Can you name five women artists? Yes? No? Maybe?
Family Day: Women Sculptors on Saturday, March 7, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Georgia Museum of Art can help you add three women sculptors to your repertoire of art knowledge.
During the free event, the works of sculptors Rachel Whiteread, Beverly Buchanan and Beverly Pepper will be explored and used as inspiration for experimentation. Children and guardians alike will have the opportunity to create their own sculpture in the Michael and Mary Erlanger Studio Classroom. Additionally, Art Cart will be present in the galleries for further exploration of sculptures by women artists within the museum.
Whiteread has had five cast-stone sculptures on display at the Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden at the museum since September 7, 2019, and they will be there until March 8, 2020. The sculptures are reinterpretations of Whiteread’s earlier resin castings of the negative space underneath chairs.
To physically embody the changing of light that occurs within the span of a day, Whiteread experiments with variations of different surface textures and stone types in her sculptures. To provide additional context to Whitehead’s use of negative space, a selection of her works on paper and other related artists are also on display.
On Tuesday, March 3, from 2 – 3:00 p.m. there will be a tour of Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures in the museum’s sculpture garden. Annelies Mondi, the deputy director and curator of the installation, will lead the tour and give a talk on Whitehead’s work.
“As she uses the negative space in and around domestic objects, the air becomes the subject of her study. She captures the essence of familiar spaces and ‘mummifies the air,’ preserving the history of the space,” said sculptor and museum security supervisor Ryan Wood in a press release.
Though Whiteread’s exhibition is only displayed temporarily, the sculpture garden is devoted to showcasing works by women sculptors and hosts rotating exhibitions as well as art from the permanent collection.
Within the permanent installation of the sculpture garden is the work of Beverly Pepper.
Beverly Pepper, December 20, 1922 – February 5, 2020, was an American sculptor who gained great acclaim for her monumental sculptures of site specific and land work. Though Pepper maintained her independence from any singular artistic movement, her work made an impact that outsized her art’s large proportions.
Besides her work displayed at the museum, her sculptures have been featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
“Time, that fourth dimension, has always been an essential element in Pepper’s work — a desire to create something outside history,” said Megan O’Grady in a New York Times article on Pepper.
In 2011 the Georgia Museum of Art displayed the exhibition “Stone and Steel: Small Works by Beverly Pepper.” Within this exhibition, approximately 20 works of steel, onyx, porphyry, marble, granite and small-scale models of her site specific work “Ascensione” were on view.
“Ascensione” is permanently on display in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex quad.
Beverly Buchanan, October 8, 1940 – July 4, 2015, was a sculptor, painter, video and land artist. She is best known for her exploration of southern vernacular architecture through her artistic expressions. Her most popular works of art in the medium of painting and sculpture depict shacks.
Buchanan uses “Potent themes of identity, place, and collective memory unite the works, uncovering the animus that runs through them: to connect with those around her and reckon with the history that shaped her communities,” said Aexxa Gotthardt in an article for Artsy.
The exhibition “Stony the Road We Trod,” displayed at the museum from Feb 2 through April 28, 2019, “reimagined southern identity through the lens of the African American experience. With roots or careers in Georgia.” Buchanan’s work “Jamestown,” a colorful picture of several shacks, was on view in this exhibit. Buchanan’s work is still on view at the museum, including “Medicine Woman.”
These three women sculptors and their work provide outlets for immense inspiration and contemplation during and after the Family Day event, children and adults alike.
By Lillie Beck
