Racine Art Museum Plays with Meaningful Pairings

RACINE, Wis. - Aug. 2, 2016 - PRLog -- Modern exhibition display at Racine Art Museum often involves gathering artworks in a gallery in an order that accommodates formal aspects such as color and size and/or theoretical aspects such as content or artist intent. While the work of individual artists may be related, the assumption is that each artist's work is viewed discretely, as visitors move from one piece to another.

Open July 17, 2016 - January 22, 2017, Duets: RAM Pairs Contemporary Craft Artists plays with that idea by purposefully pairing the work of various contemporary artists-visually or conceptually-related works are shown side by side in order to simultaneously highlight similarities and differences. Rather than collapsing individual artist's interests into one another, this kind of arrangement emphasizes the myriad ways in which ideas can be explored and artistic styles can be developed.

In some instances, there are artists whose works have been on display together before at RAM. However, the context was different and the works were not shown side by side. For example, Christina Cordova and Sergei Isupov, working independently, created provocative figural sculptures that were both featured in RAM's winter 2014 series of ceramics-focused exhibitions. In other cases, examples are provided that would not have been possible previously because the work itself or the opportunity was not available. Barbara Sorensen's powder-coated aluminum sculpture came to RAM after she was featured in an exhibition here in 2013. With the gift of this work, there is now a chance to show it in tandem with the visually similar but substantially smaller jewelry of Donna D'Aquino.

Duets: RAM Pairs Contemporary Craft Artists is made possible at Racine Art Museum by:Platinum Sponsors - Karen Johnson Boyd and William B. Boyd, SC Johnson, Windgate Charitable Foundation; Diamond Sponsor - Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation; Gold Sponsors - Herzfeld Foundation, Johnson Bank, National Endowment for the Arts, Racine Community Foundation, W.T. Walker Group, Inc.; Silver Sponsors - Real Racine, Wisconsin Arts Board; Bronze Sponsors - Burlington Graphic Systems, Inc., EC Styberg Foundation, Educators Credit Union, In Sink Erator, The Norbell Foundation, Orkney Springs Retreat, Rasmussen Diamonds, Wisconsin Public Radio

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Together, the two campuses of the Racine Art Museum, RAM in downtown Racine at 441 Main Street and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts at 2519 Northwestern Avenue, seek to elevate the stature of contemporary crafts to that of fine art by exhibiting significant works in craft media with painting, sculpture and photography, while providing outstanding educational art programming.

Docent led contemporary craft and architectural tours of the museums are available. Both campuses of the Racine Art Museum, are open to the public Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, and are closed Mondays, Federal holidays and Easter. RAM is open Sunday Noon - 5:00 pm, while Wustum is closed Sundays. An admission fee of $5 for adults, with reduced fees for students and seniors, applies at RAM. Admission to Wustum is free. Members are always admitted without charge to either campus.

For more information: http://www.ramart.org/content/duets-ram-pairs-contemporar...