The Brooklyn College Library Art Collection: Recent Additions

The purchase of prints from Columbia University's LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arts/visual_arts/neiman/  was facilitated by Art Professor Archie Rand.

Day, 2001-3
Night, 2001-3
Offset lithography and silkscreen. Edition 27.

Sarah Sze was born in 1969. She received a BA from Yale University in 1991 and in 1997 earned an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she now lives. In the last few years, Sze has had solo exhibitions across the U.S. and Europe and has shown her work in numerous national and international group exhibitions, including the Whitney and the Venice Biennial. In 2003, she was one of 24 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellows Program. Ms Sze is a sculptor; Day and Night are the first prints she has ever made. They are very complicated, employing dozens of layers of lithography and silkscreen.

Typewriter, 2003
Sugarlift aquatint. Edition 40.

Dancing Couple, 2003
Offset lithography. Edition 18.

Mr. Kentridge lives and works in Johannesburg, where he was born in 1955. In 1976 he received a BA in politics and African studies from the University of the Witwatersrand and then studied art from 1976 to 1978 at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. His work has been shown throughout Europe and the United States including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; it is currently on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Throughout his career, Kentridge has worked in a wide variety of media, including printmaking, drawing, painting, and film that employs a unique process of animation. His drawings and films address issues ranging from apartheid, the politics of South Africa and class struggle, to themes of family, and everyday life.

Vegetable fields, 1983
Woodcut, AP, edition of 28, Beijing.

Xu Bing was just awarded the first Artes Mundi prize, a new $75,000 art award created here to stimulate interest in contemporary art in Wales. Born in Chongqing, China in 1955, Xu grew up in Beijing. He received an MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, in 1987. In 1990, he moved to the United States, making his home in Brooklyn, New York. In July of 1999, Xu Bing was awarded the MacArthur Award for Genius by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of his originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy. Xu Bing has exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; P.S. 1, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at the 45th Venice Biennial, Italy.

The new Library's only commissioned work of art, a wall sculpture by Chakaia Booker, was installed in September, 2004. A highly regarded artist and arts educator, Ms Booker’s sculpture has been exhibited most recently at the Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York. Last year, the Jersey City Museum featured a mid-career retrospective that examined how Ms Booker’s work is connected to the landscape and environment in which she was raised. In 2005, Ms Booker was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and in 2002 she received a Pollock-Krasner grant, honoring artistic achievement. Her work is included in the collections of the Bronx Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newark Museum, and the Studio Museum of Harlem.

Sybil, 1992
Celestina marble, 17 x 13 x 9

Musical Mermaid, 1988
Sienna marble, 21 x 15 x 7

Arturo Toscanini, 1994
Cold cast bonded brass, 21 x 9 x 9

On October 27 with the president present the Library unveiled three sculptures by Anthony Gennarelli.

This collection, long stored in a room on the lower level of SUBO, was moved to the Library on February 2, 2005. After some review, we may install some of these works in various locations in the building.