Martin Art Gallery
Baker Center for the Arts
Muhlenberg College
Allentown, PA 18104

Phone: (484) 664-3467
Fax: (484) 664-3633
Email:
kburke@muhlenberg.edu

Gallery Hours
Tuesdays - Saturdays
Noon - 8:00 pm


All programs and events are
free and open to the public.

Exhibition Schedule
Baker Center for the Arts

Martin Art Gallery Schedule: Spring 2009 / Fall 2008
Galleria Lobby Schedule: Spring 2009

Martin Art Gallery Spring 2009 Sculpting Time January 28 - February 27, 2009 Reception: Wed., Jan. 28, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. Lecture: Wed., Feb. 18, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. Curator: Dr. Ara Osterweil, Asst. Professor, Art & Film Studies, Muhlenberg College Kasper Akhoj, David Baumflek, Tamar Guimares, Daniel Licthman, Rainy Lehrman, Alia Malley investigate both traditional and contemporary concepts of time through sculpture, multimedia installation, photography and video. It Came from Memphis March 11 - April 9, 2009 Reception: Wed., March 11, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. Guest curator: Pinkney Herbert Memphis artists Maysey Craddock and Terri Jones join guest curator and painter Pinkney Herbert in a colorful and energetic exhibition whose title is shared (and blessed) by Robert Gordon; author of a book by the same name about Memphis music.  2009 Senior Art Exhibition April 29 - May 16, 2009 Reception: Wed., April 29, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. This annual exhibition features the work of senior art majors. Their work in painting, drawing, sculpture, digital video, and photography is the result of their year-long participation in the Senior Art Seminar.   Shared Experience: The Rothfeld Gifts June 5 – July 18, 2009 Reunion Weekend reception: Fri., June 5, 4 - 5:00 p.m. Highlights of a decade of art gifts received by the College from Dr. Donald Rothfeld, Class of 1959. The exhibition is held in conjunction with Reunion Weekend events.

Galleria Lobby Spring 2009 Back to top Darfur: Artwork for Awareness February 15 – 18, 2009 Student curators: Jenny Bleznak and Sami Mangel/STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) Related lecture: Dr. Ehrlich, Feb. 18 in Recital Hall   The Art of Magic March 11 – April 4 Curator:  Alumna Candace Dobro The exhibition is part of the College’s 10th anniversary celebration of the Theory and Art of Magic.   Pennsylvania Hands June 5 – July 26 Photographs by alumna Sally Wiener Grotta that celebrate Pennsylvanians who keep traditional arts and crafts that reflect our state’s diverse culture alive.  Grotta was awarded a Lehigh Area PPA grant for this project.   Martin Art Gallery Fall 2008 Back to top Floating Architecture and Constant Centers: Some Projections August 27 – September 27, 2008 Guest curator: Bartholomew Ryan/ 7 international video artists Reception: Wednesday, September 3, 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.  Floating Architecture is guest curator Bartholomew Ryan’s intriguing exploration of  identity and the relationship of identity to place.  In developing the theme, he chose to work with young, international video artists whose imagery is as varied as their individual backgrounds.  Ryan compiled six separate and distinct videos made by Yvonne Buchanan, Jana Eske, Yael Bartana, Kota Ezawa, Dionn Meade & Mary Simpson, and Dawit L. Petros and  looped them to be shown continually on one projector.  Most were produced using a long shot of a single scene with no cuts. In Harlem, Buchanan documented young children in a typical urban playground. Using grainy black-and-white Super-8 film, Mead & Simpson captured anonymous legs and feet moving rapidly in an undeterminable location of brick and gravel. Ezawa used a laborious animation technique to reduce a suburban tract home to an iconic representation of contemporary suburban angst,  while Eske employed  an aquatic vantage point to shoot a building complex in Helsinki, Finland.  Finally, painterly references were made by Petros who framed a Canadian lake as a landscape and by Bartana who shot a Vermeer-like, frame-within a-frame viewpoint of a Purim celebration in Jerusalem.   Safety Architecture   October 15 - November 15, 2008      Guest curator Lou Joseph worked with nine artists--Diana Behl, Micah Bornstein, Sam Brown, Amze Emmons, Kim Faler, Goatmother Industrial, Brooke Inman, Michael Markwick and Mario Marzan--who are looking at the various apparatus and infrastructures that promote public and personal safety. Maybe more appropriately, these artists are looking at systems designed to protect us from a myriad of both real and imagined dangers. These dangers can come in many forms- natural, criminal, accidental, civil, chemical, governmental, sociological, mental, biological, to name just a few. The work in the exhibition touches on those themes and more.  Some of these artists looked more directly at the actual objects of our safety architecture, at their form and how they function. Others explored the edges where an obsession with safety can turn into paranoia. Opening reception: October 15, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m . Creighton Michael: Plane Drawing November 25, 2008 – January 9, 2009 Opening reception for the artist: Wednesday, December 3, 4:30 – 6 p.m. Slide lecture in conjunction with the exhibition by writer Susan Isaacs: Tuesday, December 2, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. in the Center’s lobby. An excerpt by independent curator, essayist and critic Lilly Wei from the exhibition catalogue, Creighton Michael: Plane Drawing:  …Calling them dimensional drawings, Michael began to experiment with a range of formulations, in particular grids, his next series, proceeding in an intuitive but also systematic way, incorporating repetition, difference and an element of chance.  Using wire to represent the mark, shaped individually by hand into forms that suggest leaves and petals, the process replicated the act of drawing while creating more substantive delineations.  The delicate wire units, combined with glue, plastic or rubber, were inserted into a sectioned, pre-drilled wall, the resultant shadows from the interaction with light functioning as a shimmered modeling, enhancing the work’s three-dimensionality.  In essence, Michael created a hybrid of drawing and sculpture, incorporating actual space and movement, claiming the architecture as the support.  These early grids, drawn in graphite on the wall, were always 30, 24 or 12 inch squares, the measurements he favored… Creighton Michael is lives and works in New York. Wei writes for Art in America and is a contributing editor for ARTnews and Art Asia Pacific.

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