Africana at 40: Looking Back/Moving Forward 
November 7–January 3

This exhibition is a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, which emerged in the late 1960s, primarily resulting from the concerns of African-American students and faculty about the Eurocentric focus of American universities. Drawn from the collection of the Johnson Museum, the exhibition features work by pioneer masters such as Henry O. Tanner, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Wifredo Lam, and Ibrahim El Salahi. The exhibition also includes works by younger artists, such as Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Yinka Shonibare, and Renée Cox, which reflect the emerging discourses in the field of African and African diaspora art and visual culture from race, gender, and feminist perspectives.

Omer Fast: Looking Pretty for God (After G. W.) 
October 17–January 31

Raising questions of received histories, memories, and representations, Israeli-born artist Omer Fast overlays footage from a fictional photo shoot with actual interviews with funeral directors in this high-definition single-channel video projection. He relates two very distinct industries—mortuary services and fashion photography—by emphasizing their involvement in the construction of images: “The work of funeral directors,” the artist has said, “falls somewhere between makeup artistry, plastic surgery, sculpture, PR, grief counseling, event planning, and magic.” As images from a children’s fashion shoot at times coincide with the funeral directors’ descriptions of how they prepare the bodies of the deceased, these connections are made even more apparent when child models suddenly speak in synch with the voice-over, as if channeling the adults’ voices. By investigating the discrepancy between audio and visual in documentary media, Fast reminds us of the transience of life, which has a long tradition in the history of art. This exhibition has been funded in part by a grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts.

Carved on Copper:
Renaissance Engravers and Collectors in the Low Countries
October 23–January 3

This exhibition celebrates the inventiveness and variety of engravings coming out of Northern printmaking centers such as Antwerp and Haarlem during the mid to late sixteenth century, as well as the panoply of interests among a rapidly growing class of print collectors. This new print-buying public purchased prints and print series by the thousands themed around issues of morality, tales from classical mythology, religious allegories, landscapes both real and idealized, and the splendors of far-off Rome. As did the century itself, the exhibition peaks with a group of engravings showing the unmistakable hand and graphic inventiveness of Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617); his prints, as well as those by the many printmakers trained in his style, spread the idealized elegance of the engraved line across Europe.

Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book
October 31–January 3

Best known for her exquisitely rendered pencil drawings, Peggy Preheim also creates figurative sculpture and photographs. Her sculptural assemblages feature white clay figures and found objects including furniture, doll’s clothes, and Victorian glass, and her atmospheric black-and-white photographs are based on her sculptural work. At the core of Preheim’s art is her drawing: small-scale, tightly rendered work that explores highly nuanced imagery related to memory, sexuality, aging, and the complex inner relationship of childhood to adulthood. Organized by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut, this show is the first museum exhibition to fully explore the wide range of Preheim’s work.

Cornell Art Faculty
October 23–January 17

Once again, the Johnson Museum brings together recent work by members of the Department of Art faculty for a biennial exhibition of the varied and exciting art being produced by Cornell’s own artist-teachers.

The Film and Video Works of Gordon Matta-Clark
September 12–December 13

Dating from 1971 to 1977, Gordon Matta-Clark’s film and video works include documents of major architectural interventions and performances in New York, Paris, and Antwerp. A graduate of Cornell’s architecture program (1968), Matta-Clark’s artistic practice was a radical investigation of architecture, space, and urban environments that has influenced generations of artists and architects since his untimely death in 1978.

For a complete screening schedule, click here. City Slivers will be projected on the east façade of the Museum from September 12 to November 5 from sunset to 11:00 p.m.