William Morris and Alexis Rockman:
The Art of Nature

December 8, 2012 – June 2, 2013

Glass artist William Morris and contemporary painter Alexis Rockman are featured in an exhibition that reflects their individual responses to the beauty of nature.  William Morris’ 38 glass vessels adorned with flora and fauna are paired with Alexis Rockman’s famed grand-scale painting Evolution and other works.  Based on natural history dioramas, Rockman’s paintings served as an inspiration to William Morris in the creation of his elegant vessels.  A film about Morris and the development of his work is being shown, which provides additional insight into the pairing of two of the most accomplished and world renowned American artists of our times.

All works are from
THE GEORGE R. STROEMPLE COLLECTION
A STROEMPLE / STIREK COLLABORATION

Supported in part by OfficeMax Boise Community Fund,
the Robert Lehman Foundation
and the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass,
with additional support provided by Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo.

Wilfred Davis Fletcher Collection: In the Abstract

December 15, 2012 – May 19, 2013

Wilfred Davis Fletcher donated one of the largest and most significant gifts to the Museum in 2002 and 2012 including paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, ceramics and
ethnographic objects, encompassing American art of the
late 20th century.  For more than three decades Mr. Fletcher has been a friend and staunch supporter of BAM, enlivening and enriching BAM’s collections through his generosity. Among the internationally known artists included in the collection are Jonathan Borofsky, Richard Diebenkorn, Nancy Graves, David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Serra.

Troy Passey: left unsaid

November 24, 2012 – May 19, 2013

Troy Passey bases his artwork on the elements of language and utilizes words and phrases as the centerpiece of his drawings.  Passey comes to art from literature, avowing that “it was the look of the words that drew him to become a visual artist, not a writer.” In his art, texts act both as visual and conceptual elements. He finds inspiration in poetry and literature, at times echoing sentiments from such luminaries as Shakespeare, Dickenson, or Nietzsche as well as verbal references derived from contemporary films or musical lyrics.  Rarely without paper and pencil, Passey records the personal, the private, the loud and the obnoxious, words that have something to say. In his art Passey melds idea with image.

Passey is a fourth-generation Idahoan raised on a farm in Paris, Idaho   He attended Utah State University as an English major, with a minor in art history. In 1995, he attended Boise State University where he received an MA in English.  Passey currently teaches writing as an adjunct professor at Boise State University. 

Billie Grace Lynn: White Elephants

November 17, 2012 – May 19, 2013

This installation of life-size inflatable elephants will afford an opportunity not often found in the wild – the ability to stand directly in front of or beside these animals and contemplate their grand stature.  While admiring the sheer size of the ears, feet and trunk on these monumental mammals, one can understand why some cultures consider elephants to be sacred.  The ghostly herd will gently shift and sway within the space, moving silently in spite of their great mass.

Sponsored by Bev and George Harad

Behind the Scenes!
Watch a short video of the installation process on You Tube
produced by For 91 Days In Idaho. Read about their visit to BAM »

BAM continues this successful professional and educational opportunity for high school students in its seventh biennial exhibition.  Organized every two years by the Museum’s Education Department, Higher Ground is a juried art exhibition showcasing artwork by students in the Boise and Meridian school districts.

Supported in part by a grant from
the Greater Boise Rotary Foundation

Shay Page, Timberline High School, Grade 12
He Still Loves Me, Graphite on paper,
2013 Higher Ground Publication Award

EASTERN TRADITIONS
WESTERN EXPRESSIONS

February 25, 2012 – January 6, 2013

In the exhibition Eastern Traditions I Western Expressions, traditional Asian artworks are contrasted with contemporary works by American and Asian-American artists.  By displaying these works together, the exhibition encourages us to consider the ways historic Asian art and culture have influenced Western forms of artistic expression. 

We invite you to appreciate the subtle beauty of Asian artworks and their contemporary counterparts in a new way through interactive experiences.  In the galleries you’ll find touch-screen computer stations with games, films and audio clips related to the artwork. Learn even more about works of art by taking a self-guided audio tour with
your cell phone.

Supported in part by a grant from



With additional support from the Wells Fargo Foundation

IMAGES (L-R): Morris Graves, Vessel Seeking to
Achieve its Ideal Form, 1943, Watercolor and
tempera on paper, Gift of Wells Fargo.
Chinese Throne Vases, Late 19th century, Porcelain,
enamel and gilt, Gift of Mrs. J. L. Eberle.

CATHERINE COURTENAYE: PAINTINGS

May 14 – November 20, 2011

Catherine Courtenaye’s colorful abstract paintings are the outcome of her interest in American 19th-century penmanship workbooks, ledgers and documents. Using a variety of printmaking techniques, Courtenaye transfers phrases, signatures, alphabets and numbers from original manuscript sources onto painted surfaces, layering her colorful compositions to create a metaphor for the distancing of time.

Courtenaye’s graphic quotations recall the Victorian era, when penmanship was a requisite social skill.  Emblematic of society’s quest for perfect control, the mastery of cursive writing was considered a path to self-improvement.  Courtenaye’s work is particularly relevant in today’s computer age, in which typing and texting have replaced the handwritten page. Courtenaye’s abstract paintings navigate between the rigors of lettering perfection and the exuberance of expressive painting. In addition to Catherine Courtenaye’s paintings, the exhibition will include a selection of fascinating original 19th century scripts and mark-making examples.

IMAGE:Catherine Courtenaye, Jabberwocky 20, 2010, oil on panel, 12” x 12”, Courtesy of the Artist.

