Current Hood exhibits showcase contemporary art and themes

The Hood Museum of Art’s final exhibitions before its March close for renovation reflect the Hood’s future vision.The museum’s most recent exhibitions include the series “Ice Cuts” by Vermont-based artist Eric Aho, the mixed-media African exhibit “Inventory: New Works and Conversations Around African Art” and “Points of View,” which is curated by two Dartmouth professors, senior curator of collections Katherine Hart said.The Hood will also present an installation on last year’s Nepal earthquake, featuring photographs by Jim Nachtwey and Kevin Brubriski, as part of the three-day summit on Nepal sponsored by the Dickey Center for international understanding, Hart said.“The Hood’s goal is to engage with contemporary art as a leader rather than a follower,” Hood Museum director John Stomberg said.As innovative contemporary shows, “Ice Cuts” and “Inventory”, particularly promote the museum’s ultimate vision, Stomberg said.“Ice Cuts”, inspired by a hole cut in the ice in front of a sauna, largely focuses on contrast, Hart said. Aho reiterates the series’ central motif — the ice cut — in an effort to explore other aspects of composition such as color, texture and positioning. As a result, each painting remains distinctive yet continuous, Hart said.“[Aho’s show] is unusual in that it is so abstract and has become increasingly abstract in many ways,” Hart said.Aho’s collection signifies a “push and pull between abstraction and representation,” which highlights the Hood’s curatorial practice as a whole, Stomberg said.“[Ice Cuts] is an incredibly outward-looking show,” Stomberg said. “It is a show that any major museum could and should be doing right now.”“Inventory,” which contains 31 works ranging from paintings to ceramics to photographs, showcases modern and contemporary African art from the 1960s to the present, Hart said. “Inventory” displays works acquired within the last two-and-a-half years, and seeks to present a more “holistic” view of the arts of Africa, curator of African art Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi said.This show indicates the progressive direction in which the Hood’s African art collection will go after the museum’s expansion, Nzewi said. Nzewi wants to obtain more contemporary and modern African works so that the Hood can more actively “engage in current discourses in academia.” At the same time he intends to remain faithful to traditional African art and objects, Nzewi said.“This exhibition, in its more contemporary focus, dovetails the museum’s goals of expansion and thinking towards the future,” Hood curatorial intern Sarah Lund ’16 said.“Inventory” features the notable piece “V12 Laraki” (2013) by artist Eric Van Hove: a replica of a Mercedes Benz engine reassembled with unconventional materials, including leather and precious metals. Nzewi said that this work combines the custom of craftsmanship in North Africa with the industrialization of the West.“This exemplifies the hybridity and cultural dialogue that is central to [Inventory],” Nzewi said.Very few American institutions have access to art from all of the regions in Africa, and it is “distinctive and unusual” that the Hood has such an expansive African collection, Stomberg said. “Inventory” provides a forum to finally “show it off,” Stomberg said.The Hood’s expansion, which will begin this March, will create five new gallery spaces to display the museum’s rich repertoire of both traditional and contemporary art, Stomberg said. It will also create auxiliary object-study rooms so that students can more intimately interact with the works they are studying.The renovations will construct a large vestibule entryway featuring prominent glass doors — one of which will lead into the museum, and the other of which will lead into three additional fully-digitized classroom spaces, exhibitions designer Patrick Dunfey said.“Learning is the biggest part of our daily lives here at Dartmouth,” Dunfey said. “These centers will help to bring teaching [through] interacting with art more to the forefront.”Philosophy professor John Kulvicki said that he regularly brings his students to the Hood as a way to supplement their in-class curriculum. This term, his course “Philosophy and the Arts” considers more conceptually the role that arts and aesthetics play in society, Kulvicki said.“I want my students to become comfortable visiting museums and engaging with physical art so that they can connect it with the more abstract theories and discussions in the classroom,” Kulvicki said.Samantha Abreu ’16, an art history major, said she finds this type of engagement with the Hood’s pieces to be a uniquely valuable experience.“Actually seeing [the art] gives you something tangible,” Abreu said. “It provides you with real-life references to works that you otherwise just see on screen.”Dunfey said that he hopes that the renovations will ultimately allow the museum to become a more accessible and interactive space for everyone on campus.Art history professor Joy Kenseth, who is teaching “Introduction to the History of Art II,” said she almost always curates an exhibition at the Hood in conjunction with the course. She said she appreciates physical interaction with art as a way to present the works in their most “unmediated” form, Kenseth said.“It makes all the difference in the world,” Kenseth said. “Nothing can replace firsthand experience with art. Teaching in the museum is like teaching in Florence and Rome.”Kenseth, along with art history professor Mary Coffey, curated “Points of View” which pairs together seemingly disparate works and portrays them side-by-side. These pairs consist of an early modern piece and a pre-1900 piece such as pop art by Andy Warhol juxtaposed with an engraving by Dutch artist Hendrik Golzius, Kenseth said. For their final assignment, students in their co-taught art history course must analyze the relationships between the pairs, Kenseth said.Stomberg said that he aims to make the Hood a place for both “casual and formal” encounters with art.“If I could I wouldn’t even call it a museum anymore,” Stomberg said. “We need a word that translates into ‘locus of activity and engagement.’”The Hood will officially close for renovations on March 13.