September 18, 2008 – November 8, 2008
The University of Arizona Museum of Art is pleased to present Jenny Schmid: The Vistas of Gender Utopia, an exhibition marking the emerging printmaker’s first comprehensive solo museum presentation and monograph publication.
Jenny Schmid’s “gender utopia” project explores notions of gender and liberty through images that fuse Old Master print precedents with a hip contemporary sensibility. Critical yet humorous, Schmid’s work quotes from Europe’s Medieval and Renaissance print precedents, the medium’s traditions of social satire and arch political caricature (including Bruegel, Hogarth, Goya, and Daumier), contemporary journalism and sociology, feminist scholarship, graphic novels, and various strains of popular culture — visual, musical, and literary. Densely packed with symbols and language, the work traces the distant past to the immediate present with a wry humor that carries the sharp poke of contemporary critique.
Born in 1969, Jenny Schmid was educated at Macalester College (BA) and the University of Michigan (MFA). Since 2005, she has been Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Schmid has received numerous awards, including the Fulbright Fellowship, the Jerome Foundation Fellowship, the McKnight Foundation Fellowship, and the Bush Foundation Fellowship.
Her work is held in both national and international collections, including: The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University-Chico, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Seattle Arts Commission, The Southern Graphics Council, The Spencer Art Museum, and The University of Arizona Museum of Art; The Museum of Royal Arts (Antwerp, Belgium), Centrum voor Grafiek Frans Masereel (Kasterlee, Belgium), and The Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, National Museum (Poznan, Poland).
Jenny Schmid lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. She is represented by the Davidson Galleries, in Seattle, WA, and Gráficas Gallery, on Nantucket, MA.
Jenny Schmid: The Vistas of Gender Utopia
Texts by Lisa Fischman and Ben Ehrenreich
Designed to evoke the fanciful visual pleasures of a storybook, Jenny Schmid: The Vistas of Gender Utopia features a comprehensive survey of the artist’s series since 2000. The full-color catalog includes an essay by UAMA chief curator Lisa Fischman, and a previously unpublished work of allegorical fiction by acclaimed journalist/novelist Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Suitors (2006).
ISBN: 978-0-9814840-1-3
Clothbound Hardcover, 10.75 x 7.75 in.
96 pages / 60 color plates / illustrated throughout / 2-3 gatefolds
U.S. $45, publication date September 2008
Jenny Schmid: The Vistas of Gender Utopia was also made possible through support from The University of Minnesota.
The exhibition catalog was realized with additional support from:
University of Minnesota
The University of Arizona Museum of Art & Archive of Visual Arts
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Gráficas Gallery, Nantucket, MA
Davidson Galleries, Seattle, WA
Neil Elliott
Saul Wasserman
Download the gallery guide for Jenny Schmid: The Vistas of Gender Utopia
(1.4mb Adobe Acrobat file, may take a moment to download)
See Jenny Schmid’s lecture on The Vistas of Gender Utopia as a podcast.
requires iTunes software for viewing
