Exhibits and Related Events

Portions of the Eternal World: Prints by William Blake

The Age of Jefferson produced not only great rationalists like Thomas Jefferson but also great visionaries like William Blake. If Jefferson meant to renew Eden in our world through science and sanity, Blake meant to do so through art, poetry, and a freedom-loving humane spirituality.

This exhibition of Blake's beautiful and powerful black and white etchings and engravings calls attention tothe artist's belief in the "bounding line" -- the truest means of delineating what Blake saw as the ultimate identity of human and spiritual truth.

"His fusion of art and poetry in books and prints," notes curator of works on paper, "possesses a prophetic power that heralded a new way of mreging human imagination and divine insight."

The Museum is open Tuesday - Friday 1-5 pm and Saturday and Sunday 10-5 pm. Admission is free.
434.924.3592
www.virginia.edu/artmuseum

 

"Loomings"

Sculpture, by William H. Bennett

Wood, steel, fabric, water, charred earth, give away text of Moby Dick; 1998 - 2002; 25' long x 22' tall x 9' wide

Exhibited in front of Fayerweather Hall, UVa, Charlottesville, VA.
March 20 – April 30, 2002
Reception, Friday, March 24, 5:00 – 7:00

According to the artist:

A steel and wood structure, which is part boat, plane, animal, and sleigh, carries a large 19th-century cast iron bell. A mast, which is attached to the bell, rises to the sky. A seat is provided on the sculpture for a participant. A handle on a small steel house allows a participant to ring the bell. Opening the hinged roof of the house reveals that it contains two line segments of Melville’s Moby Dick, which are offered as a gift to the viewer.

"Loomings" is the title of Chapter I of Moby Dick and refers to events just over the horizon in the novel. As the title of this sculpture, it refers to an object of metaphoric travel, capable of journeying beyond the horizon to memories of time and place where our collective identity still in part resides.

This sculpture began its life three years ago when it was built for a show staged along the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. The second paragraph of Moby Dick, which begins, "There now your insular city of Manhattoes…" inspired me to construct this work for the New York City waterfront. Since that show, it has been weathering in the mountains of Virginia. I have always wanted it to journey to other sites from Moby Dick. Last summer, it was displayed in the entranceway of the Whaling Museum in New Bedford Massachusetts. Plans are being drawn for this work to follow the text of Moby Dick to Nantucket. For its installation in Charlottesville, a water and earthen element will be added to the sculpture.