The Academy Art Museum in Easton is re-opening its newly renovated space on August 1 with two new exhibitions, New Photography II and Antonio McAfee: Legacy.
“We are thrilled to share our newly renovated building with the public with these two new contemporary exhibitions. The new Mary Lou McAllister Courtyard entrance offers a welcoming, beautifully landscaped public space facing the “cultural corridor” of S. Harrison Street,” states Ben Simons, Museum Director.
“The modern glass A. James and Alice B. Clark Entrance beckons visitors into the Saul Atrium Gallery and other galleries. We welcome the public to visit the Museum in person as it leaps into the twenty-first century while honoring the legacy of the Academy’s historic buildings and traditions.”
The Museum will have new procedures and precautions in place to address the health concerns of COVID-19. The Museum’s new hours for fall 2020 will be Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, 12 to 4 p.m. The Museum will be closed on Mondays for professional cleaning and will be cleaned daily during the week. Hand-sanitizer stations will be provided at the Front Desk and other targeted areas. Visitors will be required to wear masks while in the Museum. The Museum will have masks for visitors who do not have their own, although people are encouraged to bring their own masks. There will be stanchions and signage to direct visitor flow, including one-way entrances to the Healy and Lederer Galleries, with social distancing signage in place, and a stanchion for the Front Desk to require social distancing of visitors waiting to enter. Staggered entrances might be necessary for larger numbers of visitors.
New Photography II, a biennial juried competition, includes photographic artists at all stages of their career and will be open through October 7, 2020. The exhibition aims to highlight the current state of photography across a broad spectrum, showcasing new and exciting work by both emerging and established artists. This year’s selection includes many exciting works by 66 artists from all over the United States that explore our modern world through different disciplines within the medium.
Philip Brookman, Consulting Curator of the Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC will jury the exhibition. Brookman will visit the Academy Art Museum in September to view the exhibition, particularly the prints, in order to determine this year’s award recipients. In addition, the Museum is offering the publication of “New Photography I,” a catalogue of the first edition of the juried exhibition held in 2018. The catalogue is available at the Museum Shop and online for $10.00.
Antonio McAfee is one of the most unique emerging voices in photography today. The Baltimore-based photographer and professor’s first solo U.S. museum exhibition, Legacy, features found portraits of middle-class African-American historical figures, which McAfee uses to explore the reconstruction of identity and the significance of visual perception. His installations deliver ethereal and dynamic experiences of his historical subjects and transform their legacy.
Antonio McAfee will be the Academy Art Museum’s third Artist-in-Residence through August 20, 2020. He will be working on a series of photo-transfers (digital prints transferred to semi-transparent acrylic medium) of portraits of women of the 1881 Atlanta Washerwomen Strike. Starting with a couple of hundred and growing to a few thousand, laundresses went on strike throughout the city against companies and individual employers, demanding higher wages and safer working conditions. Due to their success and strength of organizing they influenced the formation of unions and strikes from other industries. This is ongoing research that has inspired McAfee in a recent body of work.
For further information on upcoming programming related to these exhibitions, visit academyartmuseum.org or call the Museum at 410-822-2787.
#1 Caption: Adrian Martinez Chavez, Untitled – (Las Huertas), 2019, Chromogenic Print.
#2 Caption: Antonio McAfee, Oval #6, 2017, digital C-print, 24 in. x 36 in.
