Marie Watt: Blanket Stories: Almanac
September 30, 2006 – January 21, 2007

This exhibition will feature new and recent works by Portland, Oregon, artist Marie Watt. Using symbolic materials such as reclaimed blankets to communicate ideas about her First Nations’ heritage, the artist draws attention to simple everyday items in our lives that are infused with meaning, but are often taken for granted. Inspired by Native American blankets and their history, Watt’s wall-hung fiber works, sculptures and lithographs explore cultural identity by combining the ancient form of blanket making with the aesthetic of 20th century modern painting. Her fiber and bronze sculptures investigate cultural connections, from a personal as well as a universal perspective.

Contemporary Northwest Art
Selections from the Permanent Collection
August 13, 2005 – ongoing

Art and artists of the Northwest region and Idaho have been a primary focus of exhibition and collecting programs throughout the history of Boise Art Museum. Over the years, the collection has grown through the support of Collectors Forum, Museum purchases and substantial gifts from generous donors. This exhibit highlights some of the more recent acquisitions, including paintings, sculpture, ceramics and glass by artists working in the Northwest today. Spectacular artworks by Hung Liu, Kerry Moosman, Lucinda Parker, Kumi Yamashita and Darren Waterston are among the selections on view.

Washington artist Darren Waterston’s large-scale painting reflect abstract biomorphic forms in a unique style of paining. Emulating the appearance of “old master” paintings, Waterston paints on wood panels using layers of rich oil varnish and hot wax, or encaustic, to give the illusion of depth and luminosity to the painting’s surface. Waterston attended the Acedemie der Kunst, West Berlin, and Fachhochschule für Kunst, Münster, West Germany, where he studied old master paintings and learned the art of restoring illuminated books and manuscripts. The inspiration for much of the artist’s work comes from this interest and knowledge of arcane and natural sciences, widely varied religious and philosophical beliefs, and a romantic feel for the history of painting.

Brian Murphy paints self-portraits using a hand-held mirror. Unlike traditional portraits, this image shows the artist sleeping. He magnifies his image and only reveals a portion of his face to the viewer. While the sole subject matter is himself, his work is not about self-regard as much as it is about capturing elusive moments. Murphy graduated from the University of Washington School of Art in 1999.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful
July 15 – October 22, 2006

Frank Lloyd Wright’s passion was creating a new way of life for Americans through architecture. Although his career included many large public commissions, his homes designed for similarly committed clients remained a creative center throughout his career. This exhibition will present his philosophy for creating highly integrated interiors that radiated a sense of inner beauty and modern spirit through the design of furnishings and objects within it. The exhibition will include over 100 original objects designed by Wright including furniture, metal work, textiles, drawings, and accessories. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

For information on the Frank Lloyd Wright
gala fundraising event:
An Evening in the Garden (PDF)

Through June 18, 2006

Glenn C. Janss of Sun Valley, Idaho, an art collector and long-time supporter of the Boise Art Museum, has given over 100 paintings and drawings to the Museum's Permanent Collection. This exhibition includes a selection of recent gifts featuring botanical and outdoor scenes.

Bill Richards, Variation III, 1989, graphite on paper, 5 ½” x 4 ½”, 2006.005.006, Gift of Glenn C. Janss

Red Grooms, Greek Still Life, 1983, watercolor on paper, 23 7/8” x 18”, 2006.005.002, Gift of Glenn C. Janss

December 17, 2005 – June 18, 2006

This recent gift to the Boise Art Museum features Asian ceramics, primarily consisting of Chinese porcelains from the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries represents the culmination of Chinese ceramic art. The greatest achievement was in the field of over-glaze enamels in which pictorial art is painted on elegant vases, bowls and plates in subtle and varied coloration. Many of the porcelains are decorated with finely drawn landscapes, birds, flowers and genre paintings. The 77 works on view include elegant examples of Chinese imperial porcelains, objects of daily use and Chinese export ware. Idaho native Helen M. Bacon spent more than three decades assembling this magnificent collection.

