The Arizona State University Art Museum presents It’s Not Just Black And White by Gregory Sale – Social Studies Project 6, February 1 – May 14, 2011. The Season Opening Reception will be held Friday, February 18th from 7-9pm. Social Studies Project 6 will be installed in the Turk Gallery of the ASU Art Museum’s Nelson Fine Arts Center location.

With a population of roughly 6.5 million, (Arizona has) over 40,000 inmates. The state of Washington, with a population slightly larger than Arizona, has roughly 18,000. — The Arizona Republic, January 28, 2011

A recent Pew Center report indicates that in 2008, one in 33 adults in Arizona was under correctional control, which includes jail, prison, parole and probation. Twenty-five years ago, this number was one in 79. What has changed so much is not human nature, but the offenses for which we incarcerate and the imposition of mandatory sentences. — Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa (Ariz.) quoted in the Arizona Capitol Times, December 11, 2009

It’s not just black and white is a three-month-long residency exhibition with Gregory Sale, a Phoenix-based artist who will work through artistic gestures to initiate and host dialogue, aspiring to give voice to the multiple constituencies of the corrections, incarceration and criminal justice systems. The ASU Art Museum gallery space will operate as a site for developing and displaying visual and mediated exhibitions, dance and other staged events, discussions and readings.

As the title It’s not just black and white implies, the intent of the project is to expose and examine the many often conflicting viewpoints, perspectives and values that are generated from serious considerations of justice and public safety. The project will provide the opportunity for the public to explore the impact of modern criminal justice through fact-based tours, dialogues and programs – offering more first-hand experience of the many strands that make up this complicated narrative.

ASU Art Museum Social Studies Initiative

The Museum’s Social Studies initiative is a series of residency exhibitions, begun in 2007, that explore this dialogue-based, process-oriented context by literally bringing the studio into the museum, and by engaging the public directly in the creative process of exhibition-making in the space where “the art object” is usually found.

The ASU Art Museum continues to transform museum traditions by returning to the original sociological function of the institution – to encourage the circulation of ideas embedded in the archive, to provide a safe place for curiosity and to create an exchange point for the flow of conversation between and among artists, curators, collectors, students, social and governmental institutions, and the public.

It’s not just black and white is supported by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Friends of the ASU Art Museum.

Other events:

Collecting Contemporary Art: The FUNd at ASU Art Museum
Curator: Heather Lineberry
Dec 18, 2010 – May 14, 2011
Location: ASU Art Museum
Cost: Free

Collecting Contemporary Art features a selection of works acquired in part or in whole by the FUNd at ASU Art Museum, an endowment established by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. From monumental found-object installations to print portfolios of etchings and lithographs, the international pieces share a current of experimentation and an exploration of social and political concerns. The exhibition charts the Museum’s collecting goals and exhibition history over the past 15 years, with significant representation of Latin American and Latino artists, artists from Arizona and artists in residence at the Museum. Artists represented include Kim Abeles (Los Angeles), John Ahearn (New York), Abel Barroso (Cuba), Sandow Birk (Los Angeles), Xu Bing (China), Deborah Butterfield (Montana/Hawaii), Enrique Chagoya (born in Mexico, active in the U.S.), Colin Chillag (Phoenix), Sue Coe (born in England, active in the U.S.), Jon Haddock (Tempe), Kcho (Cuba), Los Carpinteros (Cuba), Aimee Garcia Marrero (Cuba), Paulo Nenflidio (Brazil), Adriana Varejao (Brazil) and Kurt Weiser (Tempe).

Citadel: An Installation by Patricia Sannit
Curator: Peter Held
Feb 5, 2011 – Apr 9, 2011
Location: Ceramics Research Center
Cost: Free
Opening Reception: Feb. 18, 2011, 7-9 p.m.

Patricia Sannit, a Phoenix-based artist whose vessels are influenced by cultures worldwide, is literally breaking new ground for her installation Citadel — with the assistance of scores of community volunteers. Citadel is a 10-foot diameter structure inspired by an Iraqi archeological site called the Citadel at Erbil, in the Kurdish region. Sannit’s new direction explores the layering of time and history through the medium of clay.

Re-Thinking the Faculty Exhibition 2011
Feb 19, 2011 – Apr 30, 2011
Location: ASU Art Museum
Cost: free
Opening Reception: Feb. 18, 2011, 7-9 p.m.

This year, the faculty show takes a new direction. It represents the beginning of an exciting set of possible partnerships, exchanges and experiments between the School of Art and the ASU Art Museum. It’s also the first instance of the museum’s rethinking and revitalizing the way we do things, as part of our Re-Thinking the Museum initiative.

Art historian and writer Robert Atkins was selected to open Re-Thinking the Museum as juror/curator of the ASU School of Art Faculty Biennial Exhibition. During the month of November, Atkins reviewed submissions, visited artists’ studios and discussed opportunities for site-specific installations as he selected work for the 2011 exhibition.

Arizona State University Art Museum
Mill Avenue at 10th Street
Tempe, AZ 85287-2911
Telephone 480-965-2787