What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/986639
8 WHAT'S UP! MAY 27-JUNE 2, 2018 JOCELYN MURPHY NWA Democrat-Gazette G eorgia O'Keeffe is an American icon. Her bold florals and observational images of landscapes, buildings and the natural world earned her distinction as the "Mother of American Modernism," and her work is some of the most recognizable in the collection at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. On May 26, the museum debuted its new temporary exhibition "The Beyond: Georgia O'Keeffe and Contemporary Art," celebrating O'Keeffe and the themes she explored throughout her career — alongside a group of 20 modern artists whose work in similar themes extends her legacy. "She's the starting point, but the contemporary artists are equally important, and really I think people will be blown away by those works as well," says co-curator Lauren Haynes. "We're hoping people will come in and see O'Keeffes they love and even discover some O'Keeffes maybe they've never seen before, but then also discover these artists that they may not know and come away with perhaps a new favorite artist." "Anyone [who gets to] be in the same room with her work, it's a huge honor. She's like a rock star in the world of art, but she's not inaccessible," shares Louise Jones, whose site-specific mural is part of the exhibition and was finished earlier this month. "A lot of people appreciate her work [who] are not deep in the art world, and it doesn't take a deeper level of understanding to appreciate it — it has a lot to offer at face value." That approachability in O'Keeffe's work becomes all the more impressive and intriguing when one considers the trajectory that lifted her to a previously unprecedented level of celebrity during her life. At a time when women in any field faced steep inequality, O'Keeffe held a persistence and a work ethic that helped her refuse to let herself or her experience be dictated by her gender. "I often like to make the point, as O'Keeffe made herself during her lifetime, that she is not a great woman artist. She is a great artist. Period," offers Cody Hartley, who is the senior director of Collections and Interpretation at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M. "She reflected an enormous courage and sense of conviction that I think gives all of us a model for both how we might live our own lives, but [also] the importance of creating space for others to live their lives and for expression as a way of achieving one's greatest possible contribution." Significance also lies in O'Keeffe's rejection of the romanticizing of Europe by some of her contemporaries. Her interest in "creating the great American thing," Hartley points out — of reflecting the experience of living in the United States — sets her work apart even further when you realize she was doing things no one else at the time was doing. FAQ 'The Beyond: Georgia O'Keeffe and Contemporary Art' WHEN — May 26-Sept. 3 WHERE — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville COST — $10; free for members and kids INFO — 418-5700, crystalbridges.org A Bold Legacy COVER STORY O'Keeffe, modern artists side by side in new exhibition Image Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum Georgia O'Keeffe's beloved "Radiator Building — Night" will be on display through September with the temporary exhibition.