Clyde R. and Helen M. Bacon Collection

Native Perspectives on the Trail
A Contemporary American Indian Art Portfolio
March 18 – June 4, 2006

Native Perspectives on the Trail: A Contemporary American Indian Art Portfolio features 15 original prints created by contemporary Native American artists in response to themes surrounding the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial commemoration. This exhibition challenges accepted artistic and social histories, and replaces cultural conventions with insightful humor, energy and talent. The artists hail from First Nations around the country.

Preview this exhibit

Deborah Oropallo: Twice Removed
April 8, 2006 – June 18, 2006

This exhibition will present approximately 20 new and recent works by California artist, Deborah Oropallo. In her recent work, Oropallo combines the mediums of traditional painting, computer technology, and photography to create large-format digital prints on the forefront of new art media. She reveals the intense beauty and meaning inherent in everyday objects by producing stunning large-scale works using images of common objects drawn from her surroundings.

Sponsored by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Catalog sponsored in part by:
Gail Severn Gallery
Box 1679
Ketchum, Idaho 83340
website:http://gailseverngallry.com

Stephen Wirtz Gallery
49 Geary St.
San Francisco, CA 94108
district: Downtown/Financial District
phone: 415-433-6879
website: http://www.wirtzgallery.com

More information on Deborah Oropallo

The Daily News features eleven American-based artists who appropriate the form and content of newspapers in their art. As a powerful instrument for expressing opinions and a major generator of American popular thought and culture, the print media, most notably the daily newspaper, plays an important role in the cultural, political and social history of the United States. It both reflects and molds our modern society, informing the public and shaping our view of ourselves and the processes by which we choose our leaders, make our rules and construct our values. Print news remains an important source of information for the general public. Visual artists, as informed, responsible citizens, respond both positively and negatively to the messages the papers deliver. The newspaper gives artists a visual language in which they can comment on everything from war, poverty, health and entertainment to political, environmental and technological issues.

Northwest Perspectives:

November 26, 2005 – March 12, 2006

This exhibit will feature approximately twelve new and recent works by Portland artist Hildur Bjarnadóttir. A native of Iceland, Bjarnadóttir is internationally recognized for her contemporary interpretations of traditional craft forms such as weaving, needlework, and crochet. Her work defies conventional definitions of art versus craft. Indeed, the fraught relationship between textiles and painting forms a central theme throughout Bjarnadóttir's work, which questions traditional notions of “high” and “low” art, gender and technique. Bjarnadóttir’s artwork embodies both old and new, compelling audiences to examine the ways in which cultural traditions continue to inform contemporary values and forms of artistic expression.

Sponsored in part by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Tchotchke, 2003
velvet pile embroidery
26”x32”x2”
Collection of the Artist

More on David Burtynsky

Georgia O'Keeffe
Waterfall - No. III - 'Iao Valley, 1939
oil on canvas, 24" x 20"
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Gift of Susan Crawford Tracy, 1996

Georgia O'Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime was curated by Joseph S. Czestochowski. Organized by International Arts, Memphis, TN.
©2004 Courtesy of International Arts, Memphis, Tennessee

Sarah Jaeger
Covered Jar, 1987
porcelain
12" x 11.5" x 7.5"
Courtesy Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana

Since first displaying his art in 1963, the Boise Art Museum has collected the work of Idaho artist James Castle (1900-1977) through purchase and donation. As a result, the Museum has the largest collection of Castle's work held by a museum. The exhibit, James Castle, will feature all eighty-three works from the Museum's permanent collection and will be accompanied by a scholarly catalog published in conjunction with the show. This will be the first time the Museum's collection has been exhibited and documented in its entirety. James Castle, a self-taught artist, was born deaf and never learned to read, write or use sign language. He did, however, develop a highly sophisticated means of communication through drawing and devoted a lifetime to the creation of his own unique images. He produced drawings, assemblages and books representing landscaps, interiors and fantasy forms. Castle ignored traditional drawing materials in favor of discarded cardboard, scraps of paper and homemade charcoal and dyes.

