Clark Humanities Museum Archives | Page 2 of 5

January 13, 2015

Prison Nation: Posters on the Prison Industrial Complex

“Prison Nation” includes posters addressing the critical issues discussed above in keeping with SPG’s goal to demonstrate to the general public and to the art world the importance of the political poster and the importance of art to social commentary. The exhibition illustrates the graphic history of past and current prison movements, their causes, challenges and hopes. The dynamic designs cover many of the critical issues surrounding the system of mass incarceration—with a focus on California—including: racial disparity in sentencing, the War on Drugs, immigration, the death penalty, the Three Strikes law, violence against women, access to education and health care, youth incarceration, prison labor, divestment, privatization, torture, and re-entry into the community.

Vertigo at Midnight: New Visual Afrofuturisms and Speculative Migrations

Housed at both the Clark Humanities Museum, Scripps College and the Chan Gallery, Studio Art Hall, Pomona College

The Artist Book as An Agent of Social Change

The College Book Art Association is holding its Annual Meeting at Scripps College on January 9-10, 2015. Denison Library includes in its collection many artist books produced by members of the College Book Art Association. Therefore the students in the Core III course, “The Artist Book as an Agent of Social Change,” will have the opportunity to act as jurors for the member’s Exhibit.

August 22, 2014

Prison Obscura

Prison Obscura presents rarely seen vernacular, surveillance, evidentiary, and prisoner-made photographs, shedding light on the prison industrial complex. It builds the case that Americans must face these images to grasp the proliferation of the U.S. prison system and to connect with those it confines. It encourages visitors to ask why tax-paying, prison-funding citizens rarely get the chance to see such images and to consider what roles such pictures play for those within the system.

February 20, 2014

Fabulous Flowers: Rare Books and Botanical Illustrations, 1491-1891

Organized by students in the Core II seminar “The Nature of Nature : Enlightenment Ideas about the Landscape,” the exhibition features illustrated books about botany, farming and herbal medicine. More than 30 volumes were selected by the students from the Rancho Santa Ana Special Collections Library and the Honnold Mudd Library Special Collections. The oldest volumes are herbals from 1491, showing how medicinal plants could be grown and used. Several herbals from the 16th and 17th centuries show how the knowledge of plants was transmitted and increased, due to global trade. Many 18th century volumes depict exotic plants newly introduced to Europe from Asia, Africa and the Americas. Two volumes document the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Pacific. Three volumes are by the famous botanic illustrator Pierre Joseph Redoute and feature lilies.

The Privileged and the Penniless: Marion Post Wolcott Photographs the Great Depression

Using prints on loan from Sharen Blasgen ’64 and her husband Michael Blasgen as well as photographs from the Scripps permanent collection, the exhibit will inform visitors about photography and the Depression, but most importantly, it will highlight the achievements of an important woman photographer from American history.

The Artist Book as an Agent of Social Change

Denison Library holds a remarkable collection of medieval manuscripts and incunables, finely printed books, and artist books. In this exhibition, artist books from this collection which function as an agent of social change will be highlighted. The selections will be made by the members of the Core III course, “The Artist Book as an Agent of Social Change.” The collection contains contemporary artist books which might advocate a change in policy, comment on an existing situation, critique social positions, or highlight injustices. Such books often express a personal point of view, or might present impersonal information which is meant to be subversive or illuminating. The fact that they are artist books means that they use the aesthetics of the book form to emphasize their point, utilizing not only text and visuals but layout, format and binding to communicate their position. This exhibition will reinforce the fact that there is a wide range of perspectives on any issue.

Modernizing the Meiji

Students in ARHI 186C will select objects from the Scripps College collections that demonstrate how Western art was adopted and adapted during the Meiji Period (1868-1912). Students will curate the exhibition and write labels for prints, paintings, ceramics, cloisonne, sculpture and textiles.

Silk Splendor: Chinese Textiles & Garments

Students in ARHI 152 will select Chinese textiles and other artworks with similar designs from the Scripps College collections to survey the extraordinary visual culture of late imperial China. Students will curate the exhibition and write labels for prints, paintings, ceramics, cloisonnÃ©, furniture and textiles of the Ming – Qing Dynasties (15th-20th centuries).

Chinese Paintings & Japanese Woodblock Prints

The Scripps College collections include over 300 Chinese paintings and prints and over 2000 Japanese woodblock prints, available for students to view and to consider for research projects.