Media
Try This: Paint without Brushes
Sometimes you need to change up how you do things. Painting without a brush can be a great way to stretch your creativity.
Try This: Painted Suncatcher
Glass isn’t easy to make at home, but you can mimic the translucent qualities of glass using plastic and paint. These suncatchers are easy and fun.
Try This: Bubblewrap Monoprint
Monoprints are simple. You add color to a flat surface, and then apply that surface to the paper. Unlike other prints, you can only print the ‘plate’ once or twice. Bubblewrap as the plate adds another layer of texture to your print.
Try This: Abstract Faces
Simple materials like paper and pom poms turn into faces with a little ingenuity.
Try This: Geometric Collages
Collage is an easy way to play with geometric.
What You Need paper, scissors, glue
Try this? Begin by thinking out your pattern. With that plan in mind, cut your shapes. Place the pattern on your base paper. Glue pieces into place.
Read MoreTry This: Paper bag puppet
Bags and large envelopes make great puppets.
What You Need bags, envelopes, colored paper, pompoms, buttons, scissors, glue
Try This?
Try This:DIY Stamps
What You Need corks, buttons, sequins, tiles, hot glue, ink, and paper
Try This?
Detroit Disassembled: Photographs by Andrew Moore
Detroit Disassembled:
Photographs by Andrew Moore
June 5, 2010 – October 10, 2010
Arnstein, Bidwell and Isroff Galleries
Andrew Moore’s photographs of the Motor City are sublime—beautiful, operatic in scale and drama, tragic yet offering a glimmer of hope. They are the subject of Detroit Disassembled, an exhibition organized by the Akron Art Museum making its debut here before touring nationally. Detroit, once the epitome of our nation’s industrial wealth and might, has been in decline for almost a half-century. The city is now one-third empty land—more abandoned property than any American city except post-Katrina New Orleans.
Moore’s images, printed on the scale of epic history paintings, belong to an artistic tradition that began in the 17th century. Numerous artists have used ruins to remind their viewers of the fall of past great civilizations and to warn that contemporary empires risk the same fate. Moore’s soaring scenes of rusting factory halls and crumbling theaters share the monumentality of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 18th century engravings of the fallen civic monuments of ancient Rome and Greece. His photographs of skeletal houses and collapsed churches carry forward the Romantic tone and rich hues of Caspar David Friedrich’s 19th century paintings of fallen medieval cathedrals and castles. Although hard to believe that Moore’s post-apocalyptic scenes reflect present-day America, he has been scrupulously honest, creating photographs that are both documentary and metaphorical in nature.
This exhibition is organized by the Akron Art Museum and made possible by a major gift from Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell with additional support from the John A. McAlonan Fund of Akron Community Foundation. The accompanying publication is underwritten by Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell with additional funding from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
The Opening Party is supported by a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Weisberger.
Read MoreArctic Re-visions: Isaac Julien’s True North
Arctic Re-visions:
Isaac Julien’s True North
June 5, 2010 – October 3, 2010
Karl and Bertl Arnstein Galleries
The sound and video installation True North (2004) is a journey into the beautiful yet terrifying midst of a sublime continent. Internationally acclaimed British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien immerses viewers in the haunting landscape of the North Pole, which has seduced scientists, explorers, writers and visual artists since the 19th century. This presentation of the three-screen multi-media installation will mark the debut of this important work from the museum’s collection.
Julien describes True North as a cinematic “re-memorizing” of the story of Matthew Henson, the black engineer who accompanied polar explorer Robert Peary in 1909 on the first expedition to reach the North Pole. The video’s narration is taken from a shocking interview Henson gave in 1966, in which, 30 years after Peary’s death, Henson claimed that he had reached the Pole before Peary.
Shot in Iceland, True North unfolds on three screens that span almost 40 feet. Images zoom in and out on the icy vistas to provide different perspectives on Henson’s journey. All the while mysterious and haunting sounds are layered with the voices and music to echo the vast, isolated landscape.
Nominated in 2001 for Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize for his artistic work, Julien also won an award for one of his documentary films at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989. Since 1983, he has created films, video installations and photographs that break down the boundaries between artistic disciplines.
This exhibition is organized by the Akron Art Museum and made possible by support from the Gay Community Endowment Fund, The Burton D. Morgan Foundation, the Harris-Stanton Gallery and The Welty Family Foundation.