Sponsored by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., the Paul and Charlotte Corddry Family Fun of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, and MWH Americas, Inc.

James Castle
Roadway Perspective Landscape, date unknown
soot on cardboard
5-1/4" x 7-1/4"
Donated by the A.C. Wade Castle Collection, L.P.

Wells Fargo is supportive of the Boise Art Museum through generous sponsorships, and in 2004, through an outstanding donation of twenty works of art, primarily from the Northwest, created from the 1960s to the 1990s. Important artworks by Northwest masters Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, Margaret Tomkins and George Tsutakawa are among the significant works gifted to the collection and featured in this exhibition. The distinctive quality of the Northwest is demonstrated in themes of regeneration and transformation and the relationship of man to his environment. What distinguishes these works is the artists’ use of neutral colors and frequent use of symbolism to express ideas. BAM has selected paintings and sculpture from its growing Northwest Collection to augment and complement this generous Wells Fargo gifts.

Mark Tobey
Remembrance in Light, 1942
Tempera on artist board
Permanent Collection
Collectors Forum Purchase

Organized every three years, the Idaho Triennial is a statewide, juried art exhibition that reflects the quality and diversity of artwork being created in Idaho. This year’s guest juror is Arthur C. Danto, one of America's most inventive and influential art critics and philosophers. Mr. Danto is professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and art critic for The Nation. He is the author of several books on art criticism, including Encounters and Reflections, Philosophizing Art, and The Madonna of the Future. For this year's exhibition, Mr. Danto selected 65 works by 27 artists. The quality of work submitted was exceptional, making this year's selection process extremely competitive with a total of 1284 entries submitted by 257 artists. A color catalogue of the show will be published, and selected works will travel to the Prichard Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow (August 17 - October 1, 2005) and Herrett Center for Arts and Science, College of Southern Iaho, Twin Falls (October 25 - December 17, 2005).

Sponsored by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Keys to the Koop features the work of 16 printmakers who find humor and satire in contemporary art, fashion, food, religion, politics, and other aspects of popular culture. Included in the exhibit are works by Mark Bennett, Enrique Chagoya, Roy DeForest, Tony Fitzpatrick, Ellen Gallagher, David Gilhooly, Red Grooms, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Gene Gentry McMahon, Claes Oldenburg, Tad Savinar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, and William Wegman.

Co-Organized by The Art Gym, Marylhurst, Oregon and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon.

Red Grooms
Times Square, 1995
lithograph, ed. 30/75
27" x 21.25" x 8.25"
Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer

John Grade’s intricate sculptures have their conceptual roots in the exploration of mortality. Made from wood, resin, and rubber, Grade’s sculptures are often large in scale, consisting of smaller interlocking elements. The detailed surfaces of his sculptures emulate the beauty, patterns, and structural elegance found in nature such as skins, shells, skeletal structures, or the effects of natural decay in animals and insects. The artist also links diverse cultural perceptions of death with his own interests in the decaying process, funerary structures, cemeteries, and burial mounds. Grade has traveled widely to research and investigate human funerary practices in Asia, Africa, and South America. Featuring recent sculptures and drawings by Grade, the exhibition will also be accompanied by the first catalog, published by the Museum, on this emerging Northwest artist’s work.

Supported in part by a grant from The Andy Warrhol Foundation for the Arts, Inc. Artwork courtesy of the artist, private collectors, and Davidson Galleries.

John Grade
Caudex, 2002
resin and wood
horizontal sculpture, 82
Courtesy of the Artist

Myth, Object, and the Animal includes twenty individual sculptures and two large wall installations created by the celebrated glass artist William Morris over the past two decades. In the 1980s Morris began his career as a master glassblower for Dale Chihuly. Since then, the artist has been highly regarded for his technical mastery of glass and innovative use of color, design, and surface texture in his blown glass sculptures and room-size installations such as Artifact Panel. Simulating the artificial remains of animal skulls, prehistoric vessels and ancient bones, he transforms the delicate medium of glass into archaeological inspirations borrowed from various cultures throughout time, each addressing a relationship between humans and their environment.

