NORMA MINKOWITZ
August 4 - 31, 2007
Bellas Artes will present Passion of the Line, an exhibition of a new body of work by sculptor Norma Minkowitz from August 4-31. This exhibition marks her twentieth anniversary with the gallery.
Working with fiber, wire, resin, and found materials, Minkowitz has transformed the craft of crochet into a potent and timeless art form. Using fiber as line, she expands her passion for drawing and linear expression into the third dimension. Structure becomes surface as she draws in space, cross hatching and varying the weight of fibers. Many sculptures are reminiscent of radiolarians, the beautiful sea creatures explored in drawings by German biologist Ernst Haeckel and investigated by French artist and structural engineer Robert Le Ricolais. Le Ricolais once said, "the art of structure is where to put the holes." Minkowitz understands this principle. The holes in her work create windows-transparent surfaces that enhance the integrity of volume and form, yet mysteriously reveal interior realms. Inspired by the natural world and the human body, she puts forms inside of forms, evoking universal themes-both psychological and mysterious. The content is as engaging and enigmatic as her impeccable craftsmanship.
A lush musicality inhabits these works. Minkowitz comes from a family of musicians - her grandfather was a composer, her father a concert pianist, her mother a vocalist, and her uncle a violinist. If one sees the stitches and lines in her work as a fabric of notes, the holes become the spaces between notes. How one plays and shapes these spaces is the essence of music. Minkowitz plays her spaces, bringing forth darkness and light, mystery and wonder.
The idea of containment has become an ongoing investigation in the artist's oeuvre. Although her new body of work still retains transparency and opacity, the sculptures seem more contained- denser both physically and emotionally. Drawings on the surface reveal the underlying structure, challenging and extending our understanding of transparency. The artist says, "the hidden areas become mysterious and ominous, revealing layer upon layer of elaborate tracery that mimics the irregularities of line drawing. The momentum of motion strives to conceal and reveal each element of crosshatching, stitching and painting in pursuit of a complex structure that invites the viewer to contemplate concept as well as process."
Perhaps Kathleen Whitney's words best express the artist's intention. "Minkowitz draws from a vocabulary of emotionally charged forms that are the result of her attempt to find a clear, visual language that, although intensely personal, is neither privileged nor private. Her work speaks clearly of her own intense involvement with it. Her work refuses to pander to its viewer; instead, the viewer is allowed to collaborate, to blend personal experience and imagination within Minkowitz's transparent arenas."
Minkowitz's art is included in twenty-five public collections throughout the world. Many works are owned by museums in the United States, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Wadsworth Atheneum, Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
PORTRAITS AND PASSAGES
October 5 - November 2, 2002
Minkowitz' focus on drawing the human body while a student at Cooper Union School of Art followed by years of experimentation led to her mature work in fiber. In 1983 she crocheted around a shoe, removed the shoe and discovered that she had created a transparent form. Since then she has been making crocheted sculptures stiffened into hard transparent forms which are powerful metaphors for containment, shelter and confinement. Through human and plant forms, Minkowitz explores the mysteries of nature by drawing the viewer into her psychologically charged sculptures. With her unusual sculpting technique, Minkowitz has turned the lowly women's craft of crochet into a complex contemporary art form.
The portraits in Minkowitz' sixth exhibiton at Bellas Artes range from the bust of a Victorian lady with the painted illusion of confinement called "Silent Woman" to a transparent sphere titled "Inside" with openings in the webbing through which the viewer becomes the portrait in a concealed mirror. The passages include "Sequence", a four part wall work which follows the passage of a rose from one state to another.
Minkowitz' work is in numerous collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Craft Museum in New York, the National Museum of Art (Smithsonian) in Washington D.C., the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.
