The Palo Alto Art Center Presents

"The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf"

September 28 - December 21, 2008

Special Events on September 28, 2008 ~ Bruce Metcalf Lecture: “Chapters in a Life of the Imagination” / 2 - 3 PM

Public Preview / 3 - 5 PM

The engaging and spirited work of leading art jeweler, Bruce Metcalf, debuts in "The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf," at The Palo Alto Art Center (PAAC) from September 28 through December 21, 2008. Curated by Signe Mayfield of PAAC, this first major exhibition of his work examines social, moral and political issues, many of which Metcalf has also raised in his essays. In this exhibition, diminutive size matters. Cast in silver or carved in wood, Metcalf's vulnerable protagonists act out issues on the stage of miniature worlds. Some of his pieces serve dual lives as wearable brooches, where the protagonists venture into the world and engage the unsuspecting viewer with their stories and distinctive visual language.

The exhibition also marks the premier of the United States tour slated for multiple venues through 2011, including the Mint Museum of Craft+Design in Charlotte, North Carolina; Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington; Fresno Art Museum in Fresno, California; Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts; Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Racine Art Museum in Racine, Wisconsin. A 120 page full-color catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

The artist will present a slide lecture “Chapters in a Life of the Imagination” on September 28, 2008, from 2-3 p.m. in the Art Center’s auditorium. It is followed by a public preview of the exhibition from 3-5 p.m. The lecture and preview are free to the public; please call 650-329-2366 to RSVP for the lecture. In addition, docent-led tours, "Art Dialogues," will be offered on Saturdays at 2 p.m. Please visit the PAAC website at: www.cityofpaloalto.org/artcenter or call 650-329-2366 for more information.

"The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf" is the first major exhibition and catalogue focused solely on his work. Born in 1949, Metcalf is revered as a leading art jeweler, curator, essayist and critic of contemporary craft. He earned a B.F.A. degree in 1972 at Syracuse University and an M.F.A. at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 1977. Metcalf taught at Kent State University in Ohio from 1981 to 1991. His work has been featured in major exhibitions including the American Craft Museum, New York; Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; and the Galeria Universiteria Artistos, Mexico City. Equally adept as a curator and a critic of contemporary craft, his essays have appeared in such publications as "American Craft," "Metalsmith," "Studio Potter," "Crafts Australia," and the Korean publication "Design." Currently, he is co-authoring "Makers: 20th Century American Studio Craft" with Janet Koplos, Senior Editor, Art in America, to be published by the University of North Carolina Press in late Spring, 2009.

"The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf" was curated by Signe Mayfield to contextualize the artist’s work in relationship to his interests in architecture, comics and the narrative voice. The exhibition examines the social, moral and political issues that Metcalf has also raised in his essays. In his work, issues are acted out by his vulnerable protagonists on the stage of miniature worlds. Some of his pieces serve dual lives as wearable brooches, where the protagonists venture into the world and engage the unsuspecting viewer with their stories and distinctive visual language. As Metcalf has observed, "the miniature can only be entered through an act of imaginative projection.

Looking at small objects, viewers will get very close and the object will fill their field of vision. There's no scale in the imagination, and very small things can become psychologically large." The exhibition features seventy pieces by Metcalf, dating from the 1970s to 2001, on loan from the collections of the artist, museums and private lenders across the country. Taking center stage are Metcalf's characters with their emotionally-distorted bodies that manifest inflicted pain from human nature's "dark side." Physically big-headed with atrophied limbs, all of Metcalf's figures are born from cartoon traditions. Cast in silver or carved in wood, these characters with big brains are strangely credible as they ponder Metcalf's overarching theme - the human condition, nurturing the juncture of nature and culture, and issues of dissent. Included is "Offering Sustenance" 1993, which shows a squinting fellow undergoing an empathic meltdown during the compassionate act of nourishing another. It is one of a series from 1993, which includes "Band Aid," "Brand New Home," and "Meaning of a Single Bud." Also featured is a train layout for static Märklin HO trains. This miniaturized world is based on an imaginary winter in a train station near Munich, Germany, with trompe l’oeil surfaces by the artist.

The aim in exhibiting this private activity—a male obsession analogous to dollhouses—is to bring the viewer into a broader understanding of how miniature worlds may act upon us and of how Metcalf’s miniature worlds differ from those in the public imagination.

The exhibition catalogue includes a curatorial essay, “The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf” by Signe Mayfield, along with a guest essay, "In and Out of Context," by Dr. Vicky A. Clark, an independent curator and cultural historian. Dr. Clark’s essay connects Metcalf’s work to the comic traditions so prevalent in contemporary art. In addition, Metcalf contributed an essay entitled “Five Chapters in the Life of Imagination.” The exhibition and catalogue, "The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf," are created and presented by the Palo Alto Art Center, Division of Arts and Sciences, City of Palo Alto and funded in part by grants from the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation; the Rotasa Foundation; the Windgate Charitable Foundation; the Arts Council Silicon Valley; with additional support from Susan Beech, Forrest L. Merrill, Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Silicon Valley Bank and private contributions.

The Palo Alto Art Center Presents

"In the Bigger Picture: Richard Misrach"

Landscapes by the Internationally-Acclaimed Photographer - September 28 - December 21, 2008 ~ Public Preview: September 28, 3 - 5 PM ~ PALO ALTO, CA

Majestic interpretations of landscape are presented in an exhibition of photographs by the internationally-acclaimed, San Francisco Bay Area-based photographer, Richard Misrach, at The Palo Alto Art Center, (PAAC), September 28 - December 21, 2008. "In the Bigger Picture: Richard Misrach," provides an overview of Misrach's almost 30-year career as a master of large format photography.

The exhibition includes images from his well-known thematic segments in "Desert Cantos," including "The Terrain," "The Flood," "The Fires," "The War (Bravo 20)," "The Visitors," and events that include military testing in the desert. The exhibition will be presented in conjunction with “The Miniature Worlds of Bruce Metcalf," the premier of the first major, touring exhibition investigating the work of Bruce Metcalf, a leading art jeweler, essayist, critic and curator of contemporary craft. In these two exhibitions, The Palo Alto Art Center invites the viewer to consider two diverse approaches in scaling content with moral implication.

For nearly thirty years, the internationally-acclaimed photographer Richard Misrach has documented the great sweep of the American desert in a sublime light. A mercurial Salton Sea, a conflagration on dry land, slaked earth strewn with skeletal fish, and an incandescent red sky are among images that in the larger picture chronicle the terrible beauty that has been born following man’s interventions in nature. While Misrach has generally used straight photo-documentation, he is a master in photographing moments of time, in which serene color and grand views seem a continuation of the majestic interpretations of landscape in the history of painting.

He is equally adept in scaling content. Man’s presence, if seen, is rightfully quite small, while natural vistas loom large to magnify the intensity of the desolation or serenity in the desert, or the luminous, crystalline expanse of the bodies of water, as exemplified in his "Swimmers, Pyramid Lake Indiana Reservation," 1987-1993. It is the sheer beauty of his work that allows the viewer to contemplate the larger implications of his images. In the same way that the poet Ezra Pound compiled diverse sections in his epic poem Cantos—some of which do not have a definable connection—Misrach has segmented his epic exploration Desert Cantos into diverse themes.

The exhibition also includes images from other thematic segments, including "The Terrain," "The Flood," "The Fires," "The War (Bravo 20),” and "The Visitors." Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Misrach received his BA in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. His first major photographic project, "Telegraph 3AM," documented Berkeley’s homeless population and set the tone for explorations with political implications. His work is represented in major collections internationally, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as the Musee National d’Art Moderne in Paris. His first major retrospective was organized in 1996 by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Photographs in the exhibition have been loaned by the Bank of America Corporate Art Program, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago, IL, private lenders and the San Jose Museum of Art.

For more information, contact Anna Weldon, Publicist, Palo Alto Arts Center, 650-329-2605, anna.weldon@cityofpaloalto.org