Past Exhibitions

TopSpin
A SERIES OF SOLO EXHIBITIONS FOR REGIONAL ARTISTS

EXPLORATIONS: Desire + Balance by Ellen Steinfeld

March 5 - May 16  
Opening Reception First Friday, March 5, 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
The Castellani’s large central gallery will highlight Ellen Steinfeld’s work in three mediums, beginning March 5.
Her new series of steel sculptures, she notes, “presents the exciting ability to push, stretch, balance, and juggle solid and linear forms as far as physically possible.” Large painted plates, called “Collect-her-Plates,” offer narratives of clichéd notions of gender and innuendo, disrupting conventional concepts of bliss. A third series, works on paper, consists of metallic fibers, paper pulp, and mixed media; they recall “everyday realms...landscapes of the mind.”     

For a copy of the Steinfield Brochure  Click Here

African American Artists of the 20th Century: Selections from the Permanent Collection
 March 1 – May 31                      Opening First Friday, April 2, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
 Artists included in this exhibition represent important contributions to the history of modern and contemporary art. The works reflect a continual development of issues in the twentieth century, including understanding of identity, intellectual and personal struggles, social and civil stratifications, and the cultural contexts in which the art was produced. The show will feature, among others, work by Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Alvin Loving, Jean-Michel Basquiat, William Cooper, and Alison Saar.

Nicholas Taylor, Photograph of Jean-Michel Basquiat, c. 1979. Collection of the artist.

Jean-Michel Basquiat:
An Intimate Portrait
March 5 - May 31                Opening Reception First Friday, April 2, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
This exhibition captures the friendship
between artists Nicholas Taylor and J
ean-Michel Basquiat, born under the pulsating lights of New York City’s famed Mudd
Club in lower Manhattan in January, 1979. Twenty-eight historic photographs, shot on one
roll of film, are being exhibited and traveled for the first time in their entirety. The accompanying
 text panels, written by Taylor, contextualize the historical significance of Basquiat – his
eccentric behavior, obsessive hunger for fame and respect – in the vacuous art world
 of New York City in the 1980s, a time when there was little hope of escape...
let alone, survival.

(Click on images to enlarge)

B A S Q U I A T:
Lost in His Own Back Yard
An inspiring lecture on Basquiat and contemporary African American Artist
by Najjar Abdul-Musawwir, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Professor of Art.
Thursday, April 15, 2004, 4:00 p.m
Free Admission
Get your free Brochure Click The Button Below!!!!!!

Click Below to get you free program

Scenes and Locations

January 20 – March 5
Part of a continuing program of permanent collection thematic exhibitions that examine ways to look at contemporary art, “Scenes and Locations” includes actual scenes and physical sites based on tangible reality. Beyond the physical environment, there are psychological “scenes” based on experiences and revisited through memory. The engaged visitor will bring to each of these works his/her own rich life history.

To get a Scenes and Location  Exhibition Brochure Click Here

Photos of the Scenes and Location  Exhibition at the Castellani Art Museum
Click on Pictures below to enlarge

Easter Egg with Wheat Sheaf Motif, Henria Makowski. Photo: Marion Falle

Spring Folkways for Families
 February 29 – April 4
 Opening Family Day Sunday, February 29, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
 This exhibition and workshop series celebrate the coming of spring. Working directly with local artists of Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, and Ukrainian heritage, participants will create palm weaving, sculpted St. Joseph’s Day breads, and four types of Easter eggs. Instructors will share both the history and “how-to” traditions that date to the pre-Christian era, yet continue to play an important role in their communities. A family open house on February 29th will feature artist demonstrations, traditional games played with eggs, and an activity booklet. Workshops are listed in the calendar section

Leo Lionni: A Passion for Creativity
November 7, 2003 - February 15, 2004
Opening Reception First Friday, November 7, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Niagara University recently gave an honorary degree to Eric Carle, one of the country’s foremost illustrators of children’s books. Now the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, will send a traveling show to the Castellani this fall, celebrating the work of another “star” of the field, Leo Lionni. A native of Amsterdam, Lionni was surrounded as a child by the works of Chagall, De Chirico, Kandinsky, Miro, Modigliani and Picasso, among others. He began his career as a graphic designer and, by 1939, he was in New York, as art director of Fortune magazine. It was only later, as a grandfather, that he began to produce picture books for children. Each one has an underlying social message: Pezzetino teaches us that we all have a place on this earth; Fish Is Fish confirms how futile it is to view the world from only one point of view; Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is a new twist on Aesop’s Fables; and in Swimmy, a tiny, insignificant fish in the vast ocean is ingenious enough to stand up for his rights. Although he had five languages at his command, Lionni chose to tell his stories with few words, but with pictures of international meaning.
 

For the  Museum's Teacher Information Packet Click Here
If you would like a copy of the Brochure Click Here
If you would like a copy of the Lionni  Post Card Click Here

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