Pavel Acosta: Stolen from the Museum

April 6 - August 10, 2019

Boyle and South One Galleries

 

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Cuban-born, America-based artist Pavel Acosta uses uncommon resources as collage material, primarily paint chips collected from flaking old walls like those found in the country of his youth, to create stunning reproductions of other artworks, such as Peregrine Falcons by John James Audubon and Coquelicots (Poppies), by Claude Monet. Acosta’s renditions, although nearly monochromatic white on brown-papered sheetrock, capture the mastery of those previous works, while also displaying his own technical sophistication. They read as faded memories of history, cherished by an aspiring artist in his youth.

Picasso famously quipped, “Good artists borrow, but great artists steal.” Acosta replies proudly that with his work, “I am the thief.”

Related Programs:

• Visiting Artist, April 9-12, 2019
• Lunchtime Conversations with Curators, Wednesday, April 10, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m.
• Shepard Symposium on Social Justice, panel, The Stolen Paintings: A Conversation on Ethics and Art in the Americas, Thursday, April 11, 10:30-11:30 a.m., Senate Chambers, Wyoming Union
• Making Art with Construction Materials: A Collage Workshop, Thursday, April 11, 6-8 p.m., Museum Classroom & Studio - $10 per person, ages 13 and up, Register HERE

 

Funded in part by the Erma Hill UWAM Endowment and the Wyoming Arts Council through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature.

Images:

Peregrine Falcons by John James Audubon (1820 – ca.1823), From the series: Stolen from The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016, collage of dry paint on sheetrock, 29 ½ x 39 11/16 inches, courtesy of Bernice Steinbaum and the artist

Coquelicots (Poppies), by Claude Monet, From the series: Stolen from the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2018, collage of dry paint on sheetrock, 54 x 48 inches, courtesy of Dr. Sander Dubovy and Sarah Steinbaum