SPECIAL SOLES

May 14 – August 7, 2011

This auxillary exhibition to The Perfect Fit  highlights a local collection of Victorian womens shoes along with pieces from BAM’s Permanent Collection depicting a variety of shoes
in both two- and three-dimensional works.  Objects have been generously loaned from private collectors.  The Victorian Shoes are on loan from Sue Allgeyer of the Antique World Mall.

IMAGE: Special Soles, 2011, Boise Art Museum installation detail.

The Perfect Fit: Shoes Tell Stories

May 1 - July 31, 2011

Inspiring, vibrant and fun, this exhibition explores the meanings of shoes, presenting 120 playful, imaginative and provocative objects.  Shoes speak to style, fashion and individuality, yet they also tell stories, expressing more than their role as footwear.  Shoes reflect the time and place of their creation, providing unique insights into human history and identity.  The 100 contemporary artists whose shoe-inspired artworks are presented in The Perfect Fit are motivated by these themes, creating objects of wit, whimsy and visual pizzazz

The Perfect Fit: Shoes Tell Stories  was organized by
the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts.

Sponsored by
with additional support provided by Dillard's

IMAGE: Rebecca Siemering, Super7Hot!, 2008,
found scratch tickets, dental floss, canvas, cardboard from shoe box, velvet, 20.5" x 4.25” x 8.5” Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Erik Gould.

Stephen Knapp: Lightpaintings

October 9, 2010 – April 17, 2011

Deriving inspiration from his studies of light, color, dimension, space and perception, artist Stephen Knapp has created an eighty-foot multi-dimensional composition of light in BAM’s Sculpture Court. The artist’s site-specific Lightpainting embodies a unique and original form of art that integrates sculptural, architectural and visual elements to transform the environment. This exhibition is the third exhibition featured in BAM’s Threads of Perception Series.

Sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

with Additional Support from URS

Stephen Knapp, Social Commentary,
installation at the Boise Art Museum, 2010

Higher Ground: 6th Biennial High School Exhibition

February 26 – May 1, 2011

BAM continues this successful professional and educational opportunity for high school students in its sixth biennial exhibition.  Organized every two years by the Museum’s Education Department, Higher Ground is a juried art exhibition showcasing artwork by students in the Boise and Meridian school districts.

Sponsored by  the Wells Fargo Foundation
and the Greater Boise Rotary Foundation

IMAGE: Higher Ground, 2009, BAM installation view

CRITICAL MESSAGES:
Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment

December 18, 2010 – April 10, 2011

This exhibition focuses on the ways in which a group of Northwest artists are currently responding to the heightened awareness of global issues and specific environmental concerns in the Northwest region.  Through their artwork these artists are discussing eight specific environmental issues: growth management, waste management–land and sea, mass production/consumption, transportation, preservation of wilderness and wetlands, biodiversity, climate change and energy  which have been identified by top environmentalists as primary concerns.

Organized by the Western Gallery at Western Washington University, Bellingham, and the Hallie Ford Museum at Willamette University, Salem

Sponsored by OfficeMax Boise Community Fund
with additional support provided by Anita Kay Hardy and
Gregory Kaslo and Idaho Trout Company

Composed: New and Recent Gifts
from the Collection of Gary Bettis

October 16, 2010 - February 20, 2011

For more than two decades, former Boise resident Gary Bettis assembled a collection of elegant and beautifully composed photographs and prints by nationally and internationally known artists. The terms tranquil, composed and serene are emblematic of Mr. Bettis' thoughtful selections. This exhibition features photographs and prints gifted to the Boise Art Museum by Gary Bettis in 2010.

Organized by the Boise Art Museum.

Birds of a Feather:
Selections from Boise Art Museum's Permanent Collection, The Collection of Driek and Michael Zirinsky,
and other Community Lenders

June 12 – October 3, 2010

Birds of a Feather features contemporary artists who work in a variety of styles, highlighting common, rare or endangered bird species in contemporary art. The range of images extends from fanciful to realist expressions and includes paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and installation art. Works by Idaho artists Kirsten Furlong, Randy Van Dyck, and Stephanie Wilde, along with art from BAM’s permanent collection, will offer a present-day counterpoint to the exhibition John James Audubon: American Artist and Naturalist.

Organized by the Boise Art Museum

Tony Fitzpatrick, The Lost Vegas Bird, 1994, five-color etching,
Gift of Wilfred Davis Fletcher, Boise Art Museum Permanent Collection.

Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey

May 22 – September 19, 2010

This exhibition will feature a series of larger-than-life ceramic figures by Chinese artist Wanxin Zhang. Inpired by the 8,000 clay soldiers of the Qin terra cotta army unearthed in Xian, China, in 1974, Zhang’s large-scale terra cotta warriors appear to cross over from history into today’s culture. Zhang’s figures are marked by a melding of cultures in manner of dress, hair fashion and appearance. While drawn from Chinese sculptural traditions, each figure has its own distinct personality and is imbued with peculiarities such as contemporary apparel, wire-rim glasses, a tie or binoculars. Zhang’s work combines ancient Chinese tradition with 21st century way of life. Wanxin Zhang lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Organized by Arizona State University Art Museum

Sponsored by

Wanxin Zhang, Poet of Battlefield, 2000,
Fired clay and pigment, 12 " x 14 " x 42".
Photo courtesy of Arizona State University.

