For Immediate Release: May 1, 2018
Contact: Susan Strano, Marketing Director
802-447-1571 ext. 204
sstrano@benningtonmuseum.org
Images:
Edward Koren (b. 1935)
La petite reine I-V, 2012
Lithograph, printed in brown and pale green on paper
Printed and published by Idem, Paris, edition 1/40
Courtesy of Edward Koren
Join artist Edward Koren at Bennington Museum
On Saturday, May 12 from 10 am to 5 pm admission to the Bennington Museum is free for all visitors. Among the activities planned for you is a visit by the Vermont Arts Exchange Art Bus from noon to 4:00 pm where you can become creative with arts and crafts. Stepping into the Museum, art and history are all around, and “creative collisions” can be found around almost every corner. Join us at 3:00 pm to welcome Vermont artist Edward Koren as he opens his exhibition Thinking about Extinction and Other Droll Things: Recent Prints and Drawings by Edward Koren on view through September 9. This exhibition features recent etchings and lithographs by Edward Koren, who is best known for his iconic cartoons of furry humans published in The New Yorker magazine. This summer’s show features a largely unknown body of prints, some fresh off the press and never before exhibited. Included in the selection of works are those featuring curious skeletal creatures in a landscape of ruined Gothic and Classical architecture inspired by Koren’s reading of The Sixth Extinction by Berkshire County resident Elizabeth Kolbert. This reception is free and open to the public.
Koren has long been associated with The New Yorker magazine, in which he has published over 1000 cartoons in addition to many covers and illustrations. He has been a contributor to The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Esquire, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and The Boston Globe among others. He has also published six collections of cartoons which first appeared in The New Yorker, the most recent being “The Hard Work of Simple Living”.
In the Regional Artists Gallery, is Enthusiasms: Personal Paintings by Jessica Park. Jessica Park (b. 1958) sees the world through high definition rainbow-colored glasses. A native of Williamstown, Massachusetts, she is an internationally-acclaimed artist on the autism spectrum. This exhibition is on view in the Regional Artists Gallery through May 28 and focuses on a lesser-known aspect of Park’s work, featuring work created during the first decade of her career as well as more recent paintings from the last decade which were created at the artist’s own initiative for herself or as gifts for family and friends. These works reflect Park’s personal interests, or “enthusiasms” as she calls them, in popular culture, astronomical phenomenon, and prismatic lights and color, natural or man-made, often configured in tightly controlled grid-like structures in brilliant carefully calculated color palettes and intricate patterning that seem to almost vibrate with energy.
Closing on June 13 is Bennington Collects. From comic books, matchbox cars, and video games to items one might not think of as a collection, such as antique and vintage outboard motors, microphones, model ocean liners, and Titanic memorabilia, people are constantly gathering objects and classifying them with their own personal system. Bennington Collects brings together an eclectic selection of over a dozen collections that have been compiled by residents of the greater Bennington area.
Explore the permanent exhibitions such as Grandma Moses, now featuring paintings never before on view, Gilded Age Vermont, the Battle of Bennington Gallery, Bennington Modernism, and one of the newest galleries Early Vermont. Opened in the fall 2017, Early Vermont is a permanent installation with rotating textiles, and presents life in Vermont from the time when the earliest European settlers arrived in 1761 with only the bare necessities to the early 1800s when Vermont craftsmen achieved a level of sophistication rivaling Boston and New York. This gallery showcases over 85 major pieces and smaller items from the Museum’s extensive historical collection of over 30,000 objects.
About the Museum
Bennington Museum is located at 75 Main Street (Route 9), Bennington, in The Shires of Vermont. The museum is open 10 am to 5 pm Thursday through Tuesday, closed Wednesday February 2 through May. It is wheelchair accessible. Regular admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and students over 18. Admission is never charged for younger students, museum members, or to visit the museum shop. Visit the museum’s website www.benningtonmuseum.org or call 802-447-1571 for more information.
Bennington Museum is a member of ArtCountry, a consortium of notable art and performance destinations in the scenic northern Berkshires of Massachusetts and southern Green Mountains of Vermont, including The Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art , Williamstown Theatre Festival (20 minutes away); and MASS MoCA (25minutes away). Visit ArtCountry.org for more information on these five great cultural centers.