Union College's
Mandeville Gallery presents a show about simple objects – baskets – pushed to a
new level as objects of art.
No Boundaries: Contemporary Basketry runs July 6 through August 15 in the
Mandeville Gallery, in the Nott Memorial at the center of the Union
College campus. The gallery is open
daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The exhibit is free and open to the
public. For more information, please call 518-388-6131.
Basketry is widely accepted as the
oldest known form of craft. However, for the past quarter-century, artists have
been taking the simple basket form and pushing it in new and exciting
directions, creating objects infused with content and meaning.
Working within already broad
traditions, the artists in No Boundaries: Contemporary Basketry are
inventing new methods of construction, often using highly unconventional
materials, and creating both utilitarian and non-utilitarian vessels, and even
abstract sculptures.
The show presents the work
of some of the most innovative American basketry artists. Curator Beth Ann
Gerstein, executive director of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston,
selected six established basketry artists to contribute pieces to the
exhibition and asked each one to invite an emerging or lesser-known artist to
participate.
The exhibition includes brief
artist statements along with information about each work. Text panels provide a
history of basketry and explain the interpretation of traditional utilitarian
objects by these contemporary artists.
No Boundaries: Contemporary
Basketry is a nationally touring exhibition and is a program of Exhibits
USA, a national division of Mid-American Arts Alliance.