DONNA DODSON: Permanent Collection at Nancy Margolis Gallery

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Permanent Collection at Nancy Margolis Gallery

Curated by Edward del Rosario and Jordin Isip
July 12 - August 4, 2012 Opening Reception July 12, 6-8pm

Nancy Margolis Gallery 523 W 25th Street NY NY 10001 Tel. 212.242.3013 www.nancymargolisgallery.com

Nancy Margolis Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the massive group show, “Permanent Collection.” 130 artists were asked to select any single piece from the over 15,000 works in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection and create their own version with restricted dimensions. The range of work selected varies from design objects (Arthur Young, Bell-47D1) to iconic modern paintings (Cezanne, The Bather) to experimental film (Thomas Wilfred, Vertical Sequence). The choice of medium varies from video to sculpture to painting, and approaches range from pastiche to parody to tribute. The show continues the critique of the art world establishment and the concept of “master works.” MoMA, considered to be the art world’s current imprimatur, follows in the tradition of the Louvre and the Paris Salon. It is the establishment into which artists seek inclusion. One asks, is the experiential value of copying works from the MoMA the same as Manet copying master works from the Louvre? Is admittance into MoMA’s permanent collection the equivalent of acceptance into the Paris Salon? The show also contributes to the running commentary on the politics of reproduction, addressing the issues of “authenticity” and “aura.” Can one make an authentic reproduction? At what point does mimicry become inspiration? When does a unique reproduction gain its own “aura?” Although the art world establishment has moved from the Louvre to the MoMA, one thing has retained its permanence; inclusion into the institution is still controlled by the collectors and benefactors of the establishment, not the artists themselves. Permanent Collection opens on July 12th, 2012 and will run for three weeks.

Permanent Collection includes work by: Martin Adolfsson, Jose Arenas, Kim Beck, Melinda Beck, Polly Becker, Gregory Benton, Patrick Berran, Ben Bois, Kelie Bowman, Clayton Brothers, Calef Brown, Pam Butler, William Buzzell, Amy Chan, Wendy Chisholm, Hyemi Cho, Ludmilla Corcova, Louie Cordero, Paul Corio, Anthony Cudahy, Carl D’Alvia, Daniel Davidson, Cecilia de Corral, Edward del Rosario, Donna Dodson, Leslie Donaldson, Joel Dugan, Benjamin Edwards, Ursula Endlicher, Chris Feczko, Mary Flanagan, AJ Fosik, James Benjamin Franklin, James Gallagher, Brenda Garand, John Garcia, Sandra Gibson, Matt Haber, Jackie Hahn, Joseph Hart, Hunter Heckroth, Jason Holley, Hadley Holliday, Kenichi Hoshine, Jim Houser, Liz Hur, Mala Iqbal, Jordin Isip, Rich Jacobs, Susan Jamison, Frances Jetter, Masuko Jo, Duncan Johnson, Jugular, Jen Karady, Nina Katchadourian, Misaki Kawai, Hiroshi Kimura, Fay Ku, Hiro Kurata, Margaret Lanzetta, Cat Lauigan, Su kyung Lee, Rob Leecock, Matt Leines, Rachel Levit, Elissa Levy, Mon Li, Melissa Ling, Patte Loper, Marci MacGuffie, Amy Mahnick, Jane Mai, Melissa McGill, Taylor McKimens, Bronwyn Minton, Sarah Moseley, Kris Mukai, Erin Murray, Rob Nadeau, Tom Ngo, Stephen Nguyen, Rachel Owens, David Packer, Mu Pan, Chang Park, Soo Sunny Park, Maritsa Patrinos, Bruno Perillo, Chelsey Pettyjohn, David Plunkert, Jason Polan, Garrett Pruter, Jeff Quinn, Monica Ramos, Luis Recoder, Geoff Rockwell, Les Rogers, Gina Ruggeri, Stanley Ruiz, Jackie Saccoccio, Hazel Lee Santino, Bruce Schiefelbein, Kristen Schiele, Anna Sea, Paula Searing, Betsy Lin Seder, Randall Sellers, Kiriko Shirobayashi, Andrew Smenos, Rodger Stevens, Sto, Maribel Tapia, Mark Todd, Justin Valdes, Nichole van Beek, William van Roden, Dominique Vitali, Roxie Vizcarra, Marie von Heyl, Esther Pearl Watson, Sanders Watson, David Weeks, Emily Weiner, Eric White, Robin Williams, Karla Wozniak, Clifford Wun, Julee Yoo, Bill Zindel and Arthur Zomby.

