Anything Goes: Contemporary Art and Materials
October 28, 2022 to May 14, 2023 Jepson CenterWhat do roofing shingles, doors, cardboard, glitter, newspapers, bicycle wheels, buttons, and denim have in common? They are all used as materials in the artworks included in Telfair’s permanent collection exhibition Anything Goes: Contemporary Art and Materials. This exhibition considers artists across divides of geography, privilege, formal education, and access who have continued to explore materiality and its potential for aesthetic invention and the construction of meaning. Some are looking to art historical examples set by the cubist collages of Pablo Picasso; others gained inspiration from the leveling of mediums employed in the hybrid combines of Robert Rauschenberg. Many artists, unaware or uninterested in canonical precedents, scavenged materials and objects out of necessity, for symbolic or expressive purposes or simply by seeing the potential in things cast off by others. All of these artists and artworks remind viewers of the value and artistic potential of the objects that surround us in our everyday lives.
This exhibition is organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Erin Dunn, curator of modern and contemporary art.
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View image 1 in lightbox:
Butch Anthony (b. 1966); Joe Morris Watching Cars Go By (#1078), 1998; paint on wooden door; gift of Mrs. Diane Sinclair Croom, 2001.8.2.
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View image 2 in lightbox:
Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959); (My) Precarious Life, 2008; conté crayon on wood and wooden wheel; museum purchase with funds provided by a group of anonymous donors, 2015.1.3.
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View image 3 in lightbox:
Sarah Mary Taylor (1916-2000); Story Quilt, c. 1980; cotton, poly/cotton, and denim; gift of the Judith Alexander Foundation, 2011.20.5.
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View image 4 in lightbox:
Radcliffe Bailey (b. 1968); Untitled, 1999; acrylic, photograph, plexiglass, oil stick, resin, spray paint, glitter and velvet pouch with key; museum purchase with funds provided by the bequest of Dr. William and Mrs. Mildred Weichselbaum, 2004.16.