The Crocker Art Museum at 216 O St., downtown Sacramento, has some special exhibits for the New Year. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursdays. Every third Sunday of the month is “Pay What You Wish Sunday” sponsored by Western Health Advantage. For more information, call (916) 808-7000 or visit crockerartmuseum.org.
“Into the Fold: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Horvitz Collection”
Jan. 22 through May 7, 2017
In early 2017, the Crocker Art Museum will unveil three beautiful and important new exhibitions focusing on Japanese and Japanese American art and culture. The first of these, “Into the Fold: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Horvitz Collection,” opens Jan. 22 and highlights the diversity, creativity, and technical virtuosity of 20th and 21st century ceramic artists working in Japan. The show features artists whose work is inspired by traditional themes, as well as those who work in (or are influenced by) the avant garde. Tensions between form and functionality, traditional and modern, national and international are often evident across works in the exhibition and within individual pieces. Groupings suggest particular elements associated with the medium’s development, including tea vessels, biomorphic shapes, geometric design, and sculptural forms. Some 40 artists, including many of Japan’s greatest living ceramicists, are represented by 75 works.
“JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876-1970”
Feb. 12 through May 21, 2017
“JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970,” a major exhibition organized by the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, opens Feb. 12 and surveys the role that international exhibitions and world’s fairs have played in artistic exchanges between these two cultures. Focusing on Japan’s place in major international exhibitions held on the American continent from 1876 onward, and finishing with a look at the first World’s Fair held in Osaka in 1970, this beautiful and diverse assembly of more than 100 works examines the influence of Japanese aesthetics on painting and printmaking, ceramics and metalwork, graphic design, advertising, bookbinding, and illustration. The exhibition also includes Japanese objects influenced by the West, as Japanese makers took pride in adopting western forms and manufacturing techniques, while retaining the high level of craftsmanship and attention to detail for which they were famous.
“Two Views: Photographs by Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank”
Feb. 19 through May 14, 2017
“Two Views: Photographs by Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank” opens Feb. 19, exactly 75 years to the day after United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 during World War II, authorizing the Secretary of War to designate certain areas as military zones, and clearing the way for some 120,000 Japanese Americans to be incarcerated in camps scattered throughout the American West. Canada also participated, establishing the British Columbia Security Commission to forcibly relocate approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians to hastily planned camps in the British Columbia interior, and to work and road camps in other parts of the country. This compelling collection of photographs – 40 by Ansel Adams and 26 by Leonard Frank – presents two views of internment and incarceration in the early 1940s, providing an opportunity to reflect on the nature of reactionary politics, racism, forced separation, and the resulting effects on victims.
The Crocker Art Museum was the first public art museum in the Western U.S. and is one of the leading art museums in California today. The Museum offers a diverse spectrum of special exhibitions, events, and programs to augment its collections of Californian, European, Asian, African and Oceanic artworks, and international ceramics.
