The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Exhibits study human body, prayer pilgrimage
HAMILTON, N.Y. » The Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University will open two new public exhibitions Sept. 19.
Drawing primarily from the Picker’s permanent collection, “Embodied” explores how artists engage with the body as a subject and as a metaphor. For some artists, the body becomes a site for examining contemporary concerns about identity, race, gender, politics, and sexuality; others experiment with figural representation to study the anatomical composition of the human body. Featuring 39 works from the 16th century to the present by artists such as Diane Arbus, Alexan- der Archipenko, Claude Cahun, Paul Cézanne, and Philip Pearlstein, the exhi- bition demonstrates the inherent power of the body to
convey personal, social, and political meanings.
As part of the exhibition-related programming for “Embodied,” Syracusebased multimedia and performance artist Jessica Posner will be in residence at the Picker Art Gallery from Oct. 19-26. The residency will entail live performances, workshops, and events to engage a range of audiences with a contemporary artist whose work addresses themes of the body and its relationship to broader social and political contexts and histories. Activities include a performance of Butterface, in which the artist sculpts ten pounds of unsalted butter onto her head; a performance workshop led by Posner to further develop Mother, a scene from her film Butter Body Politic (2017), incorporating human and animal movement, where participants experiment, play, and connect to the physical, social, and emotional wisdoms present in interspecies interactions; a butter-making workshop; and a talk by the artist.
Also opening at the Picker is “Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” which brings together 58 black-and-white photographs by Friedlander documenting the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a critical yet generally neglected moment in American civil rights history. On May 17, 1957—the third anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Educa- tion of Topeka, which outlawed segregation in public schools—demonstrators united in the first largescale gathering of African Americans at the National Mall. Friedlander photographed many of the illustrious figures who attended or spoke at the march, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Mahalia Jackson, and Harry Belafonte, and he wove among the demonstrators on the ground to capture the energy and expressions of the day.
Special events to accompany the exhibition include a talk by exhibition curator La Tanya S. Autry on Sept. 19, presented in collaboration with the Department of Art and Art History, and a Nov. 30 student-led discussion on the roles of demonstration and activism in shaping issues of race, gender, and identity, organized in collaboration with the ALANA Cultural Center.
“Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer and Pilgrimage for Freedom” is organized by La Tanya S. Autry, curator of Art and Civil Rights at the Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College and former Marcia Brady Tucker Fellow, Yale University Art Gallery.
The Picker Art Gallery is open Tuesdays through Fri- days, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.; and the third Thursday of every month, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Picker is closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, visit colgate.edu/picker or call 315-228-7634.