Homeward to the Prairie I Come: Gordon Parks Photographs from the Beach Museum of Art Link
Joe and Emily Lowe Galleries
August 22-December 8, 2024
This exhibition features photographs selected and donated by Parks to Kansas State University in 1973. Becoming a kind of self-portrait, the gift expresses wide-ranging artistic ideas beyond documentary photography. Parks created new narratives and thematic groups from such assignments as Paris fashions, Fort Scott Revisited, and Muhammad Ali to reflect his thoughts on photography as a fine art medium and his work vis à vis celebrated paintings and sculptures. As a result, the gift becomes a kind of self-portrait expressing Parks’ wide-ranging artistic ideas beyond documentary photography. Most significantly, the photographs instigate cultural change by challenging viewers to imagine a more inclusive culture than the one they know: a world where Black skin represents ideal beauty, where an African American athlete embodies the exemplary hero, and where an artist of African heritage has a place within the lineage of excellent artists in Western art history.
Co-curated by Aileen June Wang, Ph.D., Curator, and Sarah Price, Registrar, at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University. Tour organized by Art Bridges.
Mithila Women Paint Gender-Based Violence in the 21st Century Link
James F. White Gallery
August 22–December 10, 2024
For centuries, Mithila painters who work in Northeastern India for centuries have made paintings of gods and auspicious symbols on the walls and floors of their homes. This exhibition investigates a recent development within this long tradition of Indian folk art, where, beginning in the mid-2000s, artists began making paintings drawn from their own lived experiences. These women painters depicted the violence enacted against them, including dowry deaths, female feticide, and male kin’s control generally. In doing so, this exhibition will draw attention to the patriarchal structures of this rural Indian community and broader structures of gender-based violence worldwide.
LANscapes Link
The Art Wall Project: Mauro C. Martinez
August 22, 2024–May 11, 2025
In its fourth iteration, the 2024-2025 Art Wall Project will explore the spaces where video gaming takes place. Through his paintings, Mauro C. Martinez will consider how changes in technologies have reshaped how gamers connect with one another in the physical and virtual realms.