The Meadows SMU - Exhibitions

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

MEADOWS MUSEUM PRESENTS EL GRECO'S MASTERWORK PENTECOST IN A NEW CONTEXT
Sept. 12, 2010 through Feb. 6, 2011

Museum Opens Companion Exhibitions Exploring the Spanish Master's Historical
Influences and Lasting Impact on Contemporary Artists

Works by Yinka Shonibare, Eve Sussman | The Rufus Corporation, José Manuel Ballester and Thomas Struth to be displayed throughout Meadows' permanent collection

This September, El Greco's monumental masterpiece Pentecost will be installed at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University (SMU), marking the beginning of a multifaceted three-year partnership with the Prado Museum in Madrid. Pentecost will be on view at the Meadows Museum from Sept. 12, 2010 through Feb. 6, 2011. The presentation of the painting, which is on loan from the Prado, will coincide with the release of a book that includes new research about El Greco and the socio-cultural atmosphere of his time. Pentecost will serve as a focal point for the reimagining of the museum's installation of its permanent collection, acting as a gateway between the Old Masters and the artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. In conjunction with this presentation, the Meadows has organized two companion exhibitions that explore the history of Spanish art and its contemporary influence. Together, the exhibitions and publications offer a renewed look at one of Spain's greatest masters.

Painted between 1596 and 1600, Pentecost is believed to have been part of a massive altarpiece created for the Colegio de Doña María de Aragón, an Augustinian seminary in Madrid. Featuring graceful, elongated figures in muted blues and grays, the style is characteristic of El Greco, though the subject matter is unique in his oeuvre,\ with the exception of one other piece believed to have been painted by his workshop. The loan will join El Greco's Saint Francis Kneeling in Meditation, as well as masterpieces by other artists of the Golden Age, including Velázquez, Goya and Murillo, in the Meadows' permanent collection.

In conjunction with the installation of Pentecost, the Meadows will present two new exhibitions, Spanish Muse: A Contemporary Response -- on view from Sept. 12 - Dec. 12, 2010 -- and Sultans and Saints: Spain's Confluence of Cultures, on view from Sept. 12, 2010 - Jan. 23, 2011. Spanish Muse will explore the lasting influence of the Spanish masters on contemporary artists, and will also commemorate the Meadows' 45th anniversary. Sultans and Saints will look at the history of Spanish art through a variety of media, including sculpture, manuscripts and paintings.

The publication of El Greco's Pentecost in a New Context will shed new light on both the artist and the painting, by looking at El Greco and Pentecost through the lens of the social, political, and religious environment in which El Greco was working. The essays included in the publication explore El Greco's clientele and the commissioning of Pentecost for the altarpiece, and examine the way the painting was perceived and understood in medieval Spain.

"Algur Meadows, the founder of the Museum, was a great admirer of El Greco, and considered his works to be crucial to a collection of Spanish art," said Meadows Museum Director Mark Roglán. "This is a very important moment for us, as the loan of this painting brings us one step closer to fulfilling Meadows' vision of a Prado on
the Prairie."

Spanish Muse will feature works by contemporary artists who have been inspired by art produced or collected in Spain and displayed in some of Spain's leading art institutions. Featuring work in a variety of media, including video, sculpture, photography and painting, the exhibition will include works by artists living around the world such as Yinka Shonibare, Claudio Bravo and Manola Valdés. The pieces will be displayed throughout the Meadows' permanent collection, providing a reinterpretation of the Meadows holdings, and forging new connections between artists working today and the masters of Spain's past. Exhibition highlights will include Eve Sussman | The Rufus Corporation's 89 seconds at Alcázar, a ten-minute cinematographic piece inspired by Velázquez's Las Meninas; Thomas Struth's Museo del Prado 8-1-8-5, a series of photographs of museum goers at the Prado; and José Manuel Ballester's El Jardin Deshabitado, a digital rendering of Bosch's triptych The
Garden of Earthly Delights, with all human references removed. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the show with an essay by the exhibition's curator, Nicole Atzbach.

Sultans and Saints is an exploration of the historical and religious influences on El Greco and his artistic peers at the time of the convivencia and Counter Reformation in Spain, particularly in the religious center of Toledo. The exhibition will feature works of art, including manuscripts, ceramics, painting, and sculpture, that reflect the cultural and artistic exchanges among Jews, Muslims and Christians from the period of the convivencia to the Counter Reformation. The exhibition will include objects from the permanent collection at the Meadows Museum, as well as items from SMU's Bridwell and DeGolyer libraries. Twenty-five items produced in Spain from the 15th to the early 17th century will be on loan from Bridwell, including an indulgence from 1490 promoting the crusade in Granada, letters of nobility issued by Charles V and Philip II, and a collection of sermons and scriptural explications by a Dominican priest tried by the Inquisition. Also, featured will be three 19th-century photographs which feature stunning views of the Alhambra and the cathedrals in Toledo and Seville, illustrating the religious architecture of the time.

The display and study of El Greco's painting, as well as a book of scholarly essays, an internship exchange, and a series of public programs, are part of the larger partnership between the two museums, which will bring new insight and research to Spanish art, and will expose Texas audiences to some of Spain's most stunning masterworks. The essays will present new research and findings about El Greco and Pentecost, as well as shed light on one of the most important periods of artistic activity in Spain.

