vanessa german:

FEBRUARY 11–JUNE 25, 2023

This large-scale, immersive installation of mixed-media artworks from 2016-2022 will be the artist’s first solo museum show in the New York City area. She is a self-taught sculptor, painter, poet, and performance artist who refers to herself as a citizen artist and is interested in art as a form of healing, protection, and activism, especially for African Americans. Her mostly female power figures explore themes of strength, love, and justice, while engaging with the complicated history of race in the United States.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue—the only publication on the artist currently in print.

Sponsored by EXHIBITIONS

MARCH 18–SEPTEMBER 17, 2023

Renowned Canadian artist Meryl McMaster crosses timescales with her dreamlike photographic self-portraiture. Working in Quebec and drawing from her nêhiyaw (Plains Cree), British, and Dutch ancestry, she constructs inventive sculptural garments and props to use in her large-format images. She then travels to site-specific landscapes important to family and cross-cultural history, wearing her ensembles to create cinematic scenes grounded in place, lineage, and the

Featuring prior and new photographs as well as a video, this exhibition explores McMaster’s disruption of time, blending moments, lifetimes, generations, and geological eras. The new works are from her 2022 series “Stories of my Grandmothers | nôhkominak âcimowina”— their first showing in the United States.

Visionary Landscapes

Opened in September 2022, this recent period/ salon-style reinstallation features 19 works by George Inness (1825-1894). Universally acclaimed as a grand, lyrical master of late nineteenth-century painting, Inness was regarded by his contemporaries as America’s foremost landscape artist. Featuring a major recent acquisition from Inness’s Italian period, (1875), this installation is primarily based on works selected from the Museum’s comprehensive collection of 21 paintings, two watercolors, and one print. Every important period of Inness’s career is represented, from his earliest, more realist work of the 1840s, rooted in European landscape conventions, to the artist’s final, more abstract expressions of his belief in the total unity of material and spiritual existence—many of which were created in Montclair, where the artist was resided from 1885 to 1894 and was inspired by

WOOLPUNK®: Sunflowers & Graffiti’d Sky in the Garden State

THROUGH AUGUST 6, 2023

The site-specific, monumental Sunflowers & Graffiti’d Sky in the Garden State is based on a photograph of a community garden in the artist’s hometown of Jersey City, NJ. For this project, Woolpunk® partnered with the MAM community on a textile donation drive. The response was overwhelming and the donated materials were layered, re-stitched, and manipulated into the Sunflowers banner. This call to action brings attention to landfill waste, problems related to fast fashion, and our need, as a community, to work together to make better environmental choices.

Transformed: Objects Reimagined by American Artists

Artworks In Rotation Through Fall 2023

Inspired by a note Jasper Johns wrote to himself in his sketchbook in 1964, this exhibition features more than 60 artworks from 1829 to the present in which artists like Louise Nevelson and Jaune Quickto-See-Smith take objects as their points of departure, transforming them to reflect their varied cultural backgrounds and viewpoints. Over time, this show itself is transformed with rotations of work that reflect upon various object-related themes and approaches, including still-life, urban and industrial motifs, assemblage, construction, collage, and artists’ use of dolls and mannequins.

Classes and Camps: Kids and Teens

The Yard School of Art offers kids and teens an array of opportunities to enhance their creativity and develop artistic skills in a supportive and inclusive environment. Our small class size allows our superb team of teaching artists to provide individualized attention and specialized instruction in our spacious Fine Art, Digital Media, and Ceramics Studios. Students experiment with a range of media and learn new techniques for visual self-expression. Our Spring Break Camp, April 3–7, is a mixed-media mash-up extravaganza where kids explore a variety of materials, make friends, and have fun being creative while school is out. Spring registration begins March 6, and classes start April 10.

Stay tuned for information about our awardwinning SummerART Camp!

For more details visit montclairartmuseum.org/learn-create.

Classes and Workshops: Adults

Yard School studio art classes and workshops offer adults of all ages and abilities an opportunity to build artistic skills and explore creative ideas. Course offerings range from technical instruction in traditional media to classes encouraging exploration and experimental techniques. Our small class sizes ensure individual direction from our teaching artists in a community of people who are as enthusiastic about learning and creating as you are. We also offer one-on-one private studio art instruction tailored to individual interests, schedules, and needs of the student. Class offerings this season include Life Drawing, Beginning Printmaking, Introduction to Painting, plus workshops that let you sample a variety of art mediums and techniques. Spring classes begin the week of April 10 and meet for eight weeks.

MAM is an approved Goods and Services provider through the New Jersey Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD).

For more details visit montclairartmuseum.org/learn-create.

Fridays at MAM

FRIDAYS in SPRING

The Museum is the place to be on Fridays! Our new program, Fridays at MAM, includes a self-guided Scavenger Hunt in the galleries and Remote Workspace with free wifi in the Media Lab from 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sketching in the Galleries from 2–6 p.m., and refreshing beverages, hot coffee, and tasty treats from the new Cornerstone Café at MAM from 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Museum admission required; free for MAM Members. Plus, MAM Members get 10% off their café purchases!

For more info, please visit montclairartmuseum.org/fridays-mam.