Exhibition | Things We Do in Bed
From the exhibition description at Art Daily:
Things We Do in Bed
Danson House, Bexleyheath, Kent, 1 April — 31 October 2014
Curated by Tracy Chevalier
Tree of Life Quilt cropped, detail, c.1810 (Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre)
Things We Do in Bed celebrates quilts and their continuing links to what goes on behind the bedroom door. Featuring quilts and quilt works dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, alongside contemporary work, the exhibition is displayed through the five bedrooms in Danson House, with each room focusing on a different bed activity: Birth, Sleep, Sex, Illness, Death.
The exhibition features a lively mix of antique and contemporary quilts including:
• intricate 18th- and 19th-century cot quilts with quilted feathers and flowers and colourful patchwork designs
• a new ‘sleep quilt’ from Fine Cell Work, a charity that teaches prisoners to sew; prisoners all over the UK were asked to make squares exploring their feelings about sleep, and join them together in this quilt
• Karina Thompson’s quilt which captures an echocardiogram examining the maker’s heartbeats
• Grayson Perry’s Right to Life quilt, made as a provocative response to the abortion debate in the USA
• Sue Watters’ hand stitched quilt, Unchained Melody which she made sitting by her husband’s side while he was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, with sewing and music as her solace
Tracy Chevalier is an internationally bestselling author of seven novels. In her most recent book, The Last Runaway, her heroine is a quilter. As well as learning a lot about quilts, Tracy learned to quilt by hand. As she says: “Since researching quilts for my last novel, I have fallen hard for the varied and miraculous artistry of quilting. With this show I explore how quilting relates to bedroom activities, in both practical and abstract ways. For traditionalists, there are jaw-dropping examples of antique quilt-making. For contemporary art lovers, there are works that push boundaries and emotions.”
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Hannah Duguid writes about the exhibition for The Independent (8 April 2014).
Call for Papers | Facing the Unknown: Anonymity in the History of Art
From the symposium website:
Student Symposium | Facing the Unknown: Anonymity in the History of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art, 24 October 2014
Proposals due by 15 June 2014
The Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Museum of Art Joint Graduate Program in Art History & Museum Studies invites submissions from all areas of art history for the 40th Annual Cleveland Symposium. Facing the Unknown: Anonymity in the History of Art seeks papers which address the theme of anonymity or the unknown in the visual arts. The obscurity of an artist, subject, function, or context may be a byproduct of the passage of time, of traditional cultural practices, or a conscious decision on the part of the maker. This symposium aims to explore the ways in which an anonymous aspect of a work may influence its interpretation, function, classification, or perceived value throughout the object’s history.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
• Anonymous artists or makers
• Images of unknown subjects or for unknown patrons
• Objects with undetermined function or context
• Works of questionable authenticity, attribution, dating, or provenance
• Objects with elements that have been deliberately effaced, obscured, or omitted
• Lost works of art
• Previously unknown, unstudied, or unpublished artists or artworks
• Intentional use of anonymity, including works that mask or conceal identity
Doctoral and master’s degree students in art history and related disciplines are invited to submit a 250-word abstract and C.V. to clevelandsymposium@gmail.com by June 15, 2014. Applicants will receive notification of their status via email by August 1, 2014.
The 40th Annual Cleveland Symposium will be held in conjunction with the Symposium in Honor of Ellen G. Landau, Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emerita in the Humanities, to take place on Saturday, October 25, 2014 at the MOCA Cleveland. The keynote speaker for both events is Dr. Joan Marter, Board of Governors Professor of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Rutgers University, who will speak after the conclusion of the program on Friday October 24.
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