TWO FOCUS EXHIBITIONS AT THE NORA ECCLES HARRISON MUSEUM OF ART

LOGAN – Exploding volume and 100 boots may sound like the aftermath of war, but at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, they are the subjects of two noteworthy exhibitions.

The Museum houses over 4,300 artworks; some are new acquisitions, many others have been in storage out of the public eye for some time. To provide greater access to the Museum’s collection, Victoria Rowe, the Museum’s Director, has initiated a series of focus exhibitions that showcase individual artists from the collection. On display now are artworks by Claire Falkenstein and Eleanor Antin.

“We are very excited to have art from such influential artists,” said Rowe. “Both have contributed to the development of art, and are nationally and globally recognized women artists.”

Falkenstein (1908-97) described her work as “exploding volume,” considering her representation of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional surfaces. The exhibition includes sketchbooks, drawings, paintings and sculptures to demonstrate Falkenstein’s expressive potential. As both a painter and sculptor, she is represented in museum collections worldwide, with many public and private commissions including the gates of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy and the eight doors and 15 multi-story stained glass windows for St. Basil’s Church in Los Angeles.

Eleanor Antin’s (b. 1935) installation “100 Boots” is the subject of the other focus exhibition. Antin, an installation and performance artist and a filmmaker, is best known for this series of photographic postcards of black, rubber boots in a variety of settings. By arrangement and title, Antin provides these inanimate boots with a personality. Over a two year period, from 1971 through 1973, the series was mailed to art galleries, museums, artists, writers and others to create a story – as if 100 Boots was a person. Antin said, “I mailed out the first postcard – ‘100 Boots Facing the Sea’ – on the Ides of March 1971. Nobody paid for it. Nobody Asked for it. They didn’t even know what it was.” But the series soon became much talked about in the art world, and culminated in Antin’s first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1973.

The Falkenstein and Antin focus exhibitions will be on display through May 1. For more information contact the Museum at 797-0163 or Jay Heuman, Curator of Education, at 797-0165.

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, 650 North 1100 East, Logan, UT, 84322, (435) 797-0163, Fax (435) 797-3423, www.artmuseum.usu.edu. Hours: Tues., Thurs. & Fri.: 10:30 am - 4:30 pm; Wed.: 10:30 am - 8:00 pm; Sat.: noon - 5 pm; Closed Sundays, Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free; Parking $4 (free after 3:45 pm). For more information or to schedule a tour of the Museum, please call (435) 797-0165. The Museum is accessible to persons with disabilities.