Anderson Gallery Hosts Summer Exhibitions

Two exhibitions that explore myriad aspects of identity are on view this summer at the VCU School of the Arts Anderson Gallery.

“Social Skin,” an exhibition organized by graduate students in the museum studies program in VCU’s Department of Art History, and “Photographs” by Lalla Essaydi: L’Ecriture Feminine/Le Corps Feminin, which features recent work from Essaydi, a Moroccan-born, New York-based artist, are on view from May 28 to Aug. 1 in the Anderson Gallery, 907 W. Franklin St. on VCU’s campus. The gallery’s summer hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

“Social Skin” is a wide-ranging exhibition that shows a range of cultures, settings and subjects. The pieces demonstrate interpretations of how the social self uses the physical body to build individuality. The exhibition’s artworks, which are on loan from private and public collections, includes work from contemporary artists such as Kara Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, Gillian Wearing, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Raymond Pettibon and Wendy Ewald, as well as pieces from VCU faculty members Sonya Clark, Susie Ganch, Sonali Gulati and Elizabeth King. In addition, the exhibition features objects from the Anderson Gallery’s permanent collection, VCU Special Collections, the Valentine Richmond History Center, the Wilton House and James Madison University.

“Social Skin” is the third in a biennial series of exhibitions organized by students in the museum studies graduate program. Through collaborative projects and internships, as well as classroom learning, the program prepares students for the museum profession with a foundation of critical awareness and practical knowledge.

Essaydi has received international acclaim for her large-scale photographs of tableaux enacted by Moroccan women. The images are inscribed with Arabic calligraphy with henna, a bodily embellishment worn and applied only by women to mark life’s most important transitions.

For many of the images in Essaydi’s “Les Femmes de Maroc” series, Essaydi restaged compositions of well-known 19^th century Orientalist paintings by European artists, highlighting the exoticizing effects of a Eurocentric perspective.

“Essaydi probes a complex reality from the vantage point of personal experience, putting her own subversive spin on certain cultural and artistic traditions that have long controlled the status and perception of Arab women in both the West and the Islamic world,” said Ashley Kistler, director of the Anderson Gallery.

The Essaydi exhibition was jointly organized with the Longyear Museum of Anthropology at Colgate University.