For this show, I chose Jeff Koons', Pink Panther as the piece that I would take my inspiration from since it was a sculpture I admire and because the animal/human composition relates to my own vocabulary. In Koons' 'Pink Panther' a topless, buxom, blond woman holds a stuffed animal of a Pink Panther on her shoulder. She is the stereotypically beautiful sex object, and the panther looks like a boy toy or a trophy slung over her shoulder. For my piece, I got ahold of a piece of pink ivory, an exotic African hardwood that is bright pink, and I sculpted a Panther headed goddess figure that is maternal, sexy, and monumental. With it, I said what I wanted to say about sex, women and beauty- qualities that are intrinsically and innately derived, from character or spirit, not externally adorned. Pink Panther, 12" tall, pink ivory, 2012 by Donna Dodson

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Artist Statement

‘My artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. Because there were no icons of women in the church that I grew up in, my vision is to create them. Through hybrid female-animal forms that I sculpt in wood, I flesh out sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary. The natural grain of the wood interacts with the form and shape of my sculptures in a descriptive way, suggesting nostrils, and nipples or garments and fabric textures. I often stylize each piece to enhance the girl, woman, princess, queen or goddess within. The mouths, or in some cases beaks, are closed symbolizing the mysteries they embody. These figures are sculpted in sizes ranging from the intimate to the monumental. I use color in both subtle and bold ways to activate each piece. My inspiration comes from ancient iconography and mythological imagery.’

About

Donna Dodson has been carving images out of wood for nearly 20 years. Her sculptures explore feminine beauty and evoke humor and playfulness but also grace, power and emotional strength. Her unique vision responds to the relation of animals to the human spirit that have existed since ancient times. Her figures are almost always female and range in size from the intimate to the monumental.

Dodson’s pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study wood and stone sculpture. African sculptures and Native American totems also influence her work.

She uses logs of osage orange wood from her grandfather’s farm in Illinois, and ash, cherry, locust and maple from New England.

Dodson has worked in a series using an elephant headed goddess to explore female figureheads in positions of power. Recently, Dodson created large scale outdoor pieces, engaging in a public dialogue about her work. The site became a more prevalent theme. Today, Dodson has returned to creating statement pieces such as a cardinal goddess for the women of the Catholic Church who aspire to be ordained and Madam President- a monument to the first female president of the USA.

Bio

Donna Dodson is an American sculptor who has exhibited her artwork around the world. Dodson has completed successful residencies in Verbier Switzerland, Cusco Peru, Keelung Taiwan and Ringkoebing Denmark. Donna is currently a Resident Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Visual Art Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “The Amazons Among Us” at the Boston Sculptors Gallery was met with critical acclaim. Donna was a 2022 Fulbright US Scholar at Q21/MuseumsQuartier in Vienna Austria working as an artist in residence with her host institution Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, the world’s only animation festival for women. Dodson has won grants from the Puffin Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire Guild of Woodworkers and the George Sugarman Foundation. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Provincetown Art Museum, the Art Complex Museum and the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, The Noyes Art Museum in New Jersey and the Davistown Museum in Maine. Donna's work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Sculpture Magazine, The Daily Beast, Hyperallergic and Artnet. She is a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the nation’s only sculpture cooperative that maintains its own gallery space. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. She enjoys public speaking, and has been a guest speaker at conferences throughout North America. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and is pending publication in a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Queering the Amazons.

Inspirations

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

-Leonard Cohen

"... I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as [one's] love goes..."

-Andrew Wyeth

"art is valuable because it challenges, inspires, and enables us to see ourselves in much more interesting ways"
-Mickey Cartin

" the thing that I had to do was to ... work super hard in the hope that someday it would pay off. And in using that term I don't mean necessarily money, but just the fact that I would have more depth and dimension both as a human being and as an artist."
-Ed Paschke

“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
-Steve Jobs

"...remember that collecting art is an act of love. It isn’t about what you pay for a work, or how rich (or not) you become when you one day sell it, but the depth of your enjoyment in the time you live with it."
-Abigail R. Esman

"[Patronage] is a gift, in the form of money, in exchange for [my] gift, in the form of music."

-Amanda Palmer

"Art is the crucial interface between the imagination and reality, the thing that makes life deeper and broader than what it might be without such insight."

-Todd Levin

"If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I would never have searched for my beauty."

-Gabourey Sidibe

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."

-Clementine Paddleford

Great artists “must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.”

-Humphrey Trevelyan

"Life should be lived so vividly and intensely that thoughts of another life or of a longer life are not necessary."

-Marjory Stoneman Douglas

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is.” Jeannette Winterson

Artistic Process

When I start a piece of work I need to evoke such a strong feeling about each piece that I can dare to listen to the piece, to make mistakes - to just create. It is the emotional investment in the act of creation that crystallizes the work for me.

Sometimes the idea or concept comes first, and I imagine what the piece will be when completed. More often I work from intuition. Once completed I see the intentions behind the piece, or the desire from which it is born. Artists who inspire me include Jessica Stockholder and Katharina Fritsch. Stockholder uses color as a transformational visual device, changing the way we see form. Fritsch creates sculptures of sacred figures that become pop-icons through her use of color. In the same way I work with various kinds and grains of wood accented by color.

My artwork is about self expression, autobiography, and self redemption. Each sculpture is independent and heroic, but each is connected to the body of my total work. Each is made greater and honored by its association with those that have preceded it, but keeps its own sacred identity. Each reflects my realization that I am a self-made woman.

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Thursday, July 5, 2012

Permanent Collection at Nancy Margolis Gallery

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