Sponsored by J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Beaux Arts Société, BAM Exhibition Guild, Boise Cascade Corporation, Albertsons Stores Charitable Foundation, Hackborn Foundation, Carnahan Foundation, J.R. Simplot Foundation, Micron Technology Foundation and Media sponsors Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau, The Idaho Statesman, and Idaho's NewsChannel 7.

Degas in Bronze: The Complete Sculptures offers viewers a rare opportunity to view an exhibition of 73 sculptures by the renowned French Impressionist artist Edgar H. G. Degas (1834-1917). Drawn from the collection of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil - one of only four complete sets of Degas’ bronzes in existence, this stunning exhibition features bronzes cast from the artist's original wax and clay models of his celebrated bathers, horses, and dancers. Featured among these bronzes is the beloved sculpture The Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, which Degas exhibited in the sixth exhibition of Impressionist art in Paris in 1881. Upon the artist's death, the bronze sculptures were cast under the auspices of Degas' family heirs.

In the 1870s, Degas emerged as a prominent member of the French Impressionists, a group of artists whose work captured a spontaneous, visual impression of a scene through light, color, or motion. Through his innovative compositions, skillful drawing, and perceptive analysis of movement, Degas was an acknowledged master at portraying the figure in motion.

Sponsored by J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Beaux Arts Société, BAM Exhibition Guild, Boise Cascade Corporation, Albertsons Stores Charitable Foundation, Hackborn Foundation, Carnahan Foundation, J.R. Simplot Foundation, Micron Technology Foundation and Media sponsors Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau, The Idaho Statesman, and Idaho's NewsChannel 7.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Degas in Bronze: The Complete Sculptures is organized by Joseph S. Czestochowski, International Arts, Memphis, Tennessee, from the collections of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil.

New Your artist Bing Wright's photographs evoke the quiet and melancholy of rainy afternoons. Created with an 8" x 10" view camera, these large-scale photographs are both a physical contemplation of the nature of vision, and a philosophical reflection on the material and spiritual world.

Bing Wright
Rain Window VII,, 1989
C-print ed. 5
62" x 38"
Courtesy of the Artist and Ochi Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho

Duty Cycle is a monumental sculpture by Seattle-based artist Cris Bruch. His meticulously crafted wheel measures seventeen feet in diameter and is constructed of heavy, structurally reinforced paper built in thirty-two individual wedge-shaped forms. In his grand-scale construction, Bruch reflects upon the cyclical nature of work, obligation, and duty. In making the cycle, the artist employed a repetitive process - a symbolic reminder that the form marks a passage of time. Bruch sees labor as the central theme of the piece and the form as a visual metaphor for duty, obligation, and responsibility. The sculpture Murmur and six additional drawings are also featured in the exhibition.

Sponsored by the Allen Foundation for the Arts.

Thin Skin brings together some of the most interesting contemporary artists and their recent work relating to malleable, inflatable structures. This show examines a new awareness of in-between spaces and our bodies as sensors as we move through space. Translucent and lighter than air, the bubble serves as a metaphor for the fragile world, for breath and life, and even for an alternative environment. Thin Skin includes video, sculpture, photography, and room installations by 21 international artists.

Thin Skin: The Fickle Nature of Bubbles, Spheres, and Inflatable Structures, is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York a non-profit traveling exhibition service specializing in contemporary art. The exhibition was co-curated by Barbara Clausen and Carin Kuoni. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by grants from Gerrit L. and Suydam R. Lansing, the Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., Stuttgart, and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cultural & Scientific Relations Division, and Consulate General of Israel in New York.

