NEW UCURATE EXHIBITION AT THE CLARK HIGHLIGHTS 'RACE TO THE REMIX' WINNER

For Immediate Release

March 20, 2013

Williamstown, MA—Samantha Jones, a sophomore at the New Hampshire Institute of Art (NHIA), becomes the third uCurate guest curator when her exhibition Everyday Nothing opens at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Saturday, March 23. Galleries will be open 10 am–5 pm; admission is free.

Jones, who majors in illustration and art education, submitted her exhibition as part of a “Race to the Remix” curatorial challenge the Clark sponsored in January. The 72-hour competition challenged entrants to create an exhibition using the Clark’s interactive uCurate application, available in its galleries or online at clarkart.edu/remix. The uCurate application is connected to Clark Remix, an installation of some 400 works from the Institute’s permanent collection, and allows users to design their own installation for a Clark gallery using works featured in the Remix exhibition.

The Race to the Remix competition required participants to create an exhibition of exactly ten works of art from those featured in the Clark Remix exhibition, including Louis Léopold Boilly’s Various Objects, and to incorporate the theme of poetic license in their curatorial statement. Race to the Remix drew more than one hundred registrations and resulted in a wide range of exhibition concepts.

Jones was one of several NHIA students who participated in the competition as part of a class assignment. Her exhibition was selected as the winner of the challenge by members of the Clark’s curatorial team who found the concept of Everday Nothing intriguing. Inspired by Boilly’s trompe l’oeil painting, which depicts such ordinary objects as a penknife and a pair of scissors, Jones selected other works that have commonplace themes or usage. “We see objects like these every day of our lives, but never really step back and look further into them. There is a story behind everything, and when I look at the artwork I chose, I can feel a deeper message behind each subject.”

Among the works included in Jones’s exhibition are Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting Tama, the Japanese Dog, John Singer Sargent’s painting Neapolitan Children Bathing, and an eighteenth- century gilded silver cream jug in the shape of a cow from the Clark’s silver collection.

“Our goal in creating the uCurate exhibition series was to bring different curatorial voices to the Clark to experiment with our collection in different, and sometimes unorthodox, ways,” says Richard Rand, Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Senior Curator. “It’s been fun and refreshing to see the creativity that our public curators have brought to their exhibition efforts. We hope this project will inspire Samantha as she moves into a career in arts education.”

Jones, a native of North Attleborough, Massachusetts, made her first visit to the Clark earlier this spring to meet with the curatorial team to discuss plans for the installation of her exhibition. She finalized selections of wall colors, arrangement, and exhibition information with the team. Jones’s exhibition concludes the series of three guest-curated exhibitions at the Clark, which began in November 2012 with eleven-year-old Giselle Ciulla’s Giselle’s Remix, followed by Ashley Smith’s In/Visible: Women of Two Worlds. Everyday Nothing will be on view through April 28.

About the Clark

Set amidst 140 acres in the Berkshires, the Clark is one of the few major art museums that also serves as a leading international center for research and scholarship. The Clark presents public and education programs and organizes groundbreaking exhibitions that advance new scholarship. The Clark’s research and academic programs include an international fellowship program and conferences. Together with Williams College, the Clark sponsors one of the nation’s leading master’s programs in art history. The Clark receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open daily in July and August (open Tuesday through Sunday from September through June), 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is $15 June 1 through October 31; free November through May; and free year-round for Clark members, children 18 and younger, and students with valid ID. For more information, visit clarkart.edu or call 413 458 2303.

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