John James Audubon:
American Artist and Naturalist

June 5 – August 22, 2010

The name John James Audubon is synonymous with the study and preservation of American wildlife. His masterpiece, The Birds of America, and his lifetime of written journals stand as an unsurpassed contribution to the world of fine art, natural science and American his tory and literature. This exhibition presents a selection of rare and valuable works of art and artifacts. Featured are 60 of the large hand-colored Double Elephant Folio engravings printed from 1826 to 1838 for The Birds of America, selected from the art collection and document archives of the John James Audubon Museum and State Park at Henderson, Kentucky. Also on display are original Audubon paintings, letters, books, pho tographs, and personal items.

Organized from The Collection of the John James Audubon Museum, Henderson, Kentucky

Sponsored by

 with additional support provided by the Golden Eagle Audubon Society and the A. Kay Hardy and Gregory A. Kaslo Philanthropic Gift Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation

More Than a Pretty Face

April 27- June 13, 2010

Commissioned artwork from local artists who participated in the More Than A Pretty Face program will be presented at BAM following their unveiling at the Gala on April 24th.

Commissioned local artists include: Chris Binion, Divit Cardoza, Jill Fitterer, Kirsten Furlong, Ward Hooper, Geoff Krueger, Benjamin Love, Kathy Harrison Mahn, Surel Mitchell, Shelley McCarl, Christine Raymond, Shantara Sandberg, Amy Westover, Liz Wolf, and Karen Woods.

VOGEL 50x50
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection:
Fifty Works for Fifty States

January 30 – June 6, 2010

The Vogel Collection was started in the early 1960s and has grown to over 4,000 works of art. The Collection contains primarily drawings, with some significant works of painting and sculpture, and is best-known for its holdings of minimal, post-minimal and conceptual art by primarily American artists whose careers developed after 1960. In 1992 the National Gallery entered into an agreement with the Trustees of the Vogel collection to acquire all or part of the thousands of works in the Collection for the benefit of the people of the United States. In 2008, under the umbrella of the National Gallery, the Vogels committed 2,500 works of art to be offered to institutions in fifty states. The Boise Art Museum is proud to be a recipient of this generous gift, which includes works by numerous well-known artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Will Barnet, and Pat Steir.

Special thanks to the many individuals whose collective contributions made framing these fifty works of art possible.

Ronnie Landfield (American, born 1947), Untitled, 1998, acrylic on paper, 29-15/16" x 22-1/16", Collection of Boise Art Museum, THE DOROTHY AND HERBERT VOGEL COLLECTION: FIFTY WORKS FOR FIFTY STATES, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Photo Credit: Lyle Peterzell

ROBOTS: EVOLUTION OF A CULTURAL ICON

February 6 – May 16, 2010

 Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon examines the development of robot iconography in fine art over the past fifty years. In 1920, the term robot was coined from a Czech word robota, which means tedious labor. Since then, the image and the idea of a robot have evolved remarkably from an awkward, mechanical creature to a sophisticated android with artificial intelligence and the potential for human-like consciousness. As robotic technology catches up with the wild imagination of science fiction novels, movies, and animation, dreams and fears anticipated in these stories may also become reality. Artists included in the exhibition have responded to the technological innovation with optimism, pessimism, and humor, presenting work that ultimately explores our ambivalent attitudes towards robots.

Organized by the San Jose Museum of Art.
Sponsored by OfficeMax Boise Community Fund
and URS Washington Division

FIRST Robotics Teams' Robots

February 6 – May 16, 2010

Sponsored by Micron Technology Foundation, Inc.

IDEA AS ART:
Contemporary Works on Paper

November 7, 2009 – May 9, 2010

Renowned New York collector Werner Kramarsky has assembled one of the largest and finest collections of contemporary works on paper, totaling more than 2,000 abstract drawings. From his celebrated collection,
Mr. Kramarsky has selected 23 works by such important artists as Sol Lewitt and Mel Bochner to donate to the Boise Art Museum. As a generous supporter of art and artists,
Mr. Kramarsky states, “You have a responsibility to challenge, to move the world along, to add insight to what beauty can be.” Collector, curator and educator, Werner Kramarsky served for eight years as chairman of the board of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, is a life trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has been a trustee of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. This special exhibition showcases Mr. Kramarsky’s recent gift.

Organized by the Boise Art Museum

Patchwork: Historical Quilts
From the Collection of the Idaho Historical Museum

August 29, 2009 – March 14, 2010

Patchwork: Historical Quilts celebrates a selection of magnificent American quilts collected over the past fifty years by the Idaho Historical Museum. The quilts range in age from the early 1800s to the mid-twentieth century and include a variety of distinctive patterns. Fine examples of Log Cabin, Irish Chain, Album, and Crazy Quilts are among the quilt patterns highlighted. While most quilts in the exhibition were used for domestic purposes, there are also Presentation and Political quilts as well as charming doll quilt designs.

Sponsored by Boise Basin Quilters Guild, The Cotton Club, Idaho PieceMakerS, and Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo

A Survey of Gee’s Bend Quilts

October 10, 2009 – January 17, 2010

Hailed by the New York Times as “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced,” the abstract quilts from the tiny, isolated African-American community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, prompted a rethinking of commonly accepted artistic categories. Throughout much of the twentieth century, making quilts was considered a domestic responsibility for the African-American women in Gee’s Bend, an area of Rehoboth and Boykin, Alabama. As young girls, many of the women trained or apprenticed in their craft with their mothers, female relatives, or friends. Women with large families often made dozens upon dozens of quilts over the course of their lives. Organized by Tinwood Media and the Boise Art Museum, the exhibition features 25 quilts created between 1940 – 2006, as well as 20 contemporary prints inspired by the quilts created by several of the Gee’s Bend artists.

