“Connection: The Art of Coming Together” @ the Vermont Arts Council’s Spotlight Gallery in Montpelier. For more information, click here. The show runs from June 5th through October 6th.
In my role as editor of the Vermont Art Guide and in my writing about regionalism in a modernist context, I am interested in communities and the art they produce. The exhibition, “Connection: the Art of Coming Together,” is an extension of that work. But where my focus tends to be is on works of art, the exhibition is focused on the artist as an individual participating in a network of artists. As an experiment, I asked four artists or professionals from different corners of the state to submit the name of an artist they feel is part of their community or network. I then went to those people and so on until we had enough people to fill the exhibition.
I learned two things: Arts organizations play a vital role in artist networks. Nearly all of the artists cited some organization or event as the reason they knew their selection. Often we forget how important galleries, art events, cooperatives, working groups, and councils are to the fabric of art communities. Not only do these organizations engage the public, they provide important opportunities for artists to bond with each other.
I also learned that artists think of the people they are affiliated in a variety of ways. All the artists selected people whose artwork they deeply admire. Some artists chose people whose work they felt was undervalued and needed a spotlight. Others chose artists they wanted to exhibit with. Some artists chose people they have known for decades, other artists selected someone they didn’t know well, but knew their reputation and were familiar with their work. Regardless, admiration and mutual respect runs deep in Vermont’s art community.
“Connection: the Art of Coming Together” is a survey of Vermont art. All of the work was made in the last ten years. An array of media is represented — painting, photography, monoprints, and a quilt. The art on view also shows the diversity of the artists’ approaches, from painters rendering abstraction found in the natural world to photographers documenting people in their towns to various nterpretations of landscape from traditional to surreal. Sometimes with art, the story behind the work is as important as the work itself. This exhibition asks viewers to consider those stories.
Up through October 6, 2017.