Exhibits

Whatcom Museum, WA

Bellingham National 2023 Juried Art Exhibition

November 11, 2023 - February 25, 2024

Lightcatcher Building

The Whatcom Museum presents its fourth biennial juried art exhibition, Bellingham National. Grace Kook-Anderson, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art at the Portland Art Museum, is the guest juror and has selected finalists from among more than 1,000 submitted artworks for a three-month show in the Lightcatcher building. Visual artists from across the United States – both long-established and up & coming – vied for a chance to exhibit their works at the Whatcom Museum and to be considered for one of three Juror’s Choice Awards. Those works span the visual arts, from video, painting, and sculpture to textile and glass, and all reflect the exhibition’s theme of healing and repair.

Over the course of the exhibition, museum visitors can vote for an artwork to receive a People’s Choice Award, to be announced in late February.

“Grace Kook-Anderson, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art at the Portland Art Museum, is this year’s guest juror. She had the difficult task of carefully selecting the artworks for this expansive exhibition from the hundreds submitted for consideration. In addition, Kook-Anderson will announce three Juror’s Choice Awards, each with a cash prize, at a Whatcom Museum member reception November 11. In an exciting shift from years past, the first prize winner of this year’s biennial will also be awarded a future solo exhibition at the museum.

“Bellingham National shines a spotlight on processes and practices from contemporary artists nationwide,” said Whatcom Museum Curator of Art Amy Chaloupka. “We are grateful to all the artists who applied to be considered for the exhibition, and it was particularly heartening to see the ways they express and visualize the concept of healing.”

From reflections on the COVID pandemic, recovering from personal trauma, and self-care to centering critical social justice issues, the topics around healing are as varied as the artworks themselves. For example, in her powerful short film “Please Understand,” storyteller Lindy Boustedt gives a voice to incarcerated students – children – who share with us one thing they each wish we knew.

“The artists have addressed this theme with deep and raw honesty. To be able to witness that through the jurying process was a personally boosting experience,” adds Juror and Curator Kook-Anderson. “The act of healing is expansive, uplifting, and grounding. But repair also comes with rupture and the work of mending and nurturing. Breath, time, and motion are part of the healing process, and these attributes of resilience are reflected in the exhibition.”

https://www.whatcommuseum.org/exhibition/bellingham-national-2023/

Rochester Art Center, MN
Chronicles of The Chronic

2023-2024

Curated by Zoe Cinel

About the exhibition:

“Chronicles of the Chronic is a group exhibition that celebrates the creativity and resilience of the chronically ill community by featuring regional, national and international artists whose artistic practice reflects holistically upon the experience of living with a chronic health condition. Eight of the thirteen artists were invited by Rochester Art Center’s Curator Zoe Cinel, and the remaining five were selected through a juried process from a pool of eighty-one applicants. The jury was composed of a diverse group of artists, curators and healthcare professionals, including Alison Berglom Johnson (independent artist and disability advocate), Keisha Williams (MCAD Gallery Director and Curator), Victor Montori M.D. (founder of Patient Revolution and author of Why We Revolt) and Rochester Art Center Curator Zoe Cinel.

What does it mean to navigate capitalism, the healthcare system and the artworld as an artist living with chronic, often invisible, conditions that impose physical and emotional limitations and require ongoing medical attention? This exhibition considers illness as an individual yet public experience, and it promotes an intersectional approach to care and healing. The narratives of disabled, queer, immigrant, and other historically underrepresented communities are presented through twelve artworks created in a variety of media, including soft sculpture, photography, participatory installations, and storytelling.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculates that 6 out of 10 adults in the United States suffer from a chronic disease, but illness is still culturally regarded as an isolating topic to be discussed within the closed walls of a scientific establishment or private domain. In Rochester (MN), the birthplace of the top-ranked U.S. hospital, Mayo Clinic, health and care are central to the daily life of many residents and visitors. In this unique context, Chronicles of the Chronic invites all audiences to embark on a transformative journey that normalizes conversations around these topics. The artists’ perspectives on illness, wellness and disability move past binary constructs and they encourage us to find healing as individuals, communities and as a society. As artist Emma MacLean writes on her featured artwork Pain Journal N.2, “I used to believe that sickness and wellness were diametrically opposed, but I understand now that they flow back and forth and within each other.”

In addition to the artworks, visitors have access in the gallery to a multimedia library with books, podcasts and additional resources about care and healing. In-person and virtual programming related to the exhibition connects artists and healthcare professionals in order to build a stronger community and mend relationships.”

Featured artists:

Anna Cowley Ford, Anna Hite, Benjamin Merritt, Brothers Sick (Ezra and Noah Benus), Drew Maude-Griffin, Geography of Illness (Emma Jones), Emma MacLean, Jennifer Bastian, Kym McDaniel, Lauryn Youden, May Ling Kopecky, Weng San Sit.

https://www.rochesterartcenter.org/exhibition/chronicles-of-the-chronic