Sponsored by the J. R. Simplot Company Foundation

Mary Lee Bendolph, Strip Quilt, 2003, Cotton, wool,
90"x79." Photo courtesy of Pitkin Studios

Corrugated:  Sculpture by Ann Weber                                                 
May 30 – November 8, 2009

California artist Ann Weber transforms the ordinary medium of cardboard into impressive large-scale sculptures reminiscent of pods, gourds and organic spires.  The sculptures have the appearance of large baskets woven into monumental forms with a rich patina created from layers of shellac applied to the surface. Visitors walk among and through the towering shapes, some as large as 16 feet tall, in an oversized wonderland of contoured forms.  Weber, who began her career as a ceramic artist, started working with the lighter medium of cardboard in 1991 and finds great interest in the possibility of making beautiful objects from common and mundane materials.  Weber received her BA from Purdue University and her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts where she studied with renowned ceramic sculptor Viola Frey. 

Organized by Boise Art Museum

Kid Stuff

June 6 – October 11, 2009

James Castle: Tying It Together                                                             
May 2  – September 27, 2009

James Castle
Untitled (Figures in a line), 20th century
Paper, pigment, soot
Collection of the Boise Art Museum

Devorah Sperber:  Threads of Perception

June 20 – September 20, 2009

In the second exhibition in BAM’s Threads of Perception series, New York artist Devorah Sperber combines commonplace materials with simple optical devices to investigate the connections between art, perception and technology. Her works address the complex relationship between the way we think we see and the way that the brain actually processes images. Her most recent works examine famous paintings from art history.  Sperber uses the computer to pixelate the images and then reproduces the pixels with thousands of spools of colored thread. She then inverts the spool-constructed pictures so that the image is viewed up side down and recognizable only when viewed through an acrylic sphere. To the naked eye the thread spool sculpture appears as patterns of color, but when viewed through the specially designed acrylic sphere, the images spring into focus.  Sperber's works were recently presented at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Brooklyn Museum and featured in articles in the New Yorker, the New York Times and Sculpture Magazine. 

Sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

After the Mona Lisa 2, 2005
85”h x 86” w
5,184 spools of thread, stainless steel ball chain and hanging
apparatus, clear acrylic viewing sphere on metal stand

Go Figure: Selections from the Permanent Collection
February 16 , 2008 - August 16, 2009

Go Figure highlights a series of works from Boise Art Museum's Permanent Collection that focus on the variety of ways in which the figure can be interpreted. The artworks are drawn from Collectors Forum acquisitions for BAM as well as recent gifts from private collectors. Included are paintings, drawings, sculpture and photographs that are contemporary in outlook and non-traditional in format, scale and approach. Both stylized figures and real-life personalities are portrayed, and implied narratives can suggest social or political content. Each work in the exhibition was selected to encourage questions about why or how the artist depicted a particular subject.

Go Figure , installation detail

Garth Claassen: Bloated Floaters, Snouted Sappers, and the Defense of Empire

March 14 – May 31, 2009

Ansel Adams: Early Works
February 28 – May 24, 2009

One of America’s best known photographers, Ansel Adams was a founding member of the legendary f64 group in San Francisco that included fellow American photographers Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and Willard Van Dyke. He was a close associate of Alfred Stieglitz, who gave him a solo show early in his career. In 1935 the publication of Making a Photograph initiated Adams’ immense influence on the techniques and esthetics of American photography. Over his career Adams published over 20 books and portfolios. He founded the Photography Department at California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1946 and the organization Friends of Photography in 1967. Among his numerous awards are Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1946, 1948 and 1958. The range of work depicted in this exhibition follows the transition from pictorialism to straight photography and provides a fresh look at this legendary master of the American landscape. The exhibition focuses on the masterful small-scale prints made by Adams from the 1920s into the 1950s and includes vintage prints and rare examples. Included is Ansel Adams’ most celebrated view of Yosemite, the famous image of Winter Storm, taken from Inspiration Point.

This show is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions

.
Sponsored by KeyBank
Additional support provided by Givens Pursley, LLC
Media Sponsor: Boise Journal Magazine

ART TALK First Thursday March 5, 2009 5:30pm
Keith Walklet, photographer and writer, instructor for the Ansel Adams Gallery, Yosemite, discusses the exhibition

ART TALK First Thursday April 2, 2009 5:30pm
Drew Johnson, Curator of Photography, Oakland Museum of California, discusses the exhibition

Lead Pencil Studio: Annie Han + Daniel Mihalyo
After
November 2008 – May 3, 2009

Lead Pencil Studio seeks to be “a new voice in the emerging field created from the interdisciplinary overlap of architecture and site specific art.” Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo founded Lead Pencil Studio in 1997 and have since completed exhibition projects such as the Seattle Staircase, an outdoor installation at the San Point Arts and Cultural Exchange, and Linear Plenum, a space that “remained empty but was full at the same time. Lead Pencil Studio was recently awarded a Visual Arts grant from the Creative Capital Foundation in New York, and a Special Projects grant from Arts 4Culture in Seattle. Lead Pencil Studio recently received the prestigious Prix de Rome award in architecture in 2007. For Boise Art Museum’s exhibition, Han and Milhalyo will be creating a site-specific installation titled, After, exposing contemporary thought around the impermanence of architectural structures and their impact on our collective and individual memories.

Sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

Additional support provided by Kay Hardy & Gregory Kaslo, and Sally & Robert Richards.

In-kind support received from Driek and Michael Zirinsky, Meredith and Doug Carnahan, Brasfield & Gorrie Construction, Parkside Medical Center, and Fred Tester.  Support from Friends of Lead Pencil Studio is gratefully acknowledged.

After, 2008, Installation detail, Boise Art Museum,
photo courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio

Higher Ground
March 14 – April 26, 2009

BAM continues this successful professional and educational opportunity for high school students in its fifth biennial exhibition. Organized every two years by the Museum’s Education Department, Higher Ground is a juried art exhibition showcasing artwork by students in the Boise and Meridian school districts of Idaho.

Sponsored by Intermountain Gas Industries Foundation, LLC

Media sponsor: Boise Weekly

An-My Lê: Small Wars

November 29, 2008 – March 1, 2009

This exhibition comprises two documentary photographic series by An-My Lê that explore the military conflicts that have framed the last half-century of American history: the war in Vietnam and the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The artist approaches these events obliquely. Instead of addressing her subject by creating reportage images of actual shocking events, she photographs places where war is psychologically anticipated, processed, and relived. Her series Small Wars (1999-2002) depicts men who spend their weekends reenacting battles from the Vietnam War in the forests of Virginia. Lê’s current series, 29 Palms (2003-present), documents a military base of the same name; located in the California desert, it is where soldiers train before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. These dramatizations of war—one a reenactment, one a rehearsal—allow her to create a unique kind of war imagery—one that is unexpected, removed, and revelatory. Lê was born in Vietnam in 1960 and came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1975. She holds a BAS and MS from Stanford University and an MFA from Yale University School of Art. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship (1997), and her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; and Sackler Gallery, The Smithsonian, Washington DC.

Funding for this exhibition has been provided by the Lannan Foundation. The exhibitions, presentations, and related programs of the MoCP are sponsored in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs/After School Matters; the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation; The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation; US Bank; Epson American; American Airlines, the official airlines of the MoCP, and our members

29 Palms: Security and Stability Operations, Iraqi Police, 2003-04
Gelatin silver print
Collection Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, NM

Susan Valiquette:
Let Me Be Brave Portraits of Courage
December 6, 2008 – March 1, 2009

Idaho photographer Susan Valiquette has been creating photographs of Idaho Special Olympics athletes at their summer and winter games for the past six years.  The artist’s interest in the events and the participants is both personal and professional.  As the mother of an athlete, Valiquette has joined her son, Reuben, at the Games for the past 25 years.  As a fine art photographer, Valiquette strives to capture both the extraordinary and the mundane aspects of humanity on film.  Boise Art Museum features over thirty portraits of Idaho Special Olympics athletes in conjunction with the 2009 World Winter Special Olympic Games being held in Boise on February 7 – 13, 2009.  

ART TALK First Thursday February 5, 2009 5:30pm
Artist Susan Valiquette talks about her photographs in the exhibition

Sponsored by URS Washington Division

E.J., Caldwell, 2005
Silver gelatin print
Courtesy of the artist

Jun Kaneko

November 29, 2008 – February 8, 2009

This exhibition features an extensive representation of Jun Kaneko’s work in ceramic sculpture, drawings and paintings over the past two decades. Mainly identified as a sculptor, Jun Kaneko also works in glass, textiles, bronze, paper and canvas. Born in Japan and currently residing in Omaha, Nebraska, Kaneko is internationally recognized as being at the forefront of the ceramics movement. Known for the ambitious scale of his ceramics projects, his massive tapered forms called Dangos (meaning rounded form, or ma in Japanese), can measure 13 feet high and weigh 5,000 pounds or more. Kaneko is one of the few artists in modern history to attempt clay pieces of such size and weight. Kaneko’s work is engaged in serious explorations of order and disorder, simplicity and complexity deliberate action and spontaneity.

Organized by Jun Kaneko Studio, Omaha, Nebraska. Tour Development by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, Kansas City, Missouri

Sponsored locally by Holland & Hart, LLP and OfficeMax Boise Community Fund.

Additional support provided by Sylvan Creek Foundation, and Arthur "Skip" Oppenheimer and Esther Oppenheimer

Untitled, Dango
1999
Glazed ceramics
Photo Credit: Dirk Bakker
36.5”H x 48”W x 38”D

Flora: Selections from the Permanent Collection
June 21 – November 30, 2008

The exhibition Flora highlights floral and botanical images selected from Boise Art Museum’s Permanent Collection. The details of nature are represented in a range of painterly systoles by artists who use a variety of contemporary approaches—from exaggerated scale to meticulous definition. Working both from imagination and from their own observations, the artists focus on the importance of ordinary plants and intimate scenes.

Joseph Raffael, Pink Lily Light, 1984, monotype, 64” x 42 ½”,
Promised Gift of Wilfred Davis Fletcher

Charles Lindsay: Upstream Fly Fishing in the American West
August 30 – November 7, 2008

Charles Lindsay photographs at the interface between nature and culture. It is his fascination with our relationship to the earth which connects all of his work—living with a rain forest tribe, traveling with turtle hunters, looking at his own experience of fly fishing, or the culture of golf and its relationship to the natural world. His photographs and videos are a visual exploration of nature in an abstract sense, influenced by space and scientific imagery. Charles Lindsay says, “I am interested in man’s primitive connection to the natural world. In this body of photographs, fly-fishing is my means of contact. I read the water, follow the seasons, and explore the ancient relationship between predator and prey.” Several of the 25 silver gelatin photographs in the exhibition were taken in central Idaho, where the artist resides a portion of the year.

