Note: Although the Drake Fine Arts Calendar shows the opening reception for this exhibition on Friday, Nov. 11, the date has been changed to Thursday, Nov. 10, and a live performance has been added.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 27, 2005

CONTACT: Nora Wendl, (515) 271-1994, nora.wendl@drake.edu
Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu

DRAKE’S ANDERSON GALLERY TO FEATURE MITCHELL SQUIRE’S ‘STILL LIFE W/ PEACHES (AND A LITTLE BLACK BOY ATOP A SPOTTED PONY’

The Anderson Gallery at Drake University will feature the first one-person exhibition of work by Mitchell Squire, a native of Natchez, Miss., who was raised in Chicago and is now assistant professor of architecture at Iowa State University.

Squire’s work flows from his experiences as an African American man and integrates personal notions of culture, race, family and the cycle of life. Architectural in scale and technique, his work manifests as volumetric forms that serve as armatures or containers relating such notions to collections of artifacts. In “Still Life w/ Peaches (and a Little Black Boy Atop a Spotted Pony,)” Squire probes the subject of bloodline and addresses issues of pedigree and strain.

The focus of the exhibition is a 25-foot-long singular ensemble of Squire’s work with his distinctive medium of collective artifacts. At each of the far ends of the space, Squire will extend his acquisition to include the human body by incorporating vocals and keyboard arrangements by collaborating artists Rachel Norgaard (keyboard) and Theaster Gates (vocal) during the opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10. The exhibit will continue through Dec. 11. Both the reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

Along a portion of one of the sidewalls of the gallery, an almost unperceivable collection of hair forms will be mounted. These recall the 1932 work of anthropologist Carolyn Bond Day titled “A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States,” in which she writes, “Hair is one of the most easily modified of all physical characteristics of the individual of mixed blood.”

Consistent with the 17th century still life genre, the featured ensemble bears a rather ambiguous relation to time: it attempts to freeze it, yet the artifacts of which it is comprised herald an undeniable and uncontrollable passage. Where Squire redresses the genre is in his treatment of its most prominent feature, the visually absent yet seemingly ever-present live human. In “Vanitas with Negro Boy,” by Dutch painter David Bailly (1584-1657), Squire finds influence and references that painting’s genre-departure by partially concealing himself (as Bailly did the Negro boy) with the table on which sits his peaches.

"Squire's work intends to cause reflection on how collected objects contain within them a record of human sentience," said Nora Wendl, director of the Anderson Gallery. "By combining a collector's approach to artifacts, with an opening night architectural performance that recalls artist Vito Acconci's installation work, we're sure that there will be something here for every audience to appreciate."

Squire has participated in group exhibitions at select venues in central Iowa, including “New New 2” at Karolyn Sherwood Gallery, Des Moines; “N00965859F” at Westbrook Artist’s Site, Winterset; and “The East Village Storefront Public Art Project” in Des Moines.

At Iowa State, Squire won a competition to design public art for the College of Design’s building addition and renovation project in 2003. He received a $10,000 commission for his winning project titled “Lawn Ornament.” Squire’s collections, drawings and writings have appeared in books exploring architecture and culture, published by the MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., and the Athlone Press, London.

The Anderson Gallery in the Harmon Fine Arts Center at 25th Street and Carpenter Avenue is open from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call (515) 271-1994 or visit www.drake.edu/andersongallery.

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