In the last month, Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design opened solo exhibitions by three artist-educators, including Ringling’s own Fine Arts and Visual Studies Department Head Joe Fig.
Fig’s exhibition, Contemplating Vermeer, opened on November 17 and depicts scenes from the 2023 Rijksmuseum exhibition of Johannes Vermeer paintings in Amsterdam. Fig’s small paintings feature museum-goers taking a close look at the famous paintings—intimate scenes portrayed on an intimate scale. Fig’s paintings range from seven to 14 inches in height, mirroring the scale of the paintings he depicts—Vermeer’s paintings ranged from seven to 20 inches on average.
The works expand on his decade-long Contemplation series, in which he captures his subjects: a focus that shifts from the artworks themselves, their viewers, and the gallery or museum space that hosts the whole scene. The works explore how people engage with or contemplate artworks in public spaces.
The works in Contemplating Vermeer bring the viewer’s attention to the social and cultural world around art. They simultaneously highlight the unfixed nature of works as they continue to create relationships throughout their existence and make the viewer distinctly aware of the jarring differences between the eras in which Vermeer and Fig are painting. In Vermeer: Girl with a Red Hat and Girl with a Flute / Rijksmuseum, a woman with black sunglasses on top of her head that look much like Wayfarers—an iconic symbol of contemporary culture—is a dramatic contrast to Vermeer’s Girl with a Red Hat, c. 1669. The large brim of the hat is thick with the fluff of feathers and screams “historic artifact”.
The works are as much art objects as they are learning opportunities and opportunities for self-reflection. They encourage close looking by making the viewer self-aware of their behavior as museum-goers and invoking curiosity as we watch others perform it.
Contemplating Vermeer has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, WUSF npr, and was interviewed for the Visit Sarasota podcast.
Also on view are Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations and Claire Ashley: Chromatic Blush.
Both Nguyen and Ashley are teaching artists. Ashley teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of Art at Wesleyan University.
Nguyen’s exhibit offers lessons in history and mythology, nation-making, and national identity. as she layers historical documents with haikus, symbols, mythologies, and maritime law, to name just a few of the narratives that are cosmically aligned in the show. In Revolutions of the Same and the Other Nguyen combines 46 “flags of convenience” into 23 woven tapestries, inventing new dual national relationships and accompanying anthems that combine the anthems for each of those nations. The lesson in geopolitics is imbued with humor and wit, and even a little sarcasm.
Ashley, too, uses humor in her lessons on deconstructing the field of painting, by literally inflating the canvas. Her comically large sculptural paintings overfill the large galleries they inhabit. The slumpy, lumpy inflatables look like rogue parade floats that have gone on to live exciting lives and maybe even joined a very aesthetic cult. Humor, empathy, and play become the foundations for an embodied visitor experience for these works—the term viewing experience seems to miss the mark.
Ringling College students, faculty, and staff receive free admission to Sarasota Art Museum. Joe Fig: Contemplating Vermeer is on view until April 13, 2025. Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations and Claire Ashley: Chromatic Blush are on view until January 19, 2025.