Local Sponsors:
Sponsored in part by the Wells Fargo Foundation. Additional support provided by Sylvan Creek Foundation and MWH Americas, Inc.

Wind Knot, Colorado, 1997
gelatin silver print

Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach
July 12 - November 7, 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 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

H20: Selections From the Permanent Collection
December 22, 2007 - November 5, 2008

H2O is small exhibition of artworks from the permanent collection depicting water in various forms, from rain to ice and oceans to rivers. The show highlights some recent gifts to the permanent collection as well, and complements the John Taylor exhibition on seafaring and maritime culture.

H2O, installation detail

Gerri Sayler: Ad Infinitum
June 14 – October 5, 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

Ad Infinitum (detail), 2008
Spun hot glue and filament
Image courtesy of Joe Pallen

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.

Sponsored in part by the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Additional support provided by Friends of MK Guth.

Ties of Protection and Safekeeping, 2007-08
synthetic hair and fabric

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
Black and white lithograph
Published 1895 by Davis & Sanford Co.

Andrea Merrell: Measure of Man
April 5 – June 22, 2008

Idaho artist Andrea Merrell has worked for two decades creating drawings, sculpture and mixed- media works based on sacred geometry, mathematical formulas such as the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci sequence.  More recently her work has also incorporated a study of the paintings of 14th-century Italian renaissance artist Giotto, whose fresco murals tell sacred stories of life from the Bible.  In studies of color value, geometric form, abstraction, and art history, Merrell has developed an installation of relationships and juxtapositions for Boise Art Museum's Measure of Man, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition. 

Day and Night (detail), 1991
Egg tempera on panel
Image courtesy of J Crist Gallery

Marsden Hartley: American Modern
March 15 – June 22, 2008

Marsden Hartley: American Modern examines this renowned artist through the largest collection of his work, the Hudson and Ione Walker Bequest at the University of Minnesota’s Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum.  As Hartley’s last dealer and important patron, Hudson Walker amassed a rich collection that spans the artist’s career. Hartley who lived from 1877 – 1943, was an American avant-garde artist who was involved in pivotal art events of the 20th century.  First as an artist shown by Alfred Stieglitz’s at the groundbreaking 291 gallery in 1909, and then at the famed Armory show of 1913. Later in the 1920s, he painted in Taos and Santa Fe depicting the American southwest at a time when the great luminaries of southwest painting were drawn to New Mexico. Hartley today is recognized as a twentieth-century American master.   

Marsden Hartley: American Modern is organized by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. This exhibition is made possible by the generous bequest of Hudson and Ione Walker, whose gift comprises the Frederick R. Weisman art Museum’s collection of works by Marsden Hartley.

Local Sponsors:

Wells Fargo
J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation
Idaho Media Corp

Portrait, 1914-1915
Oil on canvas
Bequest of Hudson Walker from the Ione and Hudson Walker Collection
Image courtesy of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis

John Taylor: Submerge
Dec 22, 2007 - May 25, 2008

Self-trained California artist, John Taylor, grew up near the ocean and from childhood was steeped in boating and shipping lore.  After setting up practice as a landscape architect, Taylor returned to his childhood fascination with the sea and began to create sculptures of sunken and damaged ships.  Made of weathered wood and metal, and a host of other components such as old earrings, computer motherboards, curved wire coat hangers and parts from worn-out children's toys, each boat built by the artist is his personal (albeit researched) version of an actual, historical vessel, long forgotten in American history.  The title of the exhibition, Submerge, reflects on these historic ships' demise at sea, their past as wreckage, and their reclamation from a long forgotten history by the artist.  This emerging artist was recently featured in High Tide: Imaging Maritime Space at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, as well as Garde-Rail Gallery in Seattle, which focuses on folk and outsider art.  The Submerge exhibition will feature 21 ships created between 2000 and 2007 as well as sculptures examining other aspects of maritime lore and culture, including a large whale and several penguins.

ART TALK - Artist John Taylor
First Thursday, February 7, 2008, 5:30 p.m

Sponsored in part by Arlene and Peter Davidson

Faith Ringgold:
Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow
December 15, 2007 - March 23, 2008

This exhibition highlights the paintings, drawings, prints, story quilts, and soft sculpture of internationally known African-American artist, writer and educator Faith Ringgold.   In the 1980s Ringgold began making story quilts, an art form that combines storytelling and quilt making with genre painting. Through her brightly colored imagery and mixed media, she examines a broad range of social and political issues.  By the 1990s she had become one of the foremost progressive American artists of the twentieth century and a successful author.  Ringgold has written and illustrated nine children's books, including "Tar Beach" that has won more than 30 awards, including the Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King award. This exhibit, toured by ACA Galleries in NYC, consists of 40 mixed-media works spanning four decades of Ringgold's career, 1964-2004

Sponsors: OfficeMax Boise Community Fund And Friends of Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold Story Quilts and Children's Books Program is supported in part by a grant from the Sara Maas Fund in the Idaho Communicty Foundation, and co-sponsors: Boise State University Department of Literacy, Boise State University Visual Arts Department, Lee Pesky Learning Center, and Idaho Black History Museum.

