Four Great Art Exhibits at UMass Amherst

 

If you’re in area, either as a resident or a traveler, this is a good time to head to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to partake of four shows. You can do them all in a morning or an afternoon and you’ll be treated to visual and thought-provoking images.

 

Let’s start with the show that closes soonest. The Augusta Savage Gallery is located in New Africa House and features Theater of the Streets: Social Landscapes Through the Lens of Jill Freedman. Few have done street photography as well as Freedman (1939-2019), because she was not afraid to venture into social fringes or where the action is. Though this show features shots from the late 1960s into the 1970s, many of her shots, including a police shakedown and a violent arrest, are sadly as fresh as your daily news feed. 

 

 

 

Gay rights became a full-fledged movement after the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but it still took courage to be out. “Greenwich Village Couple” intrigues in that its crossdressing male stares defiantly at the camera, while his more conventionally dressed partner leans away from the lens.

 

 

Freedman had a keen sense of irony. “Free Information” was taken in a seedy area of the subway and needs no further commentary from me. “Peep Show” is simply a great shot packed with humor. 

 

 

 

For pure artistry, though, “Poor People’s Campaign,” so named for the 1968 encampment on the Washington DC mall that took place after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King. But Freedman captures something more wistful and sublime, a Black man playing his flute in a quiet place: the Reflecting Pool doing its thing as well. 

 

 

 

This show closes on March 11, so hurry if you want to see it.

 

 

The Hampden Gallery exhibit Shadows in the Cave presents paintings from Williamsburg, MA artist Alan Fortescue in which he takes a look at the American Dream lost, found, and frustrated. 

 

You will be drawn to his bold colors, many of them illuminated by after-dark street lights, before you catch on to his vision. His ethos is akin to that of Edward Hopper, whether the street is Chicago, New York, or State Street in Northampton.

 

 

 

This show is on view until April 15, but check the location before you head over. When I was there the Hampden Gallery had relocated to Bartlett Hall because flat-roofed Hampden Hall had sprung a major leak that necessitated moving the show.

 

The University Museum of Contemporary Arts in the back of the Fine Arts Center is the site for the other two shows, both of which are on view until May 1. 

 

The first, From My Heart to You–Dance and the Unifying Force of Social Consciousness captures the exuberance of African-American dance. The rather wordy title sounds heavier than it is. Any politics were of the cultural variety and within the two artists, not in your face.

 

 

 

 The first part spotlights the watercolors of Richard Yarde (1939-2011). If the backgrounds remind you of quilts, you’re right; his grandmother’s needlework inspired them. If I tried these dances, I’d be in traction! 

 

 

 

The second artist is photographer Barbara Morgan (1900-92) and her subject is the sublime Pearl Primus (1919-94), perhaps the foremost African-American practitioner of modern dance ever to grace the floor. Unlike white modernists such as Martha Graham, Primus was rooted in literal and metaphorical ways. Her center of gravity was low, her stance bold and wide, and she usually performed barefoot, as if she was trying to conjure the earth through the floorboards. Metaphorically, she was also grounded to her African roots. 

 

 

 

Both Yarde and Morgan taught at UMass from time to time, though Primus also took her substantial skills to other 5 Colleges schools.

 

 

The final show, also at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, is quite different. Nicole Eisenman: Prince has a punning title, as the Brooklyn-based Eisenman (b. 1965) has co-curated and contributed to a show featuring prints, both from the UMass collection and on loan.  When it comes to prints, Eisenman has chops and then some. She’s a RISD grad who has won such major awards as a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Carnegie Prize, and MacArthur Fellowship. 

 

Her work has been influenced by Expressionism, especially that of Germany, but also by sketches, cartoons, and caricature. It’s a large show that includes others in those genres. Sometimes Eisenman wears her politics on her sleeves. Take “Tea Party” for instance. We are not talking china cups and crumpets. A more direct nod to Expressionism is found in her wonderful “Man Holding His Shadow,” and haven’t you always wondered where shadows are stored? 

 

 

“Stick and Foot Guy” is influenced by block cuts and cartoons and two untitled works by cartoons crossed with nightmares. 

 

 

 

The show also includes works Eisenman and co-curators admire, including prints from Max Beckmann, Mabel Dwight, Edvard Munch, and many others. As a teaser, here’s one from an artist previously unknown to me: Benton Murdoch Spruance. His “The Bar at Doyles” (1939) is a delightful lampoon of male bar culture. Belly up to the bar boys. 

 

 

 

Rob Weir