Mining Identity: Works by Eve-Marie Bergren August 29 – November 7, 2008 The Center, Hailey Boise-based artist Eve-Marie Bergren has produced a series of portraits of individuals based on their fingerprints. The paintings’ swirling lines create lyrical abstract patterns at the same time that they signify our uniqueness as individual human beings. The Center, Hailey, will feature an installation of a large selection of these portraits.
Exhibition Celebration The Center, Hailey Fri, Sep 12, 5:30–7pm Join us for drinks and appetizers. Eve-Marie Bergren will be present to discuss her work. Eve-Marie Bergren, Mining Identity: Finola, 2005, courtesy of the artist
Does DNA Define You? August 22 – October 31, 2008 Sun Valley Center for the Arts How much does who our parents are determine who we become? Does our DNA contain clues not only to our hair color but also to our personality? To the kinds of preferences, desires and goals that will guide us through life? The last half-century has seen an explosion in our knowledge of DNA, from its discovery in the 1950s to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. The more information we gain about genetics, the more questions we seem to have about the connection between our biology and our identity. Terms that once seemed the stuff of science fiction, like “designer babies” and “genetic engineering,” have become part of our everyday language and have triggered a series of new ethical dilemmas regarding the degree to which we should be reconfiguring the fundamental building blocks Eugenics Tree, ca. 1925, Eugenics Record Office Records, American Philosophical Society
of life. This multidisciplinary project explores these questions through lectures, films, art exhibitions and classes.
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U S POSTAGE
Sun Valley Center for the Arts P O Box 656 Sun Valley, ID 83353
Does
D N A
Define You?
PAID BOISE ID PERMIT NO. 679
Visual Arts Does DNA Define You? presents artwork from the 18th century to the present that illustrates the historic shifts in the way artists have conceptualized the relationship between identity and biology. In the 18th century, Mexican artists produced an entirely new genre of artwork, known as casta [caste] painting. Made in series, these paintings showed the results of racial intermixing in the Americas, with each painting depicting a basic biological family unit (a man, a woman and a child) of different racial backgrounds. Casta paintings conveyed racial and social theories of the time. The exhibition features reproductions of original casta paintings. Early 20th-century artists depicted a later phase in racial and biological theory in illustrations that popularized the ideas behind eugenics, which promised the improvement of the human race through selective reproduction
Rebecca Howland, Same Apartment, Different Tenant, 1999-2000, courtesy of the artist
or "the self direction of human evolution." The exhibition includes a selection of these illustrations as well as photographs from the “Fitter Families” contests held in the 1920s and 1930s. The relationship between identity and biology has been a source of creativity for contemporary artists as well. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's The Garden of Delights series consists of portraits of individuals based on their DNA charts and poses the question of whether our DNA is who we are. Similarly, Dennis Ashbaugh has created a series of DNA portraits based on individual genetic fingerprints. Unlike Manglano-Ovalle, who produces prints of actual DNA charts, Ashbaugh uses digital images of DNA as the basis for large-scale oil paintings and prints that engage the history of abstract and color-field painting. Artist Rebecca Howland has created a series of drawings that gently and humorously probe the complicated issues of genomics, cloning and reproductive biotechnology. Howland injects personal, spiritual and ethical questions into the scientific world of genetics. Jaq Chartier’s luminescent paintings result from the chemical reactions between the layers of spray paint and acrylic that she applies to each canvas. Her process—a metaphor
Dennis Ashbaugh, Untitled (Gray) from the Genetic Portraits series, 1992, courtesy of the artist and Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, New Hampshire
for genetic testing—produces a result similar to that of DNA gel electrophoresis, in which
an electric current is passed through gel to
Exhibition Tours, every Tue at 2pm
separate DNA strands. The handwritten notes
It’s the First Place to Be!
she leaves visible in the margins are evidence
Fri, Aug 29 and Fri, Oct 10, 5:30–6:30pm
of the scientific approach she takes to art and
Join us for wine and hors d’oeuvres.
Special Evening Gallery Tour
the blurring of art and science in her work.
Open for Gallery Walk until 8pm
Thu, Sep 4, 5:30pm
Family Day
Tue, Oct 7 and 14, 6pm
Born into Brothels with Director and Producer Ross Kauffman
The Center, Ketchum
Wed, Sep 10, 7pm
Free
Free
Sun Valley Opera House
Come with your kids to explore infinite
This groundbreaking PBS documentary, hosted
$10 members/$15 nonmembers
combinations. Genetically engineer your own
by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., profiles some of
Winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best
hybrid sculpture.
the most accomplished African Americans of
Documentary, Born into Brothels introduces us
our time using genealogy and DNA to trace
to the children of prostitutes in Calcutta. Zana
their roots down through American history and
Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives
back to Africa. This combination of science
each of the children a camera and teaches
and storytelling explores the quintessential
them to look at the world with new eyes. The
questions of heritage and the importance of
film traces their lives and their attempts to
knowing our past.
escape their world through photography, in
Lectures & Films African American Lives Documentary
the process bringing up questions how the children’s caste and heritage locks them into a way of life. Director, producer and cinematographer Ross Kaufman will be on hand to talk about the making of the film, update what has happened to the children and answer questions. Born into Brothels has received over 40 awards, including the National Board of Review Best Documentary 2004 and the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award.
Sun, Oct 5, 3–5pm The Center, Hailey
Ketchum: M-F 9am-5pm, Sat in Aug 11am-5pm Exhibition Tours: Tue at 2pm 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho Hailey: W-F noon-5pm 314 Second Ave. S, Hailey, Idaho Sun Valley Center for the Arts P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 208.726.9491 www.sunvalleycenter.org Printed on recycled paper, 50/25% post consumer waste.
$15 members/$20 nonmembers
Lecture: Casta Painting: Race, Class and Sex in 18th-century Mexico by Courtney Gilbert
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher
Tue, Oct 2, 7pm
University Professor at Harvard University,
The Center, Ketchum
as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois
Free
Institute for African and African American
Depicting the results of racial mixing
Research. Professor Gates is a widely published
in the Americas, 18th-century casta
author and editor of such publications as
paintings presented a man and a
The Encyclopedia of the African and African
woman of different racial groups
American Experience and Wonders of the
with their offspring, who were
African World. He has received nearly 50
assigned a third racial category. The
honorary degrees, as well as a MacArthur
racial labels used in the paintings
Foundation fellowship and inclusion in Time
paralleled a complex caste system
magazine’s list of the “25 Most Influential
that the Spanish Empire tried to
Americans.”
implement to maintain control over
Henry Louis Gates Jr. Thu, Oct 16, 7pm nexStage Theatre, Ketchum
The Center’s 2008/2009 Lecture Series is
its colonies. This slide lecture will
made possible, in part, through the generosity
explore the intersection of race,
of Richard and Judith Smooke.
class and sexual mores within these
mailer: Buenaventura José Guiol, De español e india nace mestiza, ca. 1770-80, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center; Jaq Chartier, Color Chart (May), 2008, courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland; Buenaventura José Guiol, De español y castiza nace española, ca. 1770-80, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center; cover: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Carter, Anna, and Daryl from The Garden of Delights, 1998, courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
canvases. Courtney Gilbert, The Center’s Curator of Visual Arts, earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where she studied modern European and Latin American Art History.
Miguel Cabrera, De español y torna atrás, tente en el aire, 1763, private collection, courtesy of the National Hispanic Cultural Center