Art Trip: Richmond, Virginia | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

I knew two things about Richmond Virginia when I arrived one it was the capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War and two it has a really great art school within Virginia Commonwealth University with lots of good faculty which was the reason I was there the collision of past and present encapsulated in those two bits of knowledge were immediately present as we drove through the city how does a city like Richmond become a center for art and culture and why this is what we wanted to know speaking of the capital of the Confederacy our first stop was the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts which is on the grounds of the former robert e lee camp number one a home for poor and infirm confederate vets and you past the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on your way in history is alive and unag nor belen this spot and I was prepared to be creeped out by this but instead I was impressed at every turn by the museum's acknowledgement and transparency about it they traced their history from the Algonquin Indian tribes that settled here before the English derived in 17th century and on to the land as a privately owned estate quote cultivated an improved note out through the labor of enslaved African America within the museum you're encouraged to confront the complexity of Richmond's history and what their extensive collection does and does not contain in this gallery a wall text explains the embrace of neoclassical themes following America's War of Independence reflecting the founding principles of freedom and equality but they made sure to add quote despite the fact that they were not extended to the entire population particularly Native Americans African Americans and women like most museums the V MFA's collection has been formed and shaped by the collectors who have donated their art and objects to it it's easy to forget that that collections don't simply spring forth based on the recommendations of experts but instead develop slowly in fits and spurts determined by what they can convince rich people in the area to give them and through concerted efforts to raise funds and acquire things to fill in the gaps you have Leslie Garland Bolling's 1935 sculpture cousin on Friday which was the first work the museum acquired by an African American artist in 1944 and then you've got paintings like this one of Alexander Spotswood Payne and his brother with their nerves given to the museum in the 1950s by a descendant of and then you have this magnificent portrait of Marian Anderson by Buford Delaney collected in 2012 through targeted acquisition funds all on display in the American galleries these works demonstrate the clear efforts the museum has made to tell a broader story of art they also have a superb collection of 21st century art that tells a wider and more international story of art production but works by julie mara to mickalene Thomas angel Otero Henrique a Olivera Hank Willis Thomas and Sonya Clark I appreciated the art but mostly appreciated the evolution of this collection how it reflects the history of this place and the voices it includes and excludes as well as its aspirations for the future oh and they have free admission and are open 365 days a year and because nothing in this city is more than seven or eight minutes away we turned around and found ourselves at the studio of Sonja Clark to film an assignment Sonya is the chair of the craft and material Studies department of VCU and she's an incredible artist in person we had just seen her work at the V MFA and here she was talking about her own history Richmond's histories world history and how we attempt to conceive of and process narratives and numbers of the past and present we then dropped off our bags at the delightful Cork Hotel a boutique hotel housed in a renovated 1916 department store there's a magnificent installation in its Lobby by Suzy gouge who also teaches at BCU composed of repurposed plastic coffee lids in an arrangement mimicking Atlantic trade routes there's a great bar and restaurant a shop and quark gallery next door a short walk took us to Rappahannock restaurant where we had a delicious meal featuring oysters they cultivate themselves in the Chesapeake Bay and of course in the Rappahannock River along with oyster we also had other excellent seafood dishes like wood grilled octopus and expertly prepared fish courses day two began the way most days should with excellent coffee which we picked up from Lamplighter roasting company and then we ate what you want to eat every morning but you really shouldn't and that's biscuits early bird biscuit company had just opened in a new location and oh my god they have amazing biscuits their regular biscuit is amazing and then their unique biscuit of the day sweet tea and lemon was also amazing we got two more to go and okay so many of the city's galleries were in between shows but not all so we made a quick stop in to the nearby Reynolds gallery which was hosting X missions have worked by Paul Ryan and Jill Moser Ryan uses magazines and commercial packaging as stencils to create the compositional structure of his painting whose industrial forms are interspersed with more organic one Ryan is an alum of VCU's MFA program and now teaches at Mary Baldwin college and although Jill Moser is based in New York she also has ties to VCU where she's been a visiting artist to the adjunct professor Moses gestural works provided a counterpoint to Ryan's war hard edge paintings showing us two contrasting but nevertheless absorbing approaches to abstraction 1708 gallery had up an exhibition of video works by Adam Schecter featuring a large-scale panoramic animation titled New Year that served as the title for the show was remarkable for a couple reasons one because the work is a mesmerizing mix of narratives and textures and two because the new york-based artist seems to have no direct connection to BCU who loved VCU was still strong so we scooted over to its campus to film an assignment with the delightful hope Ginsberg who teaches there and who has maintained the sponge HQ within one of VCU School of the Arts buildings it's an interdisciplinary workshop lab classroom and project space which is served dutifully as her base of activities since 2010 she's plotting a studio shift which she is folding into an upcoming assignment for all of us and we spoke about why we're and how we work matters and informs what we make and the kinds of artists we want to be they loved that the school has made room for this kind of a space that fosters both students and faculty and just a few stories down in the same building we got to see VCU's undergraduate juried Fine Arts exhibition I'll probably offend some of you by saying this but I'm gonna I am rarely impressed by undergraduate exhibitions individual works in those shows sure but this exhibition contained a variety of works that drew me in and blew me away on a number of levels conceptual rigor was their thoughtfulness but also a mastery of materials skillful techniques joined with good ideas I could immediately see why VCU has been named the number one public art school in the country and why it has become a forceful creative engine in the city we then took a look at the site of VCU's future institute for contemporary art now construction site but soon to be a 40,000 square foot museum designed by Steven Holl architects it will be an on collecting institution showing a changing slate of exhibitions and programming a quote incubator for interdisciplinary experimentation with a museum like the V MFA not far away the ICA is poised to be an important counterpart to the city's cultural landscape freed from the constraints of collection development a nimble variable resource for students and residents its staff is preparing for its 2017 opening in this temporary unmissable space and I'm excited to see what comes of it on our way to the airport we made two final stops one to subversive bakery where we picked up more buttery baked goods and also stopped at Libby Hill Park but we're looking the city and James River the Confederate soldiers and sailors monument anchors the park but nobody really seems to pay much attention to it because the main attraction is the view it's called the view that named Richmond because William Byrd the second the guy who used to live on the land where the V MFA is looked out from this spot in the 1700s and thought it looks like the view from Richmond upon Thames in England so I only got a brief glimpse of this city and with a pretty narrow focus on art but I think that can be a revealing way to see a city through that lens you get to think about how it places residents conceived of themselves in the past what visions they saw for their futures what they decided to collect monumental eyes for keep hidden through that lens you also get to see how a city conceives of itself in the present the variety of views it presents the histories it decides to confront and reconsider and the way it wants to conceive of its future Richmond is an historic City for sure but it's a study in contrasts of new and old and a fitting place it turns out for thinking about what american art is was and should be you

Channel: The Art Assignment

Views: 28,125

Rating: 4.9487181 out of 5

Keywords: art project, vcu, virginia commonwealth university, art trip, art for students, art prompts, hope ginsberg, virginia museum of fine arts, art history, the art assignment, contemporary art, sonya clark, rappahannock restaurant, sarah urist green, inspiration for art projects, pbs digital studios, pbs, art education, richmond, quirk hotel, reynolds gallery, 1708 gallery, art assignment

Id: 4RAUzAfhRxA

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2016