Points of Departure: Roadside Memorial Polaroids

Oct 2012

Phillip March Jones explores roadside memorials in his project, Points of Departure: Roadside Memorial Polaroids. Artist Statement Roadside memorials mark geographical points of departure in a landscape that is generally devoid of real human interaction or activity. They are almost always…

New Fruits: Urban Distillery

Sep 2012 – Sep 2012

In the spring of 2012, 21c architect Deborah Berke and Noah Biklen led a design studio at the Yale School of Architecture to design a bourbon distillery in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The studio examined how urban manufacturing is reemerging in…

Blue: Matter, Mood, and Melancholy

Aug 2012

Cited as the most popular color worldwide, blue incites joy and sadness, wonder and nostalgia, vitality and illness, nature and science. While this spectrum of meaning and effect embraces broad polarities, longing and transformation consistently attend contemporary artistic use of…

Convergence: Highlights from the Collection 2012

Aug 2012

How and where do we live and work today? How do we perceive both ourselves  and others in a rapidly changing, intricately connected global community? This selection of recent acquisitions features paintings, sculpture, photography, and video works by artists from…

Consuming Cultures: A Global View

May 2012

A group exhibition featuring artists from North and South America, Europe, and Asia, who examine, with both whimsy and wonder, the evolution of aesthetic and material values in a world of rapid change and mass consumption

book weights (human carriage)

Mar 2012

These photographs by artist Ann Hamilton were developed in conjunction with a large-scale installation commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2009 as part of the exhibition The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1969.

Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea

Jan 2012

Best known for his powerful, and often unsettling, staged photographic and video works, Goicolea made his artistic debut in the late 1990s with a series of provocative multiple self-portrait images.

Sassy Sarcastic Swooper

Oct 2011

Powell exhibits his work nationally and internationally. He has participated in workshops, demonstrations and lectures all over the US, as well as in Russia, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. He has also demonstrated at several Glass Art Society conferences,…

Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story

Sep 2011 – Jan 2012

Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story features twenty-five images of irreplaceable trees from around the country that are associated with historically important people and events that have shaped the development of communities and cultures.

Untitled (Claw)

Sep 2011 – Jan 2012

In Untitled (Claw), Sassolino has modified a hydraulically powered construction grapple to move its blades, like a spider’s legs, in a random sequence simultaneously showing both human and technical accomplishment.

Corner Store

Sep 2011

Questioning the slippery line between art and commodity, the Austin-based artist collaborative Okay Mountain presents this faux convenience store allowing you to purchase a number of products.

The Raft

Apr 2011

First installed in conjunction with the exhibition Cuba Now and located outside of 21c on the West Main Street sidewalk, The Raft is a shiny deep blue and yellow, wheel-less body of a 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe, supported from below by a profusion of Cuban legs, appearing to be on-the-march.

In Tran-sit (Capote)

Apr 2011

In conjunction with the exhibition Cuba Now, In Tran-sit, is an outdoor sculptural installation that functions like a bench in public space and explores the experiences of traveling and emigration.

Cuba Now

Feb 2011 – Jan 2012

Comprised of over 90 works, Cuba Now offers a glimpse of the current generation of Cuban artists whose work explores not only the complex history of Cuba, but also universal themes of censorship, race, gender, and identity.

Woman on the Run

Oct 2010 – Jan 2011

Transforming the street level gallery at 21c, Snelling’s Woman on the Run, explores a fragmented narrative about a fated women through an installation of shrunken buildings and a life size motel.

Death of Childhood

Oct 2010 – Dec 2010

15 photographers were given the task of honoring the childhood of their past in this collaborative exhibition with the University of Louisville celebrating El Día de los Muertos.

Back to the Futurama

Sep 2010 – Oct 2010

Drawing inspiration from the General Motor’s ‘Futurama’ exhibition at the 1939 World’s Fair, artist and filmmaker Jeremy Dean similarly-titled show presents pimped out cars and buggies which question the legacy of our material excesses.

Nineveh: A Sculptural Installation by Ezra Kellerman

Sep 2010 – Oct 2010

Vast, hanging plateaus of grass and their direct relationship to the irrigation system suspended above them sharpen the general ideas of conception, growth, and environmental sustenance in this site-specific installation for the Cressman Center for Visual Art.

