Post by CAM on Jun 20, 2024 12:08:00 GMT -5
cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/exhibitions/rodin-response-field-family-secrets/
Rodin | Response
FIELD family secrets
June 14–September 8, 2024
Vance Waddell and Mayerson Galleries (Galleries 124 and 125)
Free Admission
Press Release
Posing unexpected questions, Rodin | Response: FIELD family secrets represents the culmination of a research and creative project led by artist and educator Mrin Aggarwal (Supermrin). On view are works by contemporary artists (including Supermrin) and University of Cincinnati (UC) undergraduates, and objects spanning the breadth of CAM’s collections.
At the center of the exhibition stand four full-scale bronze figures by renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917) on loan to the museum through the generosity of Iris Cantor. Rodin conceived the statues in the 1880s as part of The Burghers of Calais. In this revered work, the artist reoriented the long tradition of the sculptural monument in Europe by shifting the focus from triumphant glory to human suffering, changing what forms and meanings a public monument can take.
Informed by Supermrin’s own practice, titled FIELD, Rodin | Response serves as an artistic reply to Rodin’s Burghers. Supermrin, along with her undergraduate students at UC’s School of Art and consulting artist Laura K. Reeder, created nine works which present contemporary sculpture as inheritances—the “family secrets” embedded within the fragmented legacies of colonialism and the early modernism of Rodin’s era.
In addition to the Rodin sculptures, the exhibition also displays an array of objects from CAM’s collections—including an Egyptian mirror circa 2000 BCE and a ball of rubber harvested from the Congo river basin in 1890—all provoking different responses from the artists on view.