Fellows Converge | The Moral of the Story: Sharing Inspiration
Please join us Friday, November 21 from 7-9 pm for the opening of our group exhibition Fellows Converge, an annual exercise in which Hamiltonian Fellows contemplate and create based on the premise of a selected guest curator.
Fellows Converge enables an exchange that extends across all disciplines and summons a common challenge in an artist's ability to respond to an outside concept, and consequently reevaluate his or her learned studio practice. Curated by Klaus Ottmann, the Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large at The Phillips Collection, the Fellows Converge exhibition facilitates an original collaboration among the Hamiltonian Fellows.
In the Walter Benjamin essay, "The Storyteller," the author laments the waning art of storytelling in tandem with the rise of the novel, as well as a seemingly lost gift in listening. Inspired by this text, Dr. Ottmann reiterates this notion by emphasizing that the art of narration is truly about shared experiences and deep exploration. He elaborates upon this idea by inviting the artists to create a visual response to a literary story that, in turn, is reinterpreted by a fellow artist. This process mimics the oral tradition of storytelling as tales are passed down and retold. While innovation can often be a solitary process, the unique works of Fellows Converge, The Moral of the Story: Sharing Inspiration encourage mutual understanding and creative reciprocity through artistic development.
Hamiltonian is proud to present this vivid dialogue through the following sources of inspiration:
Jorge Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths"
Lydia Davis, "The Hand"
Nicole Krauss, "An Arrangement of Light"
Gordon Lish, "Women Passing: O Mysterium!"
Haruki Murakami, "The Ice Man"
Larry Cook, "Post-Racial Confusion"
Curator Bio
KLAUS OTTMANN is currently the Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Dr. Ottmann has curated more than forty exhibitions worldwide. His most recent curatorial projects include Hiroshi Sugimoto: Conceptual Forms and Mathematical Models (The Phillips Collection, February-May 2015); Angels, Demons, and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet (The Phillips Collection, February-May 2013; Parrish Art Museum, Summer 2013); Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture (The Phillips Collection, October-January 2012; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, March-July 2013) and Jennifer Bartlett: Place---A Survey of Paintings and Sculpture (The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, June-October 2013; Parrish Art Museum, Summer 2014).
Dr. Ottmann has written extensively on art for numerous museums including the Aspen Art Museum; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum Serralves, Porto; IVAM, Valencia; and the Kunstmuseum Bonn. He has also contributed to leading periodicals, including Flash Art, Arts, Domus, Art on Paper, Art Press, Sculpture, and ArtNews. He is also the editor-in-chief of Spring Publications, Inc., a small publishing house based in Putnam, Connecticut that specializes in books on psychology, philosophy, religion, mythology, and art.
click here to download a copy of the press release
November 21 – December 20, 2014
Opening Reception:
Friday, November 21
7-9 pm