Résumé
Born 1937, New York City
Education and Awards
Cooper Union Art School - Graduated 1958
2003 Fellow of the American Crafts Council
2002 Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship
2000 United Nations Association, Award honoring 100 outstanding Connecticut Women
1992 Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Purchase Award
1987 Visual Reservoirs: Object and Images In-Of-Under- About Surface; Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, CA
1986 National Endowment for the Arts; Visual Arts Fellowship
1986 Artquest '86, Parsons School of Design
1976 Convergence '76; Fibre Structures; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute
Selected Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
National Museum of Art/Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
M.H.de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
Denver Art Museum, CO
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI
Detroit Institute of Arts, MI
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR
Montreal Museum of Art, Canada
Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texas
Kwang Ju Museum, Kwang Ju, Korea
Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM
Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA
Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, WI
Jack Lenor Larsen/Long House Foundation
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa OK
Decordova Museum of Art, Lincoln, MA
State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts
Selected Exhibitions
2007 "The Wornick Collection", Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2007 "One of a Kind : The Studio Craft Movement", Curated by Jane Adlin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
2007 "Debut : Textile Art Acquisitions", Curated by Dr. Alice Zrebiec, Denver Art Museum
2005 "No Boundaries, Art + Fiber", Denver Art Museum, Curated by Dr. Alice Zrebiec
2004 Traditions/Transitions/The Changing World of Fiber Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Curated by Carol Dean Krute
2003 Corporal Identity-Body Language, 9th Triennial for Form and Content: Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum of Arts and Design, NYC, Catalog
2003 College of Fellows, Aileen Osborn Webb Award Exhibition, SOFA, Chicago, Curated by Paul Smith
2003 Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Hartford, CT
2002 Fiber Art: Following the Thread, Smithsonian Archives of American Art Research Center, New York
1999 Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan, Catalog
1998 9th International Triennial of Tapestry, Invitational, representing USA, Lodz, Poland, Catalog
1992 Modern Design: 1880-1990, Twentieth Century Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Exhibition book published
1991 Art in Embassies Program, US Dept of State, Warsaw, Poland
1990 The Female Form in Contemporary Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, from Permanent Collection, Curated by Andrea Miller-Keller
1990 Exploring the Figure through Sculptured Form, Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, Curated by Allison Cywin
1987 A Sensitivity of Textile - A Proposal for a New Century, International Textile Competition, Kyoto International Conference Hall; Japan
1986 Fiber R/Evolution, Milwaukee Art Museum and the University Art Museum at UWM; Tour; Catalog
1985 The Flexible Medium: Art Textiles from the Museum Collection, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1977 Fiberworks, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland,Ohio, Catalog
1976 Fibre Structures, Museum of Art, Carnegie Insitute, Pittsburgh,PA, International; Catalog
1976 Second International Competition of Miniature Fibre Work, British Craft Centre, London, England; Catalog; Tour
1974 Portable World, Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum; Catalog
Solo Exhibitions
2007 "Passion of the Line", 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2005 New Arts Gallery, Litchfield, CT
2002 Portraits and Passages, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1999 New Sculpture, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1996 Out on a Limb, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Bridge IV, Norma Minkowitz, Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, PA
1995 Exposed/Enclosed, Norma Minkowitz, H. Pelham Curtis Gallery, New Canaan, CT
1994 Sculpture, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1993 Norma Minkowitz 1986-1993, The Wetsman Collection, Birmingham, MI
1992 Exposed/Enclosed, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1991 The Body as Vessel, Bellas Artes Gallery, NYC
1990/1989 Norma Minkowitz, Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1987 Two Person Award Show, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
Selected Publications
2007 "The Wornick Collection", Gerald Ward, MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2006 The Magazine of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
2005 Sculpture Magazine, "Writing Around Space", Kathleen Whitney, October
2005 Feature, Westport Magazine, "Crossing Lines", Susan Garber, April
2004 "Norma Minkowitz Portfolio Collection", Monograph, Telos Art Publishing, Brighton, England, Kathleen Whitney, Jane Adlin, David McFadden
2004 SOFA CHICAGO Catalog, "Spaces Within," Essay by Kathleen Whitney
2003 Corporal Identity - Body Language, 9th Triennial for Form and Content, Catalog, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC
2003 CRART Magazine, September 2003, No. 25, Essay by Mee Hye Lee, Seoul, Korea
2003 Art News, January 2003, Norma Minkowitz/Bellas Artes, Review by Dottie Indyke
2003 Fiberarts Magazine, March/April, "Portraits and Passages", Bellas Artes, Review by Ruth Lopez
2002 Surface Design Journal, "The Importance of Being Fiber", Twylene Moyer, Vol 26, #4
2002 Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Oral History program
2000 Nouvel Object III and V, Sept 1997 and 2000, Seoul, Korea
2000 American Craft, Feb/March, Norma Minkowitz/ Bellas Artes Gallery, Review by Kathleen Whitney
Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, Yokohama Museum of Art, Catalog.
1996 The Magazine: Santa Fe, Out on a Limb, works by Norma Minkowitz, Review by Christine Hemp
1992 Fiberarts Magazine, Norma Minkowitz: The Body as Vessel, Reviewed by Betty Freudenheim
1990 The New Textiles, Trends and Traditions, Chloe Colchester, Rizzoli
1990 Modern Design 1890-1990 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, R. Craig Miller
1990 Norma Minkowitz: Shadow Boxes, Review by Margo Shermeta, American Craft Magazine, Dec/Jan
1989 The Tactile Vessel, Jack Lenor Larsen, Erie Art Museum
1988 Columbia University ; Oral History Archives of Fiber Artists, Greenwood Press
1986 Fiber R/Evolution; Milwaukee Art Museum; Rosalie Goldstein; Burton & Mayer
1977 Fiberworks; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Catalog
Professional
2004 Museum of Arts and Design, Illustrated Lecture
1990/2003 Juror, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, grant applicants
2001 Katonah Museum of Art, Illustrated Lecture
1998 Connecticut Artist's Collection Advisory Committee, Connecticut Commission on the Arts
1987 Lecture and Panel Discussion - Fiber R/Evolution, Brockton Art Museum