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The Evergreen Forum
MUSEUMS AND MORE |
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This three-session course will look at two major collections, which together span the history of the art of Russia, at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. We will begin with the Riabov Collection which covers some 1000 years. The focus, however, will be on the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art, assembled largely during successive repressive Soviet administrations. The largest such collection anywhere, it was amassed by Norton Dodge, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, beginning in the late 1950s. Installed in its own wing at the Museum, this landmark collection comprises approximately 10,000 works of art in a stunning range of media.
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The first session will be an overview of the art of Russia in preparation
for a museum visit. This will be followed by a trip to the Zimmerli
for a docent-led tour of the Riabov and the Dodge collections. The
tour will begin with a short visit to the Riabov for context followed by a
more careful consideration of the non-conformist works in the Dodge. These
late 20th century paintings, collage, mixed media sculpture, and large-scale
installations are remarkable for a variety of reasons. To begin with,
most of them were brought to this country by being smuggled out of Russia.
Their size alone puts this feat in the remarkable category. Equally
impressive is the fact that, in a society where all new ideas were
suppressed, this sub-rosa population of determined artists produced a body
of work that can easily hold its own, aesthetically, with that produced
elsewhere. The collection includes fine examples of style, strong
political statement, and a diversity of content and form that serves as
testimony to the power of artistic expression under the worst of
circumstances. At our last session the class will meet to discuss and analyze what we have seen at the museum. Leader: Helen Schwartz is a local artist and writer. Wednesday: 10.00 a.m. to noon, 3 weeks, beginning Sept. 26
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609-924-7108