Presentation of Thin Skin at BAM is sponsored by the Beaux Arts Société and Boise Weekly.

After thirty years of teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California, Charles Gill moved to Boise, Idaho to pursue his studio efforts full time. Working in a variety of media including painting, printmaking, drawing, and mixed media, Gill captures the banality and awkwardness of ordinary, everyday life. The artist explores this theme in subjects ranging from the realistically rendered, sun-drenched homes of his Drywall Landscape series to the conceptually reworked interior designs of Headcheese. Thoughtful, mysterious, problematic, and at times humorous, the beautiful and rich execution of these works transcends their mundane origins making them something quite extra-ordinary.

German-born artist Till Freiwald creates large watercolor portraits of young, anonymous men and women. These extreme close-ups of impassively staring faces are based on small studies of his subjects created over the course of several sittings, with the final watercolor painted exclusively from memory. More than mere representations of his sitters, Freiwald's portraits project the artist's perception and memory of his subjects.

Sponsored by JAMM

Taking a conceptual approach to making art, New York artist, Pat Steir, has engaged in an ongoing conversation with art history; in particular, what constitutes a "painting" and the "act of painting." In the early eighties, Steir began her self-described water series. Poetic and beautiful, her paintings of waterfalls are recognized by their massive scale, rich surfaces, and gestural style of dripped and splattered paint richly layered on the canvas.

Pat Steir is made possible in part by support from the Corddry Foundation.

Curated from the museum's permanent collection and local collections, this exhibit investigates the landscape and environment according to the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. Literal and artistic views reflect our varied relationship with the land from idealized representations of cityscapes, industrial and agricultural landscapes to abstractions of imaginary places and ecologically comprised environments.

This exhibition features 18 black-and-white photographs by noted collector and photographer, Dale Walden. While working as an accountant for the southern Idaho and eastern Oregon Civilian Conservation Camps from 1938-1942, Walden documented the camps and his travels with his camera. Following his death in 1996, the artist's daughter, Edith Walden, found several boxes of his old negatives. Recently reprinted by Seattle photographer Catherine Hart Walker, these images reflect Walden's lifelong interest and aptitude for photography, while offering viewers a glimpse into Idaho's past.

In recognition of a major donation of artwork from Sun Valley collector Wilfred Davis Fletcher, the Boise Art Museum is presenting a major exhibition of the collection's 199 objects including paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, ceramics and ethnographic objects. This is the largest and most significant gift given to the Museum to date. Among the internationally known artists included in the collection are Jonathan Borofsky, Richard Diebenkorn, Nancy Graves, David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Serra. A fully illustrated catalog documenting the gift will accompany the exhibition.

Internationally recognized performance artist Matthew Barney is best known as the producer of the Cremaster films, a series of five visually extravagant and imaginative works. the films are a mixture of history, autobiography, mythology and an intensely private universe of densely layered symbols and images. In Cremaster I, Barney returns to his hometown of Boise, Idaho for the setting of the second film in the Cremaster series which are created out of sequence. the film takes place on the distinctive blue-turf stadium of Boise State University's Bronco football team with the heroine, Goodyear, and a cast of lavishly costumed flight attendants and chorus girls. Barney's films and props have been exhibited and collected internationally. He has received numerous awards including the prestigious Europa 2000 prize at the 45th Venice Biennale and was the first recipient of the Guggenheim Museum's Hugo Boss Award. Recently, he was featured on PBS' Art in the Twenty-First Century. For more information on Matthew Barney and the Cremaster films, go to www.cremaster.net.

Featured in the Museum's dynamic sculpture court, Merry-Go-World Or Begat By Chance and The Wonder Horse Trigger (1991-94), is a striking room-size, colorful assemblage - a sculpture constructed from found and fabricated materials - created by the artists Ed & Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Merry-Go-World is a fairground carousel with horses, giraffes, elephants, flashing lights, and fairground music suggesting an atmosphere of fun and laughter. Yet, with a spin of the wheel on the outside of the carousel, the visitor can open and view one of eight different rooms each depicting a different scene of global poverty. the scenes provide a striking contrast to the comparative wealth of our own society.

