Adventurous

If you’re feeling adventurous, you’re ready to try new things and dive right in: the journey is part of the fun.

The Cunningham Center has 24,000 works on paper, including sketches, photographs, collages, various prints types, and more. It can be pretty intimidating to look through! This page will describe the selection process of each piece in this exhibition. Each one connects to the Cunningham Center’s collection in a different way, and can teach different things about how searching the SCMA collection works.

The following will help guide your own adventure. To view the Advanced Search of the Five College Museums, including the SCMA, click here.

The Five College art museums all operate on the same search system. The opening page looks like this:

Each of the works in the mood ring has unique connections to other sections of the SCMA’s collection. To discover new works related to the ones in the exhibition, explore some of these approaches.

PASSIONATE

If you were interested by Cass Bird’s photograph in Passionate, you might consider searching in our collection’s LGBTQ tag for related historical and thematic items.

The LGBTQ tags in the SCMA’s collection are not exhaustive, both because tagging is an ongoing process and because not every work is best identified as an LGBTQ-related artwork. In this tag, you can expect to find works that relate in specific ways to the identity of their creator, social commentary, or specific queer histories.

ANGRY

If you were interested by the themes of Kelley Walker’s work in Angry, you might consider exploring one or more of the tags associated with his work. For example, Walker’s work features the environmentalism tag, which links to other works connected to political and social movements in ecology. If you’re interested in other works which incite the same productive anger, you might search the tags section for another social movement which interests you.

JOYFUL

If you were interested by Terry Vinyard’s work in Joyful, you might explore the remainder of the Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang collection. The Lang family collected many prints by artists without significant acclaim. Although there are no other works by Vinyard in their credit line, there are many interesting etchings that have visual similarities to A Gift for the Twins.

Alternatively, to look for more works which produce a sense of joy, you might consider what items or occasions make you happy. For example, if you truly love clowns, searching for them in the description line is likely to bring up more images of these costumed characters.

WRY

If you were interested by Elliott Erwitt’s work in Wry, there are many photographs of his in the Cunningham Center, beyond just his portraits of dogs. Although Erwitt was especially proficient at canine candids, his ability to bring out blunt humor and biting expressions extended to his work in people portraiture and scenes of political unrest. From there, take a look at the tags on his work, and the description lines, to find other key terms which can inform your next search.

CALM

If you were interested by Vija Celmins’s work in Calm, you might choose to explore her medium more thoroughly. By searching for lithography or prints, you might gain new insight into Celmins’s creative process and the limits of her medium. Or, you might discover new textures possible through this form of art.

MELANCHOLY

If you were interested in Imogen Cunningham’s work in Melancholy, you might be interested in other works which she produced. By searching for Cunningham, Imogen, you’ll find the extensive collection of her street and studio photography held in Smith’s museum.

Alternatively, Cunningham was well connected to many other photographers, both as a professional and as a teacher. If you’d like to explore works by other photographers during her career, you might limit the search to photographs as the medium, from the 1920s-1973.

NOSTALGIC

If you were interested in Joanne Leonard’s work in Nostalgic, you might be interested in the remainder of her collage series. Leonard produced multiple series focusing on gender roles and her relationships within her family and society, and used various types of collage throughout her career. To see the remainder of her Frieze works, you might search the work’s title. To see all of the series which Leonard created, search Leonard, Joanne through the artist’s name.

So: give it a go! Try to use these methods and your interest in the works of art you’ve seen to discover new and exciting items within the collection. If you find any treasures, make sure to let everyone know below.

Buffer Space For Aesthetic Purposes