On its 27th year, the Annual Positive/Negative National Juried Art Exhibition focuses on the theme “Material Transformation.”

The exhibit is from Feb. 20 to March 2, with the awarding reception and juror’s lecture on “Lee Krasner: A Biography” on Friday, Feb. 24, at 5 p.m., Ball Hall Auditorium, the book signing follows at the Slocumb Galleries.

Presented by the Slocumb Galleries, Department of Art & Design, Department of Literature and Languages, Women’s Studies Program and the ETSU Student Government Association B.U.C. Fund. The author’s book signing is for the benefit of the Dr. Karen Cajka Memorial Scholarship.

This year’s juror is Dr. Gail Levin, art historian and biographer. She has taught 20th-century art, American Studies and Women’s Studies at the Baruch College and Graduate School at City University of New York.

Levin was a former curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and has curated international exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery.

Levin has written extensively about Edward Hopper, 20th-century American art, women’s art, Judy Chicago, and her most recent publication is a biography about Lee Krasner.

Her essays have been published internationally, and she has written reviews for the New York Times, American Art Review, Asian Art News (Hong Kong), The Los Angeles Times, Art Research (Japan), Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (UK), Women’s Art Journal, BolaffiArte (Italy), Jong Holland (the Netherlands), Arte y Parte (Spain), Archives of American Art Journal and the Smithsonian Magazine, to name a few.

One of the criteria that Levin considered was the artists’ use of non-traditional materials in new and regenerative ways, within the theme’s parameters while creating a new object out of repurposed materials.

To create something entirely new from something that was once viewed by our society as something to throw away is amazing. Levin mentioned that history is full of artists such as Lee Krasner and Pablo Picasso who have done similar things with their art, and it is in itself, a tradition that will continue on.

In her selection process, the juror focused on work by artists who explored their media within a culture of a “throw-away society” and expanded its boundaries to create new work.

Levin stated in her juror statement, that it is her hope that “while the works stay within the theme, these works should speak to each other, to create a voice that is greater than the expected sum of its discrete parts.”

The juror selected 44 artists out of 113 artists’ submissions, four of whom are ETSU alumni.

For more information, contact Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, director of Slocumb Galleries at 423-483-3179 or email contrera@etsu.edu.

Visitors may also visit www.etsu.edu/cas/art/slocumb or ETSU’s PlanIt Calendar under the Museums/Galleries or Visual Arts categories for event listings.

For event invites, friend Slocumb Galleries on Facebook.

 

Author