The essays featured in the publication for Pentecost will include the following:

Partnership

The arrival of Pentecost and the opening of the companion exhibitions represent the first steps in a partnership between the Meadows Museum and the Prado. The two museums have a shared mission to advance the recognition and understanding of Spanish art, and this partnership represents the logical next step in furthering the goals of each museum. The collaboration - the first international program of its kind for the Prado - will include the loan of major paintings from the Prado, interdisciplinary research at SMU, an internship exchange between the two museums, and a range of public programs.

Next year, the Prado will lend the Meadows Jusepe de Ribera's Mary Magdalene followed by Diego Velázquez's full length portrait of Philip IV in 2012. Upon the arrival of each loan, the museum will produce a bilingual publication presenting new research across multiple subject areas, and will organize a series of symposia and educational programming with national and international scholars. Since the announcement of the partnership, the collaboration has already expanded, and the installation of Ribera's Mary Magdalene will be accompanied by the loan of additional pieces from other distinguished collections.

In the fall of 2011, the two museums will initiate The Algur H. Meadows/Prado Internships, an annual exchange with one appointment made by each institution. This will be the first curatorial internship ever to be mounted by the Prado with a foreign institution. Sponsored by the Meadows Museum, the internships will provide graduate students with the opportunity to gain professional and international experience, and to work closely with the curatorial staff at each institution.

The Meadows has a long history of collaboration with renowned international institutions. Over the course of Roglán's tenure, the Meadows has mounted numerous exhibitions presenting works that rarely travel to the U.S., partnering with major Spanish institutions including the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Patrimonio Nacional, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. The collaboration with the Prado represents a natural extension of the existing relationship between the two museums, as the Meadows has often lent works to special exhibitions at the Prado and collaborated on research.

The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University has acquired Sho, a monumental sculpture by contemporary Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (b. 1955). Completed in 2007, the work represents a female head and is formed by white-painted stainless steel openwork mesh. It stands approximately 13 feet tall and 10 feet wide (157 ½ x 157 ½ x 118 -1/8 inches) and weighs 660 pounds. This sculpture acquisition from the Richard Gray Gallery was made possible with the generous support of The Pollock Foundation, the Family of Mr. and Mrs. Richard R. Pollock, and the Family of Mr. Lawrence S. Pollock, III, in honor of Mrs. Shirley Pollock, and will be matched with a 1:1 challenge grant for museum acquisitions from The Meadows Foundation.

Plensa is known for his monumental figural sculptures that often incorporate film, light, letters and unusual materials in order to present familiar objects (such as the human body) in unfamiliar ways. Sho is an excellent example of Plensa’s mastery of his medium. It is a portrait of a young Chinese girl, Sho, whom the artist met in Barcelona where his studio is located. The undulating curves of the girl’s facial features and braided hair are emphasized, especially in profile, demonstrating the artist’s characteristic experiments with the interplay of large scale and intimacy in three-dimensional representations of the human form.

A native of Barcelona, Plensa had his first solo exhibition in 1980 and has since achieved international acclaim. Although his primary studio is in his native city, Plensa has also lived and worked in Berlin, Brussels, England (at the invitation of the Henry Moore Foundation), and France (at the invitation of the Atelier Alexander Calder). His numerous awards and honors include the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French Minister of Culture, the National Art Award of Catalonia, Spain, and an honorary doctorate from the Art Institute of Chicago. Plensa has exhibited in major museums and galleries worldwide, including the Galérie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris; the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust in Halifax, England; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum der Modernen Kunst, Vienna, and in New York, Chicago and Tokyo. Outdoor and public sculpture is an equally important aspect of Plensa’s output, with numerous installations in North America, Europe and Asia. One of his most notable works is Crown Fountain (2000-04) in Chicago’s Millennium Park, arguably one of the most successful public art projects of the past decade. Plensa’s works are also found in the collections of such notable museums as the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others.

Sho was first exhibited at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain, in the winter of 2007. It was the centerpiece of a mid-career retrospective exhibition of Plensa’s work and served as the cover illustration for the accompanying catalogue. The work then traveled to Chicago, where it was exhibited along the riverfront in the heart of downtown, and to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where it was included in a major exhibition of the artist’s latest work at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park through early January 2009.

“Sho marks the most important acquisition of a work by a living artist into the Meadows collection since the commissioning of Calatrava’s Wave in 2001,” said Dr. Mark Roglán, museum director. “Plensa is among the most dynamic and talented artistic minds in Spain today, and we are honored to have him represented at the Meadows with such a unique and monumental sculpture. This one-of-a-kind masterpiece will welcome visitors to the museum from its prominent position in the center of our new entrance plaza, due to open this fall. The acquisition, made possible by the Pollocks and The Meadows Foundation, further represents a beautiful way to honor in perpetuity the memory of the late Shirley Pollock, who was such a great friend of this institution.”

The exhibition will highlight the Meadows Museum’s distinguished collection of modern and contemporary sculpture from the 19th to the 21st centuries, which includes works by such artists as Auguste Rodin, Aristide Maillol, Jacques Lipchitz, Marino Marini, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg and David Smith. The sculpture collection will be featured both outdoors on the plaza and indoors in the Jake and Nancy Hamon Galleries.

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