The University of Kentucky College of Fine Arts hosted the opening of the two-venue art exhibition, “All in the Family” at the UK Art Museum as a welcome-back event for free for all students and local art enthusiasts.
On Friday, Aug. 30, the exhibition featured works by American photographer Chris Verene, and his “Home Movies” collection, known for its intertwined and raw representation of a young, unstructured family.
The UK Art Museum director, Stuart Horodner, and his partner Leah Kolb were the production’s co-curators.
In the behind-the-scenes, as the co-curator, Kolb highlighted that she found meaning in honoring space and gaps between each piece portraying generations, motherhood, and legacy.
“It allows you this flexibility to recontextualize things constantly and to be able to understand work in different ways depending on what you’re putting next to, what you’re putting in conversation with, what is juxtaposed against, what things can be pulled out of it that you wouldn’t necessarily think otherwise because it is in this specific thematic exhibition,” Kolb said.
At the event, the newest curator for the UK Art Museum, Rachel Hooper, was introduced to the audience. She described her experience within the new role as being similar to editing a film.
“I used to work as a filmmaker and it’s like when you edit a film, you remember the scenes that you cut out, that is how it is to curate an exhibition too. You remember what is not there as much as you remember what’s there,” Hooper said.
Two faculty members, Rae Goodwin, an artist, and the associate dean of research and creative activities in the College of Fine Arts. As well as Hannah Smith, a lecturer of digital design and 3D fabrication at the UK School of Art & Visual Studies had their artistic works on display.
Composed of scanned photographs of old family photos with teal and golden ferns alongside a reproduction of the artist herself wearing the clothes of her adopted grandmother in her adoption photo, Goodwin’s work is called “Trying to Fit.”
“It is an exploration of me trying to understand how I fit within my own family,” Goodwin said. “I’ve remade her adoption dress out of my childhood pillowcases because I wanted to embody a dream state while I was performing.”
Slightly departing from the family theme, Smith’s sculpture “Messy Choices,” was displayed on the second floor.
“My artwork in general, like as a practice, I’m grappling with a lot of issues of capitalism, and how that affects our personal identities, so the pieces included in the show are investigating similar themes but in a more personal way,” Smith said.
The exhibition’s title was inspired by the American 1970s sitcom of the same name. The show was famous for conveying the domestic dynamics of a working-class family, the Bunkers, as a satirical expose of social issues during the Vietnam War.
Based on such a reference, the main hall of the UK Art Museum was filled with pieces that, together, told different parts of stories that symbolized nuanced interpretations of the meaning of family under distinct political and social contexts.
As part of the audience, the UK Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Masela Obade, alongside her daughter, found themselves immersed in the opening exhibition and Obade had her favorite.
“It depicts a mother, a black woman holding an infant child and it kind of talks to the violence about black men in the U.S.,” Obade said. “And looking into her eyes, you can just see the anguish, the agony, but also a sense that there can be a better tomorrow.”
For greater outreach and student involvement, UK Art Museum staff also decided to do a bracket challenge on Facebook and Instagram with different family TV shows for people to decide which one is their favorite. Each week, there will be a new round until the end of the exhibition before late November.
“All in the Family” has been on exhibition since July 16, and will be open through Nov. 23, according to the College of Fine Arts.