Moments from Israel

Sep 2010 – Jan 2011

Moments from Israel is an award-winning series which captures the complex forces that drive the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

All Over

Sep 2010 – Feb 2011

Artist Teresa Diehl uses planes as symbols of war and bird as symbols of peace to exhibit the struggle of maintaining peace through an act of war.

New Acquisitions and Highlights

Aug 2010 – Jan 2012

New Acquisitions and Highlights is an ongoing exhibition of newly acquired work and highlights from the collection of 21c Museum founders Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson.

Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes

Jun 2010 – Oct 2010

Merging traditional photographic techniques with digital methods, Simen Johan creates artwork that fuses the realistic with artistic and relies on the imagination of viewers for interpretations.

Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War

May 2010 – Feb 2011

Using her iconic cut-paper silhouettes, Kara Walker turns her eye towards reinterpreting and enlarging Harpers Pictorial History of the Civil War.

Fundred Dollar Bill Project

Feb 2010 – Feb 2011

Presented by 21c Museum in Partnership with LVAA Open Doors Program, artist Mel Chin invites you to make your our hand drawn Fundred Dollar Bill.

Mystic Truhts

Jan 2010 – Aug 2010

Russel Hulsey’s work in this exhibition explores the concept that art begins with the poetic and suggests that the role of art lies in spontaneous, mystical experience that cannot be read at surface value.

Faces of Fooshegu

Nov 2009 – Oct 2010

Exhibited in conjunction with Creating Identity: Portraits Today, Faces of Fooshegu by Lindsay Cameron presents an intimate portrayal of the people of Louisville’s sister city Tamale, Ghana.

Going Home: El Dia de los Muertos

Nov 2009

21c Museum celebrates El Día de los Muertos with a site-installation by students in the University of Louisville’s 2-D Design Class and consists of 10,000 hand-cut monarch butterfly designs and 14 casts of hands.

Talking Back

Nov 2009

Leslie Lyons’ photo series Talking Back: An Exhibition of T-Shirt Messages and The Bodies Who Wear Them explores the dynamics of personal expression and society’s response to our media-driven culture.

Here Now, There Then

Aug 2009 – Dec 2009

Louisville-based artist Letitia Quesenberry explores the idea that not knowing invokes more interest than knowing by combining images from two distinct series, each part of an ongoing investigation of perception and representation.

Creating Identity: Portraits Today

Aug 2009 – Jul 2010

This large exhibition of over seventy artworks by thirty-seven artists demonstrates how a diverse group of international and regional artists explore portraiture and struggle with similar challenges of what it means to be an individual.

Ross Gordon: Ceremony Series, Lamboka Kenya

Jul 2009 – Aug 2009

Photographer Ross Gordon presents a series of photographs documenting a traditional circumcision ceremony in Kenya.

UK College of Design Proposals to Revitalize Shippingport, Louisville

May 2009 – Jan 1970

21c Museum presents an exhibition of proposals by the University of Kentucky College of Design for future projects and development for the Shippingport area of Louisville.

Paris Kyne: The Colour of Racing

Apr 2009 – Jun 2009

21c celebrates the Derby racing season by bringing renowned Australian designer and Master Milliner Paris Kyne for an exhibition of artistic custom hat-making.

Constant World: The Work of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy

Mar 2009 – Aug 2009

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy present a unique combination of sculpture and video in this exhibition exploring multiple realities through constantly shifting stories.

The Photographs of Dominic Rouse

Dec 2008 – Mar 2009

Illusion and reality overlap in these surreal and haunting digital images by photographer Dominic Rouse.

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

Nov 2008 – Nov 2008

In this special exhibition and collaboration with the University of Louisville, 21c Museum will display a site-specific altar by Lexington-based artist Robert Morgan, and three altars by professors and students at the University that interpret these celebratory reliquaries in a contemporary context.

All’s Fair in Art and War: Envisioning Conflict

Oct 2008 – Mar 2009

Not bound to partisan perspectives or conventional aesthetics, the artists in this exhibition exemplify the freedom and independence artists’ share that allows them to provoke thought by any means necessary.

