New exhibition brings major contemporary artworks, prominent speakers to Binghamton University Art Museum

The Binghamton University Art Museum will host two evening lectures in conjunction with a new exhibition, Some Bodies: Gober, Ligon, Prince, in the Main Gallery, in the Fine Arts Building on campus. All events are free and open to the public.

A reading by Nathaniel Mackey, Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing in the English Department at Duke University, will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 25; and “White House/White Cube,” by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, associate professor in the History of Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania, will be held at 5 p.m. Monday, April 29.

Three significant artworks by contemporary American artists are on view this spring at the Binghamton University Art Museum. Drawn from the collection of Art Bridges, a foundation dedicated to sharing outstanding works of American art with audiences across the country, they engage viewers both viscerally and intellectually in questioning how social and personal forces shape us. Some Bodies: Gober, Ligon, Prince opened at the museum Feb. 7, and runs through May 18.

“We’re thrilled to offer visitors the opportunity to see contemporary works of art of such significance,” said Diane Butler, museum director.

The exhibition consists of Untitled (1993-94), an outsize stick of butter by Robert Gober (b. 1954); Untitled (I Am Somebody) (1991), a painting of the words of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson by Glenn Ligon (b. 1960); and Nurse Elsa (2002), a reworked pulp fiction cover by Richard Prince (b. 1949).

“In each of the works on view, the artist takes up and transforms a preexisting structure — whether object, text or image — in order to reflect on aspects of contemporary American identity,” said Tom McDonough, associate professor of art history and organizer of the exhibition. “Class, race, gender and sexuality are all put into play in these works.”

Visitors to Some Bodies may learn more about the works on view and the artists who created them with a digital interactive accessible via iPads in the gallery, or via tours led by graduate docents from Binghamton’s Art History and Comparative Literature departments.

For more information, contact, Diane Butler, director of the Binghamton University Art Museum, at 607-777-3252 or dbutler@binghamton.edu.