Wilt Chamberlain, 1974
Mixed media soft sculpture

Boise: A Look Back
October 24 , 2007 - December 20, 2007

This small focus exhibition features 15 paintings and photographs of locations in Boise. This selection of work is presented on the occasion of BAM’s 70th birthday and the 100th birthday of Julia Davis Park, both in the summer of 2007.  To engage the audience, the Where in Boise? Gallery Game offers the opportunity for visitors to identify each location on a game card.  A Boise-themed prize is the award for the most correct answers.

Las Artes de Mexico
From the collection of the Gilcrease Museum
December 8, 2007 - February 24, 2008

Las Artes de Mexico, from the collection of the Gilcrease Museum, examines over 3,500 years of art and culture, from the ancient worlds of the Mayans and Aztecs to the 20th Century works of Miguel Covarrubias and Diego Rivera. The exhibition includes artifacts from over a dozen pre-Columbian cultures, art created after the European contact of the 1500s, traditional folk art, and the social commentary art that became a focus of Mexican art in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. From ancient to the contemporary, the arts of Mexico retain a unique perspective on the world. Las Artes de Mexico engages the viewer in an exploration of past and present, celebrating three millennia of human experience in Mexico. Courtesy of the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma Tour Development by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, Kansas City, Missouri

ART TALK - Exhibition curator Anne Morand CEO of the C.M. Russell Museum
First Thursday, January 3, 2008, 5:30 p.m.

Sponsors:

WA Group

Office Max

Aztec Vase, AD 1325 to 1521
Earthenware

Acclaimed photographer Laura McPhee bases each of her photographic series on a dilemma.  River of No Return is no exception, highlighting the juxtapositions of individualism versus community and development versus preservation in the American West.  This powerful traveling exhibition of haunting, large-scale color photographs captures conflicting ideas of land use and landscape across remote areas of Central Idaho.  McPhee spent two years in the Sawtooth Mountains photographing the region’s cinematic and picturesque landscapes and illustrating their coexistence with humanity and development.  McPhee sees these images as a microcosm of America and the dilemmas that communities and people face nationwide. The exhibition is organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and works from this series focusing on Idaho are also included in a touring exhibition organized by the Guggenheim Museum.  McPhee is a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. 

This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and is made possible through the generous collaboration of Alturas Foundation. The Boise Art Museum presentation is sponsored by  Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Simplot and the J.R. Simplot Company.

Alturas Foundation, a family foundation representing four generations in the American West, dedicated to visual arts and American culture, selected Laura McPhee as its initial artist-in-residence in 2003.  Alturas Foundation is proud to support “River of No Return”, created from her two year residency in the Sawtooth Valley of Idaho. From the collection of Alturas Foundation, San Antonio, Texas.

ART TALK - BAM's Associate Curator Amy Pence-Brown will give a tour of the exhibition
First Thursday, December 6, 2007, 5:30 p.m

Held every three years, the Triennial is a statewide, juried art exhibition that reflects the quality and diversity of artwork being created in Idaho. To add a new twist, this year’s guest juror and curator is BAM’s associate curator of art, Amy Pence-Brown. In addition to the standard jurying of slides/digital images submitted by 249 artists, Pence-Brown spent the summer traveling Idaho to conduct 71 on-site studio visits, ultimately selecting 25 for the exhibition.

By revamping this traditional favorite, BAM has the opportunity to put forward a statewide community presence through direct outreach and to provide one-on-one constructive criticism to artists by personally visiting studios and viewing entire bodies of work  The 2007 Idaho Triennial will be documented with a color catalog and tour to two venues within the state.

Nocturnes
August 25 - October 21, 2007

Nocturnes explores new technological processes which allow handmade artworks to become animated video. The exhibition features four artists – Seattle’s Cat Clifford and Mary Simpson, and New York-based Lucy Raven and Laleh Khorramian – who use increasingly accessible film and editing technology to transform fine art prints, drawings and sculptural elements into animated films. Showing projected works and related source material, the exhibition is designed to transport viewers into “other worlds” entirely of the artists’ making.  This exhibition is guest curated by Fionn Meade, Assistant Curator for Public Programs at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, in Seattle.

Sponsored in part by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts

Brittany Powell: Mucho Más
June 16 - November 11, 2007

Brittany Powell is a Portland-based artist with a MFA in printmaking from the California College of the Arts and was recently selected for the 2006 Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum.  She creates site-specific installations by covering entire rooms with contact paper and cutting away detailed designs with a XACTO ® knife to recreate rooms from her experiences and memories of her everyday life, like her bedroom, a convenience store or the local donut shop.  She is influenced by, and interested in, domestic belongings, the everyday, food, humor, and commercial products.  Her work looks for the place where the mass-produced meets the personalized through the methods of inventorying, making products, intentional kitsch, and performance.  Each piece also contains an element of humor or sarcasm.  For the Boise Art Museum, Powell has turned the Nelson Gallery into a Mexican restaurant, titled Mucho Más, which translates to “much more.” 

Sponsored by Wells Fargo Charitable Foundation

Kendall Buster
New Growth
February 17 - October 16, 2007

Internationally recognized and considered one of Washington, D.C.’s most celebrated artists, Buster has developed a large-scale installation specifically for the Art Museum’s sculpture court that resembles a fantastic architectural model. New Growth explores the artist’s ideas about the relationships between sculptural objects, organic systems and architectural elements.  Working with a palette of organic and geometric shapes and sheer skins created from fiberglass and nylon fabric, Buster assembled interlocking floating forms that play off each other and the dynamics of the sculpture court space.

Sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts

ART TALK - Artist Kendall Buster
May 17, 5:30 p.m.

Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration
May 12 - August 12, 2007

For more than 30 years, Chuck Close has explored the art of printmaking in his continuing investigation into the principles of perception. This exhibition provides a survey of the full extent of Close’s long involvement with the varied forms and processes of printmaking, and is the first comprehensive exploration of his prodigious accomplishments in this field. Featuring works dating from 1972 to 2002, Chuck Close Prints illustrates the artist’s range of invention in etching, aquatint, lithography, handmade paper, direct gravure, silkscreen, traditional Japanese woodcut and reduction linocut. Highlighting the creative processes and technical collaboration between the artist and the master printers, the exhibition demonstrates how Close has consistently but variously challenged the accepted boundaries of the printmaking tradition. Taken together, these prints constitute a remarkable self-portrait of the creative drive, vision, and intellect of one of America’s most important living artists. 

Chuck Close Prints:  Process and Collaboration was organized by Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston.  The exhibition and publication have been generously underwritten by the Neuberger Berman Foundation.  The exhibition was made possible, in part, by major grants from the Lannan Foundation and Jon and Mary Shirley, and by generous grants from The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation and Houston Endowment, Inc.  Financial support has also been provided by Jonathan and Marita Fairbanks, Dorene and Frank Herzog, Andrew and Gretchen McFarland, Carey Shuart and the Wordtham Foundation, Inc., with additional funds from Karen and Eric Pulaski, Suzanne Slesin and Michael Steinberg, and Texas Commission on the Arts. 

Sponsored locally by the J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation, Lemley International, OfficeMax Boise Community Fund and Washington Group International. Additional major funding support provided by the Beaux Arts Société. Media Sponsorship provided by Boise Weekly and Idaho Media Corp.

Remix: Selections from the
Permanent Collection
On display through April 22, 2007

A remix is an alternate version of a song, different from the original.  A record producer or sound engineer uses audio mixing to alter the original tracks of a song, adding or subtracting elements, changing the volume, length, or almost any other aspect of the musical components.  A song may be remixed to create a song that will be played in dance clubs or to alter a song to suit another musical genre.  This exhibition reshuffles the BAM permanent collection playlist, featuring “mix”ed-media art works using uncommon or novel materials.

Shaped By Shadow
New Additions to the Permanent Collection
February 1 - May 27, 2007

This exhibition celebrates a recent gift of 80 artworks from Boise collector Gary Bettis.  Darkness, light, shape, and line are all significant elements in these exquisite mezzotints, etchings, and photographs. Each artwork reflects a mood and a sense of time created by shadow as well as Bettis' discerning focus in the art of collecting.

Higher Ground
March 3 - April 15, 2007

BAM continues this successful professional and educational opportunity for high school students in its fourth biennial exhibition.  Organized every two years by the Museum’s Education Department, Higher Ground is a juried art exhibition showcasing artwork by students in the Boise and Meridian school districts.

This exhibition borrows its title from Anthony Lukas’ book Big Trouble, an extensive study of the legal drama that unfolded following the 1905 assassination of Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg.  The installation, created by artist Scott Fife, revisits this historical event through a series of sculptural portraits created out of sliced and layered archival cardboard. The cast of characters includes “Big Bill” Haywood, leader of the mineworkers’ union; Harry Orchard, the assassin; defense attorney Clarence Darrow; socialist Eugene Debs; and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. The exhibition is being presented in conjunction with Idaho’s 100-year anniversary of the Steunenberg murder trial.  Additionally, Shapers of the 20th Century will be on view, comprising 12 new sculptures and 11 large-scale drawings by Fife.  Each piece depicts a political or social celebrity such as Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro, Lionel Hampton, and Pablo Picasso. 

Scott Fife: The Idaho Project is supported in part through a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces program.

Sponsored in part by Hawley Troxell Ennis & Hawley, LLP and Syringa Bank

Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs examines the impact of Western culture on the evolution of Russian iconographic painting from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries.  Although Russian icon painting reached its peak during the medieval “Golden Age,” icons crafted in the 19th and 20th centuries reveal a variety of conflicting styles and ideas indicating a culture undergoing change. Objects on display include jeweled icons once owned by the Imperial Family, mass-produced images made for peasants and traditional icons revered by those who strongly opposed any deviation from conventional design.  The icons were selected from the collections of Marjorie Meriwether Post.  Organized by the Hillwood Museum and Garden in collaboration with the Steinhardt-Sherlock Trust. 

Sponsors:  Beaux Arts Société; Carol MacGregor, Ph.D., Philanthropic Gift Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation; Les Bois Partners; Colliers International

Ted Apel: Sound/Matter
December 2, 2006 – February 18, 2007

Art Talk First Thursday February 1, 2007 5:30pm

Sound artist Ted Apel will exhibit new and recent work for his show at the Boise Art Museum. Combining computer technology and electronic music, Apel creates interactive sound art that encourages some form of viewer/listener participation. His visual and sonic material incorporates found objects and simple musical instruments “played” by special computer programs that the artist writes himself to reorganize the recorded audio of a space, which is then processed and returned as a new sound to the viewer based on concept of “audio feedback.” Apel, who moved to Idaho in recent years, has exhibited internationally and won the grand prize in the 2004 Idaho Triennial.

This exhibition is made possible in part by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts.