.org.
Izhar Patkin: The Wandering Veil
Filling the galleries with mural-sized paintings on translucent tulle and mesh, Israeli-born, New York-based artist Izhar Patkin invokes themes of memory, loss, love, and exile; inviting the viewer to peer through the veil and the metaphor of images imposed upon them. “The exhibition is a journey and a story, and a query about how fiction and visual representation shape reality and challenges the ideologies of pictorial space,” said Patkin.
With extraordinary range in materials and subjects, Patkin’s works include video, glass, and porcelain sculptures among his labyrinthine yet intimate veil paintings. Subjects explored are diverse as the condition of exile; the German Jewish Mendelssohn family; an 18th century porcelain factory; extinct birds; Biblical and contemporary Israel; and Miguel Cervantes’ hero Don Quixote. The exhibition unfolds in narratives told by related groupings of work urging the viewer to look in, look down, and look through the images. Much of the work included in The Wandering Veil premiered in Tel Aviv and was first shown in the United States to wide-acclaim at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Grand in scale, yet a surprisingly intimate exploration of personal narrative and political metaphor, the exhibition is curated for the Boca Raton Museum of Art by Kathy Goncharov, Curator of Contemporary Art.
Surrealism and Magic Andre Breton, author of the cultural movement’s first Manifesto, called for “a profound, veritable occultation of Surrealism,” in pursuit of authentic expressions of creative unconscious uninhibited by rationality. A fascination with the occult and esoteric sought to bridge the worlds of unconscious and conscious, real and the surreal.
Inspired by the magic-themed library of Swiss-American Surrealist painter Kurt Seligmann (1900-1962), this exhibition includes rare books from the 15th to 20th centuries, correspondence, ephemera, music, and film on subjects including astrology, alchemy, spiritualism, tarot, demonology, and Voodoo.
The exhibition comprises more than 115 works that explore the Surrealists’ interest and explorations into magic, arcane learning, and indigenous spirituality, and includes paintings and works on paper by Seligmann, André Breton, Roberto Matta, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Tanquy, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Wilfredo Lam, and René Magritte.
Surrealism and Magic is curated by Andrew Weislogel, Curator of Earlier European and American Art (Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art) and Laurent Ferri, Curator of the Pre-1800 Collections, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Cornell University, Carl A. Kroch Library. The exhibition is organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.
Concurrently on view January 27 through April 5, 2015 are Abstractions on Paper: Selected Works from the Boca Raton Museum and Private Collections curated by Marisa J. Pascucci, Curator of Collections; and Museum Art School Faculty Exhibition, curated by Walter O’Neill, Director of the Art School.
Sunday, March 8 at 3:00 p.m. Boca Talks: Magic Circles, Kurt Seligmann and the Surrealists’ Encounter with the Occult. Dr. Andrew Weislogel, curator of the Surrealism and Magic exhibition, explores how Seligmann’s magical art, learning and relationships with fellow Surrealists marked the movement. Free to members or with paid admission of $12 for non-members.
Founded in 1950 by the Art Guild of Boca Raton, the Museum’s collections, innovative exhibitions, and educational programming are international in scope and reflect the creative expression of the Florida region. In 2001, the Boca Raton Museum of Art moved into its new home in the heart of Mizner Park. The Art School, located nearby on West Palmetto Park Road (the Museum’s original location), offers more than 100 weekly classes in a variety of media for adults and children. The Artists’ Guild remains a strong auxiliary of the Museum with more than 350 artist-members who actively exhibit throughout the area and whose work may be seen at the Artists’ Guild Gallery on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.
On view starting April 21 through July 12, 2015 will be Helena Rubinstein: Beauty is Power. The Museum is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am until 5pm, on Thursdays from 10am until 8pm, Saturdays and Sundays from Noon until 5pm and is closed on Mondays and holidays. Adult admission is $12, Senior Citizens are $10, children age 12 and under and students with IDs are free. For additional information please visit the website at bocamuseum.org.
