The Fleming Museum of Art presents several changing exhibitions annually, embodying a broad mix of styles, periods, and mediums. These exhibitions bring diverse examples of world-class art to Vermont, from historical icons such as Rembrandt and Picasso to international contemporary artists.
September 27 - December 13, 2019
Borrowing its title from the Charles Biasiny-Rivera piece of the same name, Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul features photographs from the Light Work collection—a nonprofit organization in Syracuse, New York, that provides direct support to artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging—that explore topics of politics, social justice, identity, and visibility. The show was guest-curated by For Freedoms, a platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States. The exhibition features forty-seven artists who use the medium of photography to express their own humanity and that of their subjects; to subtly comment on the social, economic, and historical forces that oppress us all, but especially women, queer people, and people of color; and above all to create images that are by turns startling, meditative, and thought-provoking.
Explore the Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul Exhibition
Image: Claire Beckett, Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Stevens playing the role of a Taliban fighter. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, CA, 2009. Archival Pigment Print. 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy of Light Work.
September 27 - December 13, 2019
RESIST! INSIST! PERSIST! explores the intersection of art and activism. Drawn primarily from the Fleming Museum’s collection, the exhibition features the work of historical and contemporary artists who have countered adversity and hardship with empowerment and expression. This show was curated by UVM students in the Fall 2018 class Art History 282: Museum Studies, taught by Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, Professor of Art History and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Artists in the exhibition include Francisco de Goya, William Hogarth, Pablo Picasso, Lewis Hine, Diego Rivera, the Guerrilla Girls, Kara Walker, Alison Saar, Glenn Ligon, Sabra Field, and Mildred Beltré, among others. Their subjects range from racial violence, to state oppression, to the underrepresentation of women in the art world, and more.
Explore the RESIST! INSIST! PERSIST! Exhibition
Image: Mildred Beltré (American, born 1969), I Would Not Help My Keepers, 2016. Cotton and human hair. Courtesy of the Artist.
September 10, 2019 – May 8, 2020
The New England Gallery, located on the Marble Court balcony, features paintings by renowned Vermont artists from the Fleming Museum’s collection. The Contemporary Voices of Vermont series provides an opportunity to view the work of current Vermont artists within the historical context of their predecessors. This year’s Contemporary Voices artists are Wylie Garcia and Misoo.
In her painting and collage series The Giant Asian Girls, Shelburne-based artist Misoo combats cultural perceptions that Asian women ought to be considered meek, weak, small, and submissive. By painting her portrait subjects as giants indifferent to the frenzied cartoon figures that surround them, she presents women as monumental and self-possessed.
Wylie Garcia’s paintings embrace markers of femininity and domesticity, such as pastel color palettes, marks that evoke embroidery stitches, lace-like veils, and flowing curves. Painting is a meditative and cathartic act for Garcia, who processes her emotional state and reactions to current events through her work.
Image: Misoo, The Giant Asian Girl-Misoo 4, 2019. Acrylic paint and collage on panel. Courtesy of the Artist
