Untitled Turkey VI (1992) by Meyer Vaisman, part of the "Transformers" exhibition at the Johnson Museum.
An exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photographs and video installations that chal lenge and trick the viewer is on display at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art through March 24.
"Transformers," sponsored by Jan Abrams and organized and circulated by Independent Curators Inc. (ICI), examines the mutating being of fable and myth as it appears in the art of the late 20th century. The exhibition seeks to define an aesthetic in which identity is changeable and dramatic, marked by shifting perspectives and incom patible relationships.
The art is fantasy oriented and laced with carnivalesque humor. It also embodies an empathetic dimension: in the human desire to transform the self, we find ways of ac knowledging kinship rather than denying it.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Adrian Piper, Cindy Sherman, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Glenn Ligon and Komar & Melamid. Works of art include everything from prints and photographs to video installations.
Also exhibited at the Johnson Museum are the following:
·"The City That Never Sleeps: 20th Cen tury Prints from New York City," through March 10. These prints from the museum's permanent collection evoke life in New York
City in the 1930s. From the Brooklyn Bridge to Coney Island, and from actresses in their dressing rooms to workers on their way home, the images are a cross-section of city life. The exhibition includes works by Martin Lewis, Raphael Soyer, John Slaon and Benton Spruance.
·"Renaissance Prints and Drawings: Power and Glory," through March 17. Six teenth century European societies looked back to ancient cultures for models and in spiration and, in the process, invented their own image of antiquity. Organized with the help of Professor Claudia Lazzaro, this exhibition explores Renaissance artists' repre sentations of antiquity as well as their contemporary world. On display are works by Marcantonio Raimondi, Albrecht Dürer and Andrea Mantegna.
·"Barbara Kasten: Buried," through March 10. Kasten, who served as an artist-in-residence last fall, investigates eco logical evidence and how people use it to relate to the past. The artist uses both old and new photographic processes to demonstrate that despite technological progress, we can only know what the earth reveals. Kasten will give a gallery talk Thursday, Feb. 8, at 5 p.m. and will participate in a panel discussion Saturday, Feb. 10, from 1 to 5 p.m.