��Vlog��ý Little Rock Art Gallery to highlight recent acquisitions from permanent collection

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 20:11:24 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Art Gallery will showcase new pieces of art that the university has added to its permanent art collection over the past two years. The new exhibition, “Recent Acquisitions: ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Permanent Collection,” will be on display in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus from June 5 to July 15. “The scope of the collection continues to grow, and efforts have been made to include more voices from around the world,” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Gallery Director Brad Cushman said. The university permanent collection is comprised of drawings, paintings, fine art prints, artists’ multiples, photographs, graphic illustrations, political cartoons, sculptural objects, ceramics, and contemporary crafts. Pieces in this exhibition include 14 works from the Pierrette Van Cleve Collection. Earlier this year, Van Cleve donated 42 pieces of artwork from her personal collection from Southeast Asia, including pieces from Cambodia, India, Vietnam, Tibet, and China. This includes work by artists Oeur Sokuntevy, Linda Saphan, Surjit Akre, Shaw Ghosh, Ha Manh Thang, Phan Thanh Minh, Jangyung Jiang Jung, and Liu Yan. Also on display are two large-scale black and white photographs by Benny Gool, one featuring Nelson Mandela surrounded by children and another of Mandela speaking to a large crowd of people. Gool is a South African photojournalist best known for his work documenting Mandela in tens of thousands of photos he took over three decades documenting the historic leader’s life. Jeff Jaffe, gallery owner of Pop International Galleries, Inc. in New York City, donated five works by Benny Gool to the university. The Windgate Charitable Foundation continues to support the gallery programs and acquisition fund at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. With the foundation’s support, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock acquired several contemporary craft objects from the Penland School of Craft and the Blue Spiral Gallery in 2018. Included in this exhibition are objects made by Thomas Campbell, Jenny Mendes, Ronan Peterson, Kristin Stingle, Liz Summerfield, Shoko Teruyama, and James Viste. Summer gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment. For more information, contact Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu or 501-916-5103. In the upper right photo, Oeur Sokuntevy’s 2015 painting, “What My Father Gave Me,” is shown.

Art collector donates painting to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 13:18:28 +0000

An art collector who was so moved by her experience visiting the students and employees of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has donated a painting to the university. Art collector Pierrette Van Cleve visited ��Vlog��ý Little Rock from Sept. 4-6 to give lectures to art students and to attend a reception for an art exhibit that was displayed at the Windgate Center of Art and Design. The exhibit, “Memory/Commitment/Aspiration,” featured work from the Pierrette Van Cleve Collection and serves as a backdrop for a new art history course, Global Contemporary Art, being taught this fall by Dr. Lynne Larsen in the Department of Art and Design. The artwork explores the moral and political oppression of people living in Southeast Asia and India. “When the show opened on Wednesday, most of the students were there looking at the paintings, asking me questions, and wanting to take pictures with the works and myself,” Van Cleve said. “I found them to be curious, intelligent and introspective about the depth of the collection’s subject matter. I remember on my last day, after all the lectures and openings were completed, a young woman came up to me and said, ‘I want to be you in my career.’ I smiled and told her the best thing she could ever be was herself.” Van Cleve has traveled throughout Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Tibet, China, and India, establishing personal relationships with artists in these countries. As a collector, Van Cleve is drawn to stories about freedom, equality, and fights for justice. Memory, commitment, and aspiration fuel these defiant and powerful artistic voices. The conditions of life these artists have survived and experienced and what they hope to obtain in the future are hallmarks of their creative output. “Pierrette Van Cleve was so moved by the exhibition and her experience at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock that she has gifted a painting to the university collection in my honor,” said Brad Cushman, director of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Art Gallery. “It is a great honor for me, and the piece donated is a very powerful and expressive painting.” Cushman and Van Cleve have known each other since 2009, when Cushman was curating the exhibit, “El Grito: The Cry for Independence,” on display at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock.

Art collector Pierrette Van Cleve stands in front of the painting, “My Surrounding People,” that she donated to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in Brad Cushman’s honor. Photo by Ben Krain.

“It was part of the citywide project called Arkansas Celebrates Mexico 2010. Pierrette represented the artist Hugo Crosthwaite which we included in the 2010 exhibit,” Cushman said. “Both Pierrette and Hugo came to campus to work with our students at that time. We also have Hugo’s work in the university collection.” Van Cleve donated a painting, “My Surrounding People,” by Phan Thanh Minh. The painting features expressive faces on electric orange skeletal figures crowded together with their hands shielding the exchange of whispers and rumors. “I decided to donate the painting in honor of the exhibition that Brad had curated of my collection,” Van Cleve said. “It was my gift to the university as well as a nod to Brad’s decision to show this collection of southeast Asian contemporary art. I also wanted to honor Brad’s years of curatorial vision, his dedication, and the gallery which bears his name.” Van Cleve recalls how she first came across the painting in Hoi An, Vietnam, in 2009. “I was walking across a bridge outside of the city center and I smelled oil paint. I looked around and there was a doorway tucked away at the end of the bridge,” Van Cleve said. “I wandered into the studio of Phan Thanh Minh and was greeted by these amazing paintings.” Although she did not speak the artist’s language, their love of art brought them together. “Neither Minh nor I spoke each other’s language to any extent but the work, so passionate and powerful, bonded us together,” Van Cleve said. “I looked at him amazed and smiled, and he did the same. I relished in his work and bought two paintings. He somehow explained to me, I think he might have brought a friend in that spoke English, that these works were about surveillance. If citizens saw or heard something that was considered subversive or anti-communist and they reported it, they would be paid when the person was arrested. Ming’s art put him at risk.” In the upper right photo, Brad Cushman (right) visits with art collector Pierrette Van Cleve (left) in the Windgate Center of Art and Design. Photo by Ben Krain.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

����Vlog��ý Little Rock Art Gallery to highlight recent acquisitions from permanent collection

Art collector donates painting to ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Art Gallery to highlight recent acquisitions from permanent collection

Art collector donates painting to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock