The exhibitions formally begin with an opening reception at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The exhibits will continue through Dec. 20.
IUAM Curators Nan Brewer and Judy Stubbs organized the aforementioned collections.
Brewer, curator of works on paper, took charge of “Gods and Goddesses: Annibale Carracci and the Renaissance Reborn” and “Grand Allusions: Robert Barnes — Late Works 1985-2015.”
The former is the student-designed exhibition, which came to fruition after a seminar on Caracci with Giles Knox of the Department of Art History, Brewer said. The artist of focus had great influence in the art scene of the 17th century.
“He, his brother and cousin started an art academy that really promoted more of a classical manner, a kind of return to the Renaissance interest,” Brewer said. “They really helped to revive interest in that subject matter.”
Brewer said the only way to learn about such artwork at the time, if one could not visit the site, was through a process of reproduction by other artists, whose interpretations often featured slight differences from the originals.
The group of graduate students in charge of creating this exhibit included Carlotta Paltrinieri and Zoe Van Dyke, who assisted in curating alongside Brewer and Knox.
The exhibition of works by Robert Barnes, 81, took a while to plan. Private collectors and museums bought a large amount of Barnes originals, making the process of tracking the works slightly more challenging, Brewer said.
The pieces the museum displays now reflect the latter half of the former IU professor’s career, with prints and paintings from as recently as this year. The allusions to mythology and illusionary style are both important to note with the works, Brewer said.
“The interest of collectors as well as scholars and museum professionals in his work is in the allusions, the inspiration he derives from an enormous range of personal interest in mythology, literature, music and history,” Brewer said. “You can go around this room and it’s amazing the things that inspired him.”
Stubbs arranged the Indian clothing on display as part of “The Indian Sari: Next to the Skin, Close to the Heart.”
This exhibition is slightly different from the other two, as it is textile focused. The pieces come from the personal collection of Prema Popkin and originate from various parts of India. Stubbs said Popkin has worn each of the pieces she contributed for the show.
“I went over to her house, and we started pulling out saris,” Stubbs said. “It was just amazing — I knew nothing about saris when I started and it’s been really wonderful to do this show, to work with Prema Popkin and to learn so much about regional traditions, technical aspects of making a sari and textile traditions.”
The sari acts as what Stubbs, curator of Asian art, called “living art” — as they are both functional and evolving with the times and representative of the origin’s creativity and aesthetic preferences.
“To look at textiles, even if it’s clothing, that it’s also an art form and it’s a living art form,” Stubbs said. “That’s been my purpose, to show exhibitions and materials that would give yet another view of Asian artistic tradition.”
