List Gallery / Swarthmore College

Please join the List Gallery on Monday, February 22 at 5:30 PM for a talk by Christina Vassallo, executive director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum. This is the first installment of our Sharing Notes lecture series. Register in advance for the Zoom meeting here: https://swarthmore.zoom.us//tZUvfuGurT0rG9GV0fiiQsx0PaKdIh Please find the complete schedule and all registration links here:... https://www.swarthmore.edu//sharing-notes-personal-narrati The List Gallery is pleased to announce Sharing Notes: Personal Narratives from the Philadelphia Arts Community, a four-part virtual lecture series highlighting individuals who have been making important contributions to the arts in the Philadelphia area. The distinguished speakers will share insights about how they have navigated the art world and discuss how the pandemic has led to innovative programming and strategies at their respective institutions. The List Gallery is honored to feature: Christina Vassallo, executive director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum; Ricky Yanas, artist, educator and co-founder of Ulises bookshop and curatorial platform; Jennifer-Navva Milliken, artistic director of the Center for Art in Wood; and Elizabeth Spungen, executive director of the Print Center, Philadelphia.

Branching Out: Changing Approaches to Art in Wood

Please join us Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 4:30 p.m. for a film screening and discussion with Philadelphia-based artist Emily Steinberg! A Q & A with the artist will follow until 5:30 p.m. Although the List Gallery is unable to host visitors due to COVID-19, this film offers a virtual look into Steinberg’s studio, philosophies, and practice. Please register in advance for this meeting: https://swarthmore.zoom.us//tZMlc-2vpzorG9Ue0K9sE83k-_eMGz

We are pleased to present an online exhibition and tour of "Spatial Recollections: Art from the Swarthmore College Permanent Collection and Recent List Gallery Exhibitors." Join us via Zoom on Monday, December 14, 4:305:30 p.m.! Swarthmore College seniors Lee Cohen, Bria Dinkins, Inna Kimbrough, and Kristina Stallvik will guide us through the site and we hope to welcome several featured artists, including Daniel Heyman, Orit Hofshi, and Syd Carpenter. Please register in adva...nce for this meeting: https://swarthmore.zoom.us/.../tZAvcumuqD8iEtcX7AtGvyuQeO... At the beginning of the fall 2020 semester, List Gallery Director Andrea Packard selected works from Swarthmore’s permanent collection and installed them in the List Gallery for on-campus students to view. One room of the gallery hosted works by 17thearly 20th century painters, including Benjamin West, Robert Henri, Childe Hassam, and Mildred B. Miller. The other room of the gallery featured works in a variety of media by influential artists, including Mary Lee Bendolph, Chris Staley, Syd Carpenter, Bruce Cratsley, Donna Polseno, Alex Anderson, Orit Hofshi, Daniel Heyman, Judy Glickman Lauder, Donald Teskey, David MacDonald, Ellen Shankin, Romare Bearden, Robert Turner, and Kevin Snipes. "Spatial Recollections", the accompanying virtual tour, and the 2020-21 List Gallery Internship program were made possible by the Kaori Kitao Endowment for the List Gallery and the generosity of Joan Gordon. See more

Swarthmore Campus, the Scott Arboretum, is famous for its mesmerizing plants and trees. These landscapes have inspired multiple artworks. One of them is currently featured in the List Gallery exhibition. Alex Anderson's work, Magnolia Vessel and a similar work he created for the Inn at Swarthmore take inspiration from the magnolias that bloom on our campus every spring and the distinctly white, upright blossoms of the Swarthmore Sentinel Magnolia variety. Such early works de...monstrate a precocious technical mastery and synthesis of Asian and Western visual cultures. They also reflect his growing fascination with objects that embody complex and often contradictory attitudes toward beauty, desire, power relationships, and decay. Alex earned an M.F.A. in ceramics from the University of California Los Angeles in 2018. His graduate work broadened to include complex installations incorporating video and dramatic lighting effects. Increasingly, both his installations and individual sculptures challenge cultural stereotypes explicitly and explore identity politics. A rising star in the art world, Anderson's work has already been exhibited in galleries and institutions across the United States and abroad. He is currently represented by Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, which presented his 2018 show, Wonderland. Last Spring, Gavlack presented his second solo exhibition titled Little Black Boy Makes Imperial Porcelains. While enjoying remarkably swift critical and commercial success, Alex has also begun teaching ceramics at the Geffen Academy in Los Angeles, where he has also established his studio. Want to see this piece, not just as a picture? The List Gallery welcomes Swarthmore students to come and enjoy the artworks of prominent masters. Also, stay tuned for the live translation of the exhibition! Admission is limited to members of the Swarthmore College community who are authorized to be on campus. Located in the Lang Performing Arts Center, the List Gallery is open daily, Noon 5:00 p.m. Reservations can be made via the GET Mobile App. During gallery hours, visitors can also call (610) 328-7811 or stop by the gallery to see if space is available.

