“Willie Cole: Deep Impressions” @ Rowan Art Gallery

Note: This is a press release.

Reception and informal walk-through with the show’s guest curator, Patterson Sims Tuesday, January 19, 2012, 5:30 – 7:00 pm. Open and free for everyone.

Willie Cole: Deep Impressions features Cole’s prints, drawings, and sculptures. Rowan University Art Gallery is the first and one venue in the South Jersey region that will be hosting this 3-year Cole survey.

This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Further recognition received from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts honored the gallery and this exhibition with a Citation of Excellence award.

Talk by Willie Cole and Patterson Sims, Tuesday, February 21, 3:00 pm in Westby Hall sponsored in part by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and in collaboration with the African American Studies program.

The Rowan University Art Gallery is particularly pleased to host Willie Cole: Deep Impressions. Carefully chosen by guest curator Patterson Sims from nearly 30 years of work, the exhibition unites personal history, urban and racial realities, and cultural and religious faith and diversity. Cole’s art situates his lifelong New Jersey experience in the context of US and global political life, mirroring the consumer society and the financial anxiety of our times. His deft and probing drawings, prints, and sculptures ingeniously transform everyday consumer products into images and objects of refreshing energy, beauty, and spirituality. This is the first public art gallery survey of Cole’s work in South New Jersey.

The artist studied at the Boston University School of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976. Among his many honors is the 2006 David C. Driskell Prize, the first national award to honor and celebrate contributions to the field of African American art and art history, established by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. The artist’s work is found in numerous private and public collections and museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Montclair Art Museum, the Newark Museum of Art and the New Jersey State Museum in New Jersey.

Born and raised near Philadelphia, curator Patterson Sims’ career has focused on the modern and contemporary field, with a specialty in American modernism and contemporary art. He has worked on projects with diverse foundations and museums, lecturing, writing, teaching, organizing exhibitions and consulting with private collectors. Sims has authored books on Ellsworth Kelly, Jan Matulka, Philip Pearlstein, the Whitney Museum collection and Willie Cole. He has served as Director of the Montclair Art Museum, as Deputy Director for Research Support at The Museum of Modern Art, Assistant Director for the O.K. Gallery in SOHO; Associate Director for Art and Exhibitions and Curator of Modern Art at the Seattle Art Museum and the first curator of the Whitney Museum’s collection of 20th century American art.

For more information, call 856-256-4521 or visit www.rowan.edu/artgallery. Rowan University Art Gallery is located on the lower level of Westby Hall/Parking Lot A, Route 322 in Glassboro, NJ.

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