Summer 2020 at The Grace Museum will take you back to the 1970s with art exhibitions that feature “The Phantasmagoric World of Ordinary Things.”
The Cult of the Commonplace
Artist David McManaway (1927-2010) has an underground cult following. In fact, that was the case during his lifetime as well. Research for this exhibition and numerous conversations with McManaway’s friends and colleagues confirms that he would not mind this current state of affairs. He was notorious for stating that he did not travel – even to attend his many exhibition openings. But many McManaway collectors and insiders lament the lack of recognition his work has received since his death in 2010. The exhibition “David McManaway: The Cult of the Commonplace” revisits the art and modernist mystique of the legendary assemblage artist. The mission to spotlight McManaway’s life and work in a solo exhibition has officially become a cause célèbre. The exhibition runs March 7-Aug. 8
The Jomo Collective
McManaway’s wall reliefs (called Jomo Boards) are compositions of found objects such as plastic toys, stuffed animals and other commonplace objects arranged into telling juxtapositions, resulting in clever double entendres ripe with humorous commentary on contemporary life in the late 20th century. The “found object as art” phenomena of the 1970s, 80s and 90s was embraced by McManaway’s friends featured in the “Jomo Collective” exhibition. Roy Fridge, Jim Love, Roger Winter, Charles T. Williams and others in McManaway’s circle also mined mass-produced, cultural discards to create individual responses that challenged and acknowledged the absurdities of contemporary life. The exhibition runs April 21-Aug. 8
McManaway’s Studio
Photographer David H. Gibson first met McManaway in the 1960s. A subsequent visit to the artist’s home studio on Tremont Street in Dallas was the beginning of a long personal relationship as well as Gibson’s admiration for McManaway’s work. In 1993, Gibson began photographing fascinating details he discovered in McManaway’s overflowing and ever-evolving studio. Gibson’s photographs of the no-longer-extant studio provide a glimpse into McManaway’s complex artistic process as well as the provocative experience of literally stepping into a phantasmagoric world of ordinary things. The exhibition runs March 26-Aug. 8
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