Stefan Sagmeister: Everybody Always Thinks They Are Right

Sep 2008

Six 30-foot white monkeys occupy a stretch of Main and Seventh streets in Louisville in this ambitious public art project by internationally renowned artist Stefan Sagmeister.

James Baker Hall: Photo/Synthesis

Sep 2008 – Oct 2009

Photo/Synthesis: James Baker Hall is the artist’s first survey of photographic work, whose seventy images depict the varied landscapes and creative personalities of his native Kentucky, while foregrounding the sensory experience of the work itself.

Western Middle School Perspectives: An Exhibition of Tableaux Vivant

May 2008 – Aug 2008

21c Museum presents its second collaboration with Blue Apple Players and Western Middle School students, with a specific focus on the tableau vivant art form.

Tangled Up In You

Feb 2008 – Sep 2008

The multi–stranded threads of family and romance that wind their way through each of our lives is explored, celebrated, and interrogated in this 21c Museum exhibition.

Anthony Goicolea: Ramp, 2006

Nov 2007 – Jan 2008

Continuing his work of creating imaginative environments, Anthony Goicolea transplants elements of natures into an arctic urbanized landscape.

Mickie Winters: Learning to Bend Series

Nov 2007 – Aug 2008

Artist Mickie Winters presents a series of 16 photographs relating to bending and how the very act permeates all of existence.

Marvin Francis: Prison’s Paper Trail

Aug 2007 – Jan 2008

Prison‘s Paper Trail is a retrospective of sculptures by the self-taught artist Marvin Francis that allows the viewer an insight into the artist‘s life from the inside.

Marc Swanson: Beginning to See the Light

Jul 2007 – Jan 2008

Marc Swanson’s sculptures, paintings, installations, and video projects combine disparate references to art history, music, mythology, and his own personal lore, providing an exhibition that explores ongoing themes such as autobiography, duality, and desire.

Finding Family

Mar 2007 – May 2007

The exhibition Finding Family explores the constantly evolving definition of family, examines how we construct identity and the diversity within our own families.

Ilse Haider: Selected Works 1997-2002

Mar 2007 – Aug 2007

Austrian artist Ilse Haider draws upon the tradition of nude photography—so long dominated by men depicting women—and reverses the role of artist and model.

Past Highlights and Acquisitions

Jan 2007 – Aug 2009

Past Highlights features work that has been on display in the New Acquisitions and Highlights, an ongoing exhibition of newly acquired work and highlights from the growing collection of 21c Museum founders Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson.

Mikhail Baryshnikov: Dominican Moves

Dec 2006 – Nov 2007

Compiled over a series of extended visits to the island country, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Dominican Moves yields a sensitive look at Dominican culture and place through dance.

Through the Rabbit Hole

Nov 2006 – Jun 2007

The surrealistic sphere where the artistic imagination slides and seeps into reality is the tantalizing territory explored in this exhibition.

John Waters: Unwatchable Series

Oct 2006 – Dec 2006

Artist John Waters illustrates the transition of watching a movie, even a bad one, into a selective new high-concept version that may have nothing to do with the original film.

Dan Dutton: Ballads of the Barefoot Mind

Oct 2006 – Jan 2007

21c Museum hosts a solo exhibition of works by Kentucky artist Dan Dutton highlighting the artist’s collection of ballad stories, sounds and images.

Looking Now

Apr 2006 – Sep 2006

The human face and form animate many of the artworks presented in this inaugural exhibition at 21c Museum.

Hybridity

Apr 2006 – Sep 2006

Full of both hopeful anticipation and admonishing fear, these artworks offer a provocative reflection on the intersection of human and animal kingdoms—the hybrids that inhabit our cultural imaginations.

Untitled, 2006

Jan 2006 – Apr 2011

This interactive chandelier cleverly engages with unknowing participants by pulsating and “breathing” as visitors to Proof ring a bell to call for a table.

Sleepers

Jan 2006

Projected on the floor, this film depicts a man and woman in bed, asleep in the early hours of the morning.

Judy Fox Sculptures

Exhibited behind the reception desk at 21c Museum Hotel, four sculptures by Judy Fox combine both idealized and generalized features of children much in the way that heroic tales reflect a mixture of fact and fiction.