CONWAY, Ark. (November
19, 2020) — The Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College is pleased to
announce the opening of its online
exhibition, titled art@hendrix! on Monday, Nov. 23, 2020.
art@hendrix! celebrates the artistic life of Hendrix College
prior to the WMA’s opening. The exhibition includes 94 pieces of artwork
created or collected by alumni and former and current faculty and staff, as
well as significant works from the Hendrix permanent collection and artworks
courtesy of the Historic Arkansas Museum. Originally planned as the WMA’s
inaugural exhibition, art@hendrix! shifted to an online-only format due
to the COVID-19 pandemic and is viewable at the Museum’s website: www.windgatemuseum.org. In addition to the fully illustrated
exhibition, the online experience includes narrative labels for each object,
three short films, two contextual essays, and historic text panels by the decade.
“The arts have been
integral at Hendrix throughout its entire history, enriching the lives of
students, faculty, and staff for decades,” said Mary Kennedy, director/curator
of the Windgate Museum of Art. “This exhibition demonstrates the diversity of
expression and serious commitment to the visual arts at Hendrix College.
Appropriately, the launch of the Windgate Museum of Art is rooted in this
history and we are honored to tell this story through the online exhibition,
catalogue, and multiple programs we have planned.”
Virtual
programming will accompany the exhibition beginning with a curatorial talk on
Monday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. by Rebecca Jolley, WMA museum associate in Curatorial
Research. Jolley, a senior at Hendrix, worked closely with Kennedy to research
and develop the content for the exhibition, which she describes as “a love
letter to Hendrix’s history with visual arts.”
“We have created a
show that really highlights the diversity of artistic expression that comes out
of Hendrix,” Jolley says.
Recent Hendrix
graduate Katie Bell, whose oil painting titled Studio Coffee is part of
the exhibition, will demonstrate printmaking using materials common to a
household kitchen in a virtual program on Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. Bell, an
Iowa native, graduated in May with a B.A. in Studio Art. She now lives in
Montana and works at Glacier National Park.
The curatorial
talk and the artist demo are free, open to all, and can be accessed by advance
email to windgatemuseum@hendrix.edu for a link to connect to the livestream. Questions
from the audience will be invited during both programs.
Additional
programs for art@hendrix! will be available through May 2021, including
lectures, podcasts, films, and panel discussions. For more information about the
art@hendrix! exhibition and associated programming, follow @windgatemuseum on Instagram and @WMAatHDX on Facebook, or contact
Amanda Cheatham at 501-328-2383 or cheatham@hendrix.edu.
About the Windgate Museum of Art
The Windgate Museum of Art is the new art museum located on the campus of Hendrix College. With a
vision to be the premier teaching art museum in Arkansas, the WMA presents
outstanding art exhibitions, compelling educational programs, and invigorating
social activities for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to campus. Free
and open to all, the museum uses hands-on experiences to train students in all
facets of museum work, including curatorial research, collection management,
educational and social programming, marketing and communications, as well as
all aspects of exhibition research, planning, installation, and evaluation. The
Windgate Museum of Art is made possible with the generous support of the
Windgate Foundation and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
[IMAGE: Pierre by Harry “Louis” Freund; courtesy
of the Historic Arkansas Museum collection.]