Taking cues from birds, beavers, and other nest builders, North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty weaves sticks, branches, and twigs into mammoth environmental sculptures, using only his hands and a small pair of clippers as tools. No hardware binds the wood together; instead, he twists sticks, and they tangle up just enough so that each supports the final structure. While at BAM, Dougherty will create a site-specific installation that will inhabit and converse with the Museum's sculpture court using natural materials gathered from Boise.

BAM presentation of Head Strong has been made possible in part by the Beaux Arts Société, the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, Wells Fargo, and Idaho's NewsChannel 7.

Experience one of the world's great civilizations in a spectacular exhibition that will explore the history and transformation of Egyptian art over the course of 3,500 years. Ranging from the pre-dynastic to Roman period, this exhibit will feature the sculptural reliefs of Queen Nefretiti and King Akhenaten, the gold signet ring of Ramses IV, a statuette of Isis, as well as terracotta pottery, granite, alabaster, and limestone sculptures, gold jewelry, amulets, and religious and imperial objects.

Curated by Jim Romano, Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, In the Fullness of Time borrows masterpieces from 19 premier collections of Egyptian art throughout the country. Organized by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, In the Fullness of Time: Masterpieces of Egyptian Art from American Collections was supported by a major grant from an anonymous donor, with additional support provided by the Wyse foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the City of Salem (through the City of Salem's Transient Occupancy Tax Funds). Sponsored in part by the Wells Fargo, BEG, Micron Technology Foundation, The Corddry Foundation, The Hackborn Foundation, and The Idaho Humanities Council.

BAM is presenting an exhibition featuring the Cartonnage Mummy Case of Pa-di-mut, 22nd Dynasty, (945-730 B.C.E) on loan from the Harvard Semitic Museum and related Egyptian funerary objects from the University of Utah’s Egyptian collection. The nearly 3,000 year-old Cartonnage was discovered in 1901 buried in a mound of limestone chips outside the entrance to the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut’s engineer near Thebes. This exquisitely decorated Mummy Case is being conserved especially for the BAM’s presentation and is being exhibited outside the Semitic Museum collection for the first time in nearly 100 hundred years. In addition to the cartonnage, related funerary objects on loan from the University of Utah’s Egyptian Collections will give further insight into Egyptian rites and funerary traditions. Works in the exhibition span 3,000 years from the Predynastic to Ptolemaic periods with a selection of objects that include necklaces, amulets, an alabaster vase, and papyrus sandals.

Courtesy of the Semitic Museum, Harvard University and Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah. Sponsored in part by the Wells Fargo, BEG, Micron Technology Foundation, The Corddry Foundation, The Hackborn Foundation, and The Idaho Humanities Council.

In 1995 when freelance photographer Monda Rafla visited Cairo to reconnect with her family, culture and native homeland, she also captured the Islamic monuments and residents of this ancient city with her rich black and white photographs. Over twenty of these images will be presented. Also showing in the gallery will be videos from the Egypt Beyond the Pyramids series.

Gary Hill creates complex video installations. For more than twenty years, Hill has used video imagery along with the computer's technical capabilities to explore time as a meditative element. Describing his multi-media installations as "time based sculpture," his work is derived from sculptural notions of sound, the body, and speaking. Hill's subjects arise from philosophical debates about relationships among images, language, and the structure of consciousness. Four video installations will be presented, with one new work especially commissioned by the Boise Art Museum.

Courtesy of the Gary Hill Studio and Donald Young Gallery. Sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Allen Foundation for the Arts.

As the recipient of a Museum Loan Network grant, which facilitates the sharing of art and objects of cultural heritage, BAM presents an exhibit of important works of Chinese and Japanese art. These rare and exquisite works of art have been loaned to the Museum from the permanent