PHILADELPHIA, PA.- A new exhibition featuring the work of Philadelphia artist Tom Judd will be on view at the La Salle University Art Museum through November 24, 2008. Judd’s installation, entitled The Collection, is inspired by pieces from La Salle Art Museum’s own permanent collection of art, which ranges from the Renaissance to the present. Judd chose 11 pieces from La Salle’s art collection, which he transformed and reinterpreted. “It is great art being presented in an entirely different context,” said Judd.
“The pieces (in The Collection) do not necessarily have anything in common except that they are part of the same collection--they just happen to have been acquired by or donated to the Museum,” said Judd. For the installation, Judd assembled his copies in what he describes as poetic relationships that ignore the original works’ historic and geographic differences.
For example, Judd transforms a three-dimensional wood African mask into a two-dimensional painting on the front surface of a three-dimensional wooden box. In addition, two 17th-century oil portraits of a husband and wife by Thomas de Keyser are rendered as drawings, rather than paintings, on unpainted wood panel. In their original form, the portraits of the husband and wife face each other with the man to the right of the woman, a position that is traditionally considered privileged. However, in Judd’s interpretation, the husband and wife are seen with their backs to one another, as if they have been arguing. Judd places the wife to the left of her husband, giving her the commanding place in the arrangement of the two figures.
“Tom Judd’s installation offers an exhilarating way to connect with the collection of La Salle University Art Museum. We anticipate viewers moving back and forth between the exhibition and our galleries, comparing the artist’s interpretation to the original art work on display,” said Madeleine Viljoen, Ph.D., Director and Chief Curator for La Salle University Art Museum.
Judd created The Collection using materials that could be found on the street. One of his piecesis done on scrap metal; another is on an old paneled door. “It is organically constructed, suggesting howeach piece is built upon another,” said Judd.
Judd graduated from the University of the Arts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art) where he studied with artists including Rafael Ferrer, Bob Kulicke, and Larry Day. He first exhibited his art work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1979 Judd went on to exhibit his work in distinguished commercial galleries throughout the country and in 1990 he had a ten-year retrospect at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.
He recently curated an exhibition in New York City with 12 invited artists entitled The Chalk board Chronicles, and completed an exterior mural in Center City Philadelphia. His show at the La Salle University Art Museum is his first solo exhibition at a university art museum.
