The Other Mainstream II:
Selections from the Collection of Mikki and Stanley Weithorn

Fri 26 September 2008 from 7-9pm

Friday Conversations in the Gallery
Friday, Oct. 3, 11 a.m. – Local artist Steve Yazzie

Friday Conversations in the Gallery
Friday, Oct. 24, 11 a.m. – Collector Mikki Weithorn

The Other Mainstream II is the second exhibition at the ASU Art Museum that focuses on the adventurous contemporary art collection of Valley residents Mikki and Stanley Weithorn. True to its name, the exhibition reflects the dominance in the contemporary art world of artists from diverse backgrounds working with new issues of identity - a new “mainstream.” With most of the works in the exhibition created since 9/11, the collection is bold in imagery and in its commentary on global societies. It reaches beyond simply examining the assigned powers in politics, gender, and race, and moves to a broader examination of our humanity through humor or fantasy or blunt honesty.

The Weithorns focus their collecting on the narrative form of figurative paintings, drawings, and sculpture. The artists are regional and international, well-known and emerging. Included in the exhibition are: Emma Amos, Gordon Cheung, Marcel Dzama, Clinton Fein, Chitra Ganesh, Marcia Kure, Chris Ofili, Masami Teraoka, Mickalene Thomas, and Amy Wilson. The artist collaborative and husband and wife team, Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry, will create a site-specific installation in the exhibition. The bi-racial couple confront continuing concerns of racism in America drawing on photography from the early twentieth century of lynchings and the Civil Rights Movement. Their video installation, Exchange, poetically and powerfully refers to the “One Drop Rule” in which a person with one drop of black blood in their heritage was considered “colored.”

Local artists Steve Yazzie and Roy Wasson Valle are also included in the exhibition. Yazzie’s work, Born Again #3, comments on the idea of rebirth and renewal through the transforming of a broken-down guitar into a work of art. Wasson’s Cleaning Up is a powerful yet humorous sculpture related to Global Warming, with a polar bear (the first animal on the endangered list as a result of Global Warming) operating a leaf blower. Wasson is also well known in the Valley for his t-shirts and figurines, which will be featured in a special trunk show at the exhibition opening on Friday, September 26, 7-9 p.m.

Mikki and Stanley Weithorn live surrounded by their collection in their homes in Scottsdale and New York.

Exhibition Artists:
Artists featured in The Other Mainstream II include: Emma Amos, Sanford Biggers, Iona Rozeal Brown, Gordon Cheung, Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Edward del Rosario, Tjorg Douglas Beer, Tom Duncan, Nekisha Durrett, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Marcel Dzama, Clinton Fein, Luiz Flavio, Chitra Ganesh, Amiee Garcia, Deborah Grant, Elizabeth Huey, John Jodzio, Ai Kijima, Min Kim, Machida Kumi, Marcia Kure, Carter Kustera, Maximillian Lawrence, Dinh Q Lê, Monika JM Lin, Whitfield Lovell, Paul Marcus, Bradley McCallum, Dominic McGill, Vik Muniz, Brett Murray, Chris Ofili, Lamar Peterson, Moritz Schleime, Claudette Schreuders, Rachell Sumpter, Jacqueline Tarry, Masami Teraoka, Mickalene Thomas, Jamie Vasta, Tran Trong Vu, Roy Wasson Valle, Caleb Weintraub, Amy Wilson, Amy Wilson, Su-en Wong, Zhang Xiaogang, Steve Yazzie.

Support
Generous support for the exhibition catalogue and artist programs from Mikki and Stanley Weithorn. Additional support provided by the Friends of the ASU Art Museum.

ASU Art Museum Presentation
Originated by the ASU Art Museum and curated by Heather S. Lineberry, senior curator and interim director, and Marilyn A. Zeitlin, with assistance from Lekha Hileman Waitoller, MA student in the ASU School of Art. Catalog available in the Museum Store, The Other Mainstream II will be installed in the Arizona State University Art Museum’s Nelson Fine Arts Center location.

Catalogue
A catalogue for the exhibition will be available at the ASU Art Museum Store or by calling 480.965.2787.

Duration
The Other Mainstream II (September 27, 2008 - January 4, 2009) is open at the ASU Art Museum: Tuesday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. (summer hours: Tuesday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.); Wednesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m.; Closed Monday and holidays