MK Guth: Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping
July 17 – September 14, 2008

Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping is a 1,500-foot interactive braid sculpture created by Oregon artist MK Guth. Woven into the braid are hundreds of ribbons on which people have written responses to the question “What is worth protecting?” This sculpture was created for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2008 Biennial art exhibition in New York City and will have its first museum presentation in Boise after the close of its New York debut.

This installation is presented courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery.

Additional support provided by Friends of MK Guth.

Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach
July 12 - November 9, 2008

In her American Cockroach project, Chalmers records the half-imaginary life of the domestic pest known as the cockroach. The exhibition highlights the photographs, sculpture, and video work of Catherine Chalmers. Chalmers explores the question of what it is to be human and what is man's relationship to the insect world, examining preconceived notions about insects and specimens. As Chalmers notes, "Today, people tend to deny the obvious fact of death and violence in their world." And this is especially true with regard to animals, which tend to fall into the category of either pests or pets. Our connection to nature and the animal world has been domesticated. "In the past, animals had a much higher value in peoples' understandings of themselves." Chalmers' series theatrically dissects the life of the prehistoric cockroach and the sometimes-surreal operations of nature that deposited the creature plunk in the middle of modern kitchens and bathrooms. American Cockroach offers up an ecosystem where the laws of roach life and survival become strange and distorted human manifestations, not so much a biology but a mythology of the common house roach. Her eco-system is at once natural and exquisitely overwrought, seen schizophrenically from behind the lens of a camera as well as shot from the one-on-one perspective of the roach itself.

Sponsored in part by the Beaux Arts Société and a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Media sponsorship is provided by Boise Weekly.

Additional support provided by Jamie MacMillan

Drinking (from Cockroach-Residents)
2000
c -print

Original, limited edition photograph for sale
courtesy of artist Catherine Chalmers!
Click here for information about purchasing
“Sweet Veronica”, an exclusive framed portrait
featured in American Cockroach.

Frederic Remington Makes Tracks: Adventures and Artistic Impressions
June 28 - August 24, 2008

Adventures and Artistic Impressions is an exhibit which combines images printed during Remington's lifetime with silver recasts of his sculptures to provide examples that demonstrate his growth as an artist. Presenting a broad range of subjects, the exhibit showcases Remington's achievements as an illustrator, painter, and sculptor. Frederic Remington (1861-1909) became one of the most well-known American artists of all time through his illustrations in popular magazines of the late 1800s and early 1900s and later in bronze. His work has timeless appeal. This traveling exhibit has been organized by The Frederic Remington Art Museum, which is dedicated solely to the art and archives of this great man. Organized by The Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, New York.

Local Sponsors:
Supported in part by RMH Company and D.A. Davidson and Co.

Boise Art Museum presents this exhibition in honor of J.R. Simplot

A "Sun Fisher," 1895
Published 1895 by Davis & Sanford Co.
Black and white lithograph

Gerri Sayler: Ad Infinitum
June 14 – October 2008

Idaho artist Gerri Sayler presents her first solo museum exhibition in conjunction with the Jurors Prize award in the 2007 Idaho Triennial exhibition at the Boise Art Museum.  Her site-specific installation, will consist of over 900 glistening strands of sculpted hot glue resembling drizzled icicles or frozen ripples of water, cascading 20 feet from the ceiling enveloping the viewer in a web-like room.  Ad infinitum is a Latin phrase meaning "to infinity” and can be used to describe a set of instructions to be repeated "forever."  Her repetitious creating of the fibrous glue strands is connected to craft traditions historically associated with women, who have used their hands to spin and weave the fibers of their lives into the tapestry we know as culture.  Sayler’s filigree strands also call to mind the human body, referencing muscle, nerves, veins, and the threads of our hearts, intertwined with the patterns and rhythms nature’s cycles of birth, growth, death and decay. 

Local Sponsors:
Supported in part by Jack and Pamela Lemley