By Karen Bloom
This being a presidential election year, even that becomes a topic for museum-goers! Here are some highlights:
Adelphi University
Adelphi University's Fifth Annual Outdoor Sculpture Biennial is currently installed throughout the landscaped arboretum gardens and pathways of the University’s Garden City Campus, The exhibit features the diverse works of 14 sculptors, with installations by distinguished artists from seven countries as well as the U.S.
The artists use a variety of approaches, from formalist, primary sculptures to works dealing with social and political issues that raise questions about what art is and its place in our everyday experience. The sculptors featured in this show include Richard Brachman, Steven Ceraso, John Cino, Jack Dowd, Nicolae Golici, Maria A. Hall, Jerelyn Hanrahan, Ugur Kunst, An Ti Liu, Molly Mason, Puneeta Mittal, Edwina Sandys, Linda Stein, and Pal Svensson.
The exhibit remains on display through April 1, 2010, at 1 South Ave., Garden City, For more information, call (516) 877-4462.
Hofstra University
Hofstra University is currently featuring two exhibits. The Emily Lowe Gallery presents “The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali.” On view in this original exhibit are photos that capture Ali’s life, including his boxing career, family life, humanitarian work, and Olympic events. Photographers include Annie Leibovitz, Gordon Parks, Steve Schapiro, Thomas Hoepker, Sonia Katchian, and Art Shay, among others. The exhibit runs through Dec. 2.
At the David Filderman Gallery “The Presidents: 1933-2001, History of Presidential Conferences at Hofstra University,” is the subject of special exhibit that ties into the recent debate between the two presidential candidates hosted by Hofstra. Archival photographs, documents, and memorabilia from Hofstra’s presidential conferences are on display, along with artworks reflecting the eras and decades of these presidents.
Both exhibits can be seen through Dec. 8. The Emily Lowe and David Filderman Galleries are located at Hofstra University's Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library,
Hempstead. For information, call (516) 463-5672 or www.hofstra.edu museum.
Nassau County Museum of Art
NCMA offers a look at Tiffany stained glass and Art Nouveau world that Tiffany inhabited, through its two fall exhibits: “Tiffany Lamps: Articles of Utility, Objects of Art” and “Tiffany and the Gilded Age.”
At the height of the Gilded Age, Louis Comfort Tiffany created a glamorous environment based on his own designs in his fabled Oyster Bay home, Laurelton Hall. The stained glass, replete with luscious depictions of poppies, grape vines, lotus, daffodil, dogwood, wisteria, are used in magnificent lamps and windows. Approximately 45 major works are shown, with displays of how the glass and lamps were made.
Tiffany’s light-filled Orientalism and his employment of fanciful Art Nouveau lines contrasted sharply with the era’s prevailing dark Victorian décor and had a powerful influence in the shifting of design tastes of the wealthy and famous of the Gilded Age. The second exhibit, “Tiffany and the Gilded Age” places Tiffany’s glass, ceramics, jewelry and silver in the context of related paintings, sculpture and furniture of Tiffany’s times, presented in a typical room environment.
Both remain on view through Jan. 4, 2009.
Nassau County Museum of Art is located at 1 Museum Dr., off Northern Blvd., Roslyn Harbor. Admission: $10, $8 seniors, $4 children. Call (516) 484-9337 for information or visit www.nassaumuseum.com.
The Heckscher Museum of Art
The works of evocative Israeli American artist Michal Rovner are the subject of The Heckscher’s popular exhibit, “Michal Rovner: Video, Sculpture, Installation,” which has been extended through Nov. 9.
Known for creating multimedia work on the edge, Rovner explores the new fragments of the human condition. Rovner’s art transcends genres, involving photography, video, sculpture, installation, light, and sound. Many of the pieces in this exhibit have never been seen publicly before.
Rovner’s dazzling video installations are projected onto walls or onto large rocks. Teeming masses of anonymous figures appear like text or signals overthe planes and surfaces.They give a sense of mass humanity, of a dynamic culture, and of man’s vulnerability.These silhouetted figures strike an eerie balance between reality and an invented universe.
Visit the Heckscher Museum of Art at 2 Prime Ave., Huntington. For information, call (631) 730-3250 or visit www.heckscher.org.