Another wonderful piece of the Spatial Recollections exhibition at the Swarthmore College List Gallery - Little Friend by Kevin Snipes, 2015, porcelain, glazes, underglaze, and oxide wash, 9 x 4 x 3 inches, private collection. Kevin Snipes records encrypted conversations and implied narratives on small curiously designed porcelain pots. Using humor and conceit as his methods, his drawings depict a cast of performing cartoonish figures in a display of contorted gestures and su...ggestive signals. Elaborately coiffed heads bend at right angles, eyes dart, sinuous limbs hang limp or twist improbably. However received, the response to Kevin Snipes’ charmed and unsettling offspring ranges from the sympathetic to the hilarious. What feelings does it evoke in you? Want to see this piece, not just as a picture? The List Gallery welcomes Swarthmore students to come and enjoy the artworks of prominent masters. Also, stay tuned for the live translation of the exhibition! Admission is limited to members of the Swarthmore College community who are authorized to be on campus. Located in the Lang Performing Arts Center, the List Gallery is open daily, Noon 5:00 p.m. Reservations can be made via the GET Mobile App. During gallery hours, visitors can also call (610) 328-7811 or stop by the gallery to see if space is available. See more

While you are getting ready to come and see the Spatial Recollections exhibition at the List Gallery of Swarthmore College, we would like to introduce some of the highlight pieces. This one is Strip Quilt by Mary Lee Bendolph, 2006, mixed fabrics, including polyester, corduroy, and cotton blend. This piece was a part of Piece Together: The Quilts of Mary Lee Bendolph exhibition in 2018, which calls attention to the extraordinary achievements of one of America’s most celebra...ted quilt makers. Born on August 25, 1935, in a pole cabin, Mary Lee Bendolph grew up in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 40 miles southwest of Selma. She learned aesthetic strategies and techniques from her mother, Aolar Carson Mosely (19121999), and an extended community of women who found quilt making essential. Aolar’s infuence, and the importance of quilt making as a language that has evolved for generations in Gee’s Bend, are represented here by the one quilt that remains in the family’s collection: Pump Handle Spin Top (Log Cabin Variation) (1954). Sadly, most of Mosely’s quilts were destroyed by a house fire. Bendolph’s only daughter, Essie Bendolph Pettway (b. 1956), is one of the few women of her generation to remain in Gee’s Bend and actively make quilts; several of her quilts accompany this exhibition, and her work deserves further study. Piece Together features 18 quilts by Mary Lee Bendolph as well as seven prints she created in collaboration with Paulson Bott Press (now Paulson Fontaine Press) in Berkeley, California. These beautiful and deeply moving artworks reflect communal traditions that have evolved over centuries, yet demonstrate an aesthetic that is distinctly Bendolph’s own. Want to see it yourself? The List Gallery welcomes Swarthmore students to come and enjoy the artworks of prominent masters. Also, stay tuned for the live translation of the exhibition! Admission is limited to members of the Swarthmore College community who are authorized to be on campus. Located in the Lang Performing Arts Center, the List Gallery is open daily, Noon 5:00 p.m. Reservations can be made via the GET Mobile App. During gallery hours, visitors can also call (610) 328-7811 or stop by the gallery to see if space is available.

Diving back into the work environment completely reformed by the pandemic conditions can be challenging. Nevertheless, we can still enjoy art virtually or in-person and see our feelings and thoughts being reflected by skillful masters. This gives us the feeling of being understood, which has been carrying us through hardships this whole year. To celebrate its re-opening, List Gallery is pleased to present Spatial Recollections: Art from the Swarthmore College Permanent Colle...ction and Recent Exhibitors. Organized during a pandemic that has highlighted social divisions and shifting attitudes toward labor, shared spaces, and the environment, the exhibition features diverse artists who model craftsmanship, civic engagement, and innovation. Calling attention to masterworks that are usually installed in College offices or storage rooms, Spatial Recollections offers a glimpse of Swarthmore’s often-hidden artistic landscape. The exhibition continues through November 20, 2020. Admission is limited to members of the Swarthmore College community who are authorized to be on campus. Located in the Lang Performing Arts Center, the List Gallery is open daily, Noon 5:00 p.m. Reservations can be made via the One Card Center. During gallery hours, visitors can also call (610) 328-7811 or stop by the gallery to see if space is available.