Opening September 15, 2005, internationally acclaimed artist Jessica Stockholder presents a site-specific installation, Rawhide Harangue Of Aching Indices As Told By Light, at Grossman Gallery at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Using color, light, space, and familiar objects as primary materials, this vibrant installation transforms the 1,720-square-foot Grossman Gallery.

Stockholder is known for the innovative ways in which her work breaks boundaries between painting, installation, sculpture, architecture, and design. In both her installations and sculptures, she seems to be painting with three-dimensional objects and, when using a brush, applies paint to both flat and three-dimensional surfaces. Stockholder’s color is resonant, and her objects are found and store-bought, familiar and ordinary. With these materials, Stockholder transforms spaces, filling them with joyful energy and drama and evoking layered metaphors.
 
In her Museum School installation, Stockholder brings together the forms, space, bright colors, and effects of light into relationships that evoke a sense of place and provide an all-encompassing visual experience. Natural and artificial light interacts and fluctuates. Illuminated drop ceilings hang at different heights. Walls vibrate with color and broken planes. Lamps, carpets, and everyday objects serve as raw materials.
 
“This work is tied to the particularities of this space,” said Stockholder. “It’s about the different ­kinds of light in the gallery—window, incandescent, fluorescent—and how light and color influence each other.”
 
Stockholder is a graduate of Yale University where she serves as Director of Graduate Studies in Sculpture. Her mid-career retrospective, Kissing the Wall: Works 1988–2003, recently closed at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, N.C. (organized by Weatherspoon and the Blaffer Gallery in Houston). Her many site-specific installations include the Site Santa Fe, New Mexico (2001–2002), and The Power Plant in Toronto, Canada (1999). She is represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York City.

Rawhide Harangue Of Aching Indices As Told By Light will be on view at Grossman Gallery at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 230 The Fenway, through October 21, 2005. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 AM to 5 PM, and Thursday, 10 AM to 8 PM. The gallery is closed on Sundays and holidays. Admission is free.

Related Events 

To complement the exhibition, Jessica Stockholder will speak about her work in a lecture followed by a reception on Thursday, October 6, at 6 PM. This event is free and open to the public.  Click here for details. 

Rawhide Harangue Of Aching Indices As Told By Light will be open to the public on Columbus Day, October 10, 2005, for Opening Our Doors! 2005, the Fenway Alliance’s festival celebrating culture in the Fenway neighborhood. For more information, visit www.fenwayculture.org.