Fall Arts Celebration begins with international art showcase

For the first time in the history of Grand Valley State University’s Fall Arts Celebration, the featured collection of artwork is so large that it cannot be solely housed at the university.

Half of the 32-piece traveling “Dusk to Dusk: Unsettled, Unraveled, Unreal” exhibition will be shown at the Grand Valley Art Gallery, while the other half will be housed at the De Pree Art Center and Gallery at Hope College in Holland. The exhibition will officially debut at Grand Valley during an opening reception September 10.

“Dusk to Dusk: Unsettled, Unraveled, Unreal”
Opening reception: Thursday, September 10, from 5-7 p.m.
Art Gallery, Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus
*Exhibit on display through October 31

The exhibition comes to West Michigan from a private collection in the Netherlands and features works by internationally acclaimed artists, including Salvador Dali, Louise Bourgeois, Gilbert & George, Richard Long, Edward Burtynsky, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Erwin Wurm, Erwin Olaf, James Aldridge, Tony Cragg, Marcel Dzama, Matthew Day Jackson, and Ruud van Empel.

This contemporary art exhibition welcomes viewers to experience a beautiful world, unsettling in its vision of personal isolation, but collectively bound by the small comfort of knowing that everyone is alone. Through paintings, photography, sculptures and video, this exhibition shows viewers a strange contemporary familiarity into a collective darkness.

David Newell, curator of exhibitions at Grand Valley, said the exhibit carries themes of isolation in the modern world, political repression and engulfing angst and anxiety.

“This is a very strong collection that has a tendency to get under the viewer’s skin. It’s edgy and at times unnerving,” Newell said. “It tests your comfort levels and forces you to confront your emotions, values and anxieties.”

Henry Matthews, director of Galleries and Collections at Grand Valley, said collaborating with Hope College for this exhibition affords both universities the opportunity to expose students and the community to international works of art that don’t normally visit West Michigan.

“These specific examples of artwork can typically only be found in major art museums and galleries so this provides important teaching and learning opportunities for our students, multidisciplinary educators and various community constituencies,” Matthews said.

“Dusk to Dusk” was organized by the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University, curated by Richard Rinehart, director of the Samek Art Gallery, with works generously loaned from The Ekard Collection. The exhibition is toured by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Pasadena, California.

Since its start in 2003, Fall Arts Celebration has featured some of the preeminent writers, poets, musicians, dancers, artists and scholars of today. The tradition continues in 2015 with six signature events that aim to broaden horizons, help make sense of the new and unfamiliar, reflect on the past and charm with the classics.

All Fall Arts Celebration events are open to the public with free admission. For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/fallarts or call (616) 331-2185.