To kick off the new semester, the Blaffer Art Museum is presenting an exciting line-up of innovative and promising art exhibitions, opening at 7 p.m. Friday.
The exhibitions opening this month are Anton Ginzberg’s “Terra Corpus,” “Antena” by Jen Hofer and John Pleucker and “Tears and Politics” by Phil Collins and Christian Jankowki.
Blaffer is also anticipating galleries to open Feb. 5, including “Slanted, Otherwise” by Anna Elise Johnson and “Window into Houston” by J. Hill.
For his museum debut in the United States, Russian artist Anton Ginzburg will present “At the Back of the North Wind” and “Walking the Sea,” parts one and two of a trilogy of works in film, photography, sculpture and paintings developed around historical and cultural conceptions of mythical or legendary landscapes.
John Harvey, the director of the Center for Creative Work at The Honors College, looks forward to Ginzburg’s exhibition with profound enthusiasm.
“My semester opens with Dante’s ‘Inferno’ at The Honors College, which means I’m elated, transfigured and zealous to begin,” Harvey said. “I’m fascinated and obsessed with Anton Ginzburg’s ‘At the Back of a North Wind,’ which offers not a fantasy but a glimpse into the mixture of fact and fiction that makes our world.”
“Antena” is a language, justice and experimentation collaborative founded in 2010 by Hofer and Pleucker, both of whom are writers, artists, literary translators, bookmakers and activist interpreters. It will encourage viewers to explore how critical views on language can help us re-imagine and re-articulate the worlds we live in.
Antena’s work revolves around the intersections of social justice, critical views on language, cross-cultural artistic production, reading, writing, bookmaking and the visual arts. It combines literary and visual arts with artists locally, nationally and internationally, from countries such as as Chile, Guatemala and Mexico.
Visitors are invited to join a public potluck and a writing workshop for Antena’s opening reception on Jan. 18.
“Tears and Politics” is based on one of the most popular Latin American telenovelas. The exhibit consists of two episodes, “Soy mi Madre” and “Crying for the March of Humanity,” and they engage the idea of exploiting the world market through the articulation and preservation of cultural difference. It serves as a powerful tool of self-representation and re-signification of the continent’s colonial legacy.
Visitors have the chance to view Blaffer’s exhibitions “Slant, Otherwise” and “Window into Houston” and, with the Houston Arts Alliance, Jo Ann Fleischhauer’s “What Time Is It?”
In “Slantwise, Otherwise,” Johnson introduces images of four international and influential public figures: Deng Xiaoping, Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan. The photographs are mounted on Plexiglas panels to fit each window frame. The black stripes create an optical effect and visually connects the individual images to bring a sense of movement.
Multimedia artist Hill will install a live performance, installation, sculpture, sound and video. Hill’s collaboration with a young circus performer adds to the element of surprise, creating the space to come alive.
As a newcomer to Blaffer’s events, Hill’s imaginative approach has caught print journalism senior Timothy Payne’s attention.
“One event that caught my eye was the ‘Window into Houston’ with the artist J. Hill. From what I understand, Hill will convert a street in Houston into a circus. It sounds fun,” Payne said.