Strange Narratives | Resilient Bodies
09/28/2024
05/11/2025
About the Exhibition
Our world can feel like it is on the precipice, pushed to its limits by perpetual crises. Artists have always registered the trauma and hope of an uncertain world in images that hold the weight of the climate outside their studios. It can be clear and present in the imagery, but often we find it lurking in the background, permeating color, in the turn of a line or the expression of a portrait. Artists see objects or jarring incidents from their daily life mirrored or absorbing meanings that relate to a more profound existential state. The artist Sidney Goodman remarked to Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 1981, "The longer one looks at something it gradually becomes more important. It starts to seep into the consciousness and gathers momentum. So what seemed at first not very interesting suddenly has possibilities for other implications."
This installation, from Woodmere's permanent collection, will examine a wide range of art that presents uncanny narratives, haunted scenarios, beautiful bodies, resilient and vulnerable reflecting the strange state of the world in perpetual time. This exhibition is guest-curated by Robert Cozzolino.
Robert Cozzolino is an independent curator, art historian, and critic based in Minneapolis. He curates collaboratively, in partnership with artists, colleagues, and broad communities.
“Starting where you are” is critical to his practice—knowing the immediate context and deeper history of the place in which he works. Dr. Cozzolino is drawn to artists that make work about the full range of human experience, especially those who aspire to visually express the intangible, states of consciousness, and a full range of emotions. Although he has worked on topics from the 19th and 20th centuries, he regularly works with contemporary artists in examining history. He considers himself a curator of fluid time, not bound to the labels and bins imposed on the field.
From 2004-2016 he was a curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and remains close to the Philadelphia arts community. He has curated over 40 exhibitions working at PAFA, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2016-2024), Chazen Museum of Art (2001-2005), and The Art Institute of Chicago (1993-1997). They include: Reimagining Native/American Art (2023-24), Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art (2021-22), World War I and American Art (2016-17), Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis (2014-15), David Lynch: The Unified Field (2014) and many others.
Exhibition-Related Events:
Strange Narratives | Resilient Bodies Members Tour
Saturday, October 5 | 12 pm - 1 pm
FREE
Saturday, October 5 | 12 pm - 1 pm
FREE
Join Guest-Curator Robert Cozzolino and fellow Members for a behind-the-scenes tour of Strange Narratives | Resilient Bodies on Saturday, October 5, 2024, from 12 -1pm. The event is free; Only open to Members. Register here.
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Opening Reception
Saturday, October 5 | 1-4 p.m.
FREE
Saturday, October 5 | 1-4 p.m.
FREE
Please join us for an opening reception celebrating Strange Narratives | Resilient Bodies on Saturday, October 5, 2024, from 1-4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Register here.
Strange Narratives | Resilient Bodies Panel Conversation
Saturday, March 8 | 2:00-3:30 pm
With Robert Cozzolino, independent curator, art historian, and critic based in Minneapolis; and the guest curator for Strange Narratives, Resilient Bodies
Clan Mother Shelley DePaul, Keeper of Language and Treaty Signer Liaison, Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania
Chief Adam Waterbear DePaul, Storykeeper and Director of Education, Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania
Chief Adam Waterbear DePaul, Storykeeper and Director of Education, Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania
Jill Ahlberg Yohe, Curator at the Cafesjian Art Trust and former Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
$10 (FREE for Woodmere Members)
Woodmere's current exhibition Strange Narratives, Resilient Bodies includes a wide range of artists from the collection. The exhibition presents multiple explorations of identity and artists' intense emotional responses to daily life. In keeping with this theme of multiple perspectives, Woodmere will host a conversation with Shelley DePaul, Adam Waterbear DePaul, Jill Ahlberg Yohe, and Robert Cozzolino. Together they will discuss prominent themes in the exhibition and discuss the importance of integrating Indigenous perspectives with regard to American art.
Lecture | Woodmere Artists and the Barnes Foundation Art Appreciation Classes
Saturday, March 29 | 2:00-3:30 pm
With Kaelin Jewell Ph.D., Senior Instructor, Adult Education, The Barnes Foundation
$10 (FREE for Woodmere Members)
Since 1925, the storied galleries of the Barnes Foundation have been classrooms for generations of artists around the world. This includes many artists represented in Woodmere's collection as well as beloved Barnes's instructors such as Harry Sefarbi and the Pinto brothers (Angelo, Salvatore, and Biagio). Join Barnes senior instructor Kaelin Jewell as she dives into the kinds of lessons Woodmere artists such as Julius Bloch, Peter Paone, Razel Kapustin, (whose works are currently on exhibit in Strange Narratives, Resilient Bodies), and others learned during their time studying Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, and Renoir at the Barnes.
Kaelin Jewell is a senior instructor in adult education at the Barnes Foundation and has been teaching art history for nearly 15 years. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in photography and art history from the University of Louisville’s Hite Institute of Art and Design and earned her PhD in ancient and medieval art history from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. In addition to her work at the Barnes, Jewell is trained as an archaeologist and has worked on archaeological projects in the American Midwest and on the island of Sicily.
