Born in Guangdong, China, Xiaoze Xie is one of the most prominent of China’s contemporary artists. His expressive paintings of decaying books and newspapers— carriers of cultural memory—evoke the tenuous nature of history. This traveling exhibition of recent work is curated by Dan Mills, director, Bates College Museum of Art, and organized by the Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University. 

Curated by graduate student Ashley Gibson, the exhibition tackles issues that have long been taboo in Cuban socialist society. Since the early 1990s, Cuban artists and intellectuals have investigated the many complex identities that exist within Cuba and which reflect the intermingling of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Caribbean. Afro-Cuban religion and culture have become important themes in the work of contemporary Cuban artists, revealing the persistence of racism in Cuba today.

Yongsoo Huh, a collector and supporter of international contemporary art and particularly young artists, has lent the JSMA an exciting selection of recent work. Representing seventeen cutting-edge Korean artists, the exhibition focus on icoic figure paintings,landscapes and still lifes. A member of the museum’s Leadership Council, Huh has been akey player in Seoul’s contemporary art scene and is a patron of the arts on both sides of the Pacific.

Lawyer-turned-artist Chris Jordan follows his recent photographic documentation of natural disasters with these large mural-size compositions, colorful versions of well-known paintings, like George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, but made with recycled objects— in this case, 106,000 aluminum cans. Another expansive landscape mimics Ansel Adams’s iconic imagery of the Alaskan wilderness but is actually a composite of thousands of GM stickers used for advertising their Yukon model vehicle. Organized and distributed by the Museum of Art/Washington State University, Pullman, WA, the exhibition addresses such issues as sustainability, health, and consumerism in twenty seductively beautiful photographs.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum has planned a program of activities with its on- and off-campus partners. These include support for photography, environmental leadership and law courses as well as lectures and presentations addressing two of the UO’s “Big Ideas”—green product design and sustainable cities. Other programs focus on recycling and the environment on campus and in our communities.