Artist Ancestors

Iconic cultural figures have come back from the great beyond to inspire McDonnell Theater-goers

Jan 14—Feb 28, 2022

ArtYard is pleased to present Artist Ancestors, an exhibition of artist Silky Shoemaker’s portraits of iconic cultural figures who have come back from the great beyond to inspire our community with examples of their brave, original, and idiosyncratic lives.

The Artist Ancestors were commissioned by ArtYard at the start of the pandemic to illuminate figures who inspire the ArtYard ethos while enforcing social distancing in the new McDonnell Theater. Visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy a concert, reading, or film screening beside departed luminaries such as Susan Sontag, Tolstoy, and Agnes Varda.

 

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ISADORA DUNCAN - Isadora Duncan was an American pioneer of dance and is considered the “Mother of Modern Dance.”
GALWAY KINNELL - Galway Kinnell was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet from Rhode Island whose work seeks the essential in human nature, often in conversation with the natural world.
FREDERIC CHOPIN - Frederic Chopin was a great master of Romantic music— a Polish composer and virtuoso whose works, primarily for piano, express poetry, emotional depth, and delicate nuance.
ERNESTO LECUONA - Perhaps Cuba’s most famous and acclaimed musician, Ernesto Lecuona was a composer and piano prodigy whose legacy persists today in the emergence of Latin music as a dominant cultural force.
GEORGE NAKASHIMA - George Nakashima was a woodworker, architect and furniture maker who had a profound influence on 20th century furniture design and is known as a father of the American craft movement.
JAMES BALDWIN - James Baldwin was a leading literary voice of the civil rights movement who articulated the psychological implications of racism (and homophobia) on the individual and bore witness to a country at war with itself.
ANA MENDIETA - Ana Mendieta was a groundbreaking Cuban-American artist whose work explored female identity and feminist themes through performance, video, sculpture and photography.
BILL TRAYLOR - Known for an eloquent economy of form and figure, Bill Traylor was a self-taught painter and draw-er from Alabama who was born into slavery and became one of the most important American artists of the 20th century.
GIOTTO - Giotto was a Florentine Renaissance painter who revolutionized the way the human form is rendered, moving away from the flat, stylized depictions of the Byzantine era and giving his subjects light and shadow, a sense of corporeal weight, and subtle expression.
JOSEPHINE BAKER - Josephine Baker was a world-famous singer, dancer, and sex symbol, a star of the Harlem Renaissance, a spy against the Nazis in WWII, and a civil rights activist who used her considerable platform to rail against segregation and racial discrimination in the United States.
KENOJUAK ASHEVAK - Kenojuak Ashevak was a pioneer of modern Inuit art, whose drawings feature fantastical creatures, bold colorful shapes, and a clear harmonious design.
NINA SIMONE - Nina Simone was a singer, pianist, composer, and civil rights activist who was known for her seething performative intensity, impassioned social commentary, and generally profound influence on 20th century music.
SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ - Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was a 17th century Mexican writer, composer, feminist philosopher, and nun who used her quarters at the convent to host intellectual salons and whose outspoken criticism of misogyny led to condemnation by the Catholic Church.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI - Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian filmmaker, part of the Iranian New Wave movement, who made documentary-style narrative features that are characterized by a notable degree of ambiguity and recurrent themes of life and death, change and continuity.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT - Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent whose evocative, expressionistic paintings blend acute political commentary with personal revelation.
INGMAR BERGMAN - Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Ingmar Bergman was a master of his craft who plumbed the depths of the human condition in search of existential revelation.
LYGIA CLARK - Lygia Clark was a pioneer in abstraction who’s work in painting and installation often focused on the relationship between self and environment.
PINA BAUSCH - Pina Bausch was one of the most significant choreographers of the 20th century— a German Neo-expressionist who explored psychology, trauma, and human relationships through dramatic, abstracted movement and surrealist environments.
MARY ANN EVANS - Mary Ann Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, wrote what is often described as the greatest novel in the English language.
OCTAVIA BUTLER - Octavia Butler was a trailblazing author whose Afro-Futuristic, feminist novels explore themes of racial injustice, ecological disaster, women’s rights, and power disparity with prescient vision and keen social observation.
OSCAR DEVEREAUX MICHEAUX - Oscar Devereaux Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of “race film”, and has been described as "the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century”.
LEO TOLSTOY - Leo Tolstoy is known for having written the masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina, exemplars of realistic fiction that celebrate prosaic virtues and expand our understanding of human existence.
TONI MORRISON - Toni Morrison was a best-selling author and Nobel laureate whose many beloved novels illuminate the experience of black identity in America.
AGNES VARDA - Agnes Varda was a central character of the French New Wave film movement whose work addresses feminist issues and other social concerns in an experimental, highly realistic style.
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN - Carolee Schneemann was a visionary multimedia artist who often utilized her own body to provocative effect as she challenged art world machismo, taboo, social injustice, power structures, and narratives around gender.
FLORENCE PRICE - Florence Price was an American classical composer and pianist who is noted as the first African-American woman to have her work performed by a major orchestra.
JULIUS EASTMAN - Julius Eastman was a visionary composer, minimalist musician, and provocateur who said “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest. Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
MARTHA GRAHAM - Martha Graham, one of the last century’s most iconic figures, revolutionized the discipline of dance and changed forever how we think and speak of the art form.
RUTH ASAWA - Ruth Asawa was a pioneering Japanese-American artist who, despite persecution, made her mark as a creator of dynamic, revelatory sculptures that challenged notions of light and line, form and transparency.
JUDITH SCOTT - Judith Scott began creating enigmatic textile sculptures at age 43 after being institutionalized for most of her life due to Down syndrome and deafness.
NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE - Niki de Saint Phalle was a French-American artist who infused feminist inquiry and whimsy into bold, exuberant, often monumental sculptures.
BEAUFORD DELANEY - Beauford Delaney was a gay Harlem Renaissance artist whose lyrical, brilliantly colored paintings sought to illuminate his subject’s internal form while often also addressing their social disenfranchisement.
ROSIE LEE TOMKINS - Rosie Lee Tompkins is the pseudonym of a fiercely private, widely-acclaimed quiltmaker from California whose work transcended category and made revolutionary use of color, form, and material.
VIVIAN MAIER - Vivian Maier worked as a nanny in Chicago for most of her adult life but created a vast and virtuosic collection of street photography that was only discovered posthumously when her storage unit possessions were sold at auction.
SUSAN SONGTAG - Susan Sontag was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation— a writer, philosopher and activist who wrote with wit and with edge about subjects including the Vietnam War, AIDS, media and culture, and leftist ideology.
BARBARA HAMMER - Barbara Hammer was a pioneer of lesbian experimental film who, in a career spanning over 50 years, made work that elevates untold narratives and deconstructs oppressive systems of power.
LOUISE BOURGEOIS - Louise Bourgeois is a behemoth of 20th century art who’s work in large scale sculpture, as well as painting and print, explore primal human emotion, familial dynamics, and personal memory.
ALEXANDER CALDER - Alexander Calder was an American artist most known for his playful, bold and often poetic use of wire to create three dimensional drawings in space, which came to be known as “mobiles".
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA - Perhaps Spain’s most renowned poet, Federico Garcia Lorca wrote of love, politics, his own homosexuality, and death in a style that incorporated surrealism, symbolism, music, and folklore.
KAZUO OHNO - Kazuo Ohno is a godfather of Butoh dance- a form of avant-garde Japanese dance born after WWII and concerned with transformation, cycles of life and death, and consciousness.