The Hope College Kruizenga Art Museum will open its 10th anniversary year with two new art exhibitions beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 14: “Saints and Syncretism in Global Christian Art,” and “Salvador Dali: Memories of Surrealism.”
The public is invited. Admission is free.
“Saints and Syncretism in Global Christian Art” explores how, as Christianity spread around the world, the qualities and attributes of saints were sometimes adapted to local religious practices and customs as one way of making Christianity more accessible to new audiences. The exhibition includes 52 artworks ranging in date from the 15th to the 21st century and covering a wide variety of media, from paintings and prints to sculptures and textiles. The saints represented in the exhibition also span a broad range, from Saint Stephen — an early follower of Jesus and Christianity’s first martyr, who died in the 1st century — to Carlo Acutis — an Italian teen internet prodigy who died in 2006 and is scheduled to become the Catholic Church’s first millennial-generation saint in April.
Stories of Hope: Student Research Shapes Kruizenga Art Museum's Anniversary Exhibition
The saints exhibition was curated by Hope College students working under the supervision of Dr. Anne Heath, who is the Howard R. and Margaret E. Sluyter Professor of Art History and department chair.
“The museum’s primary mission is to support the teaching curriculum of Hope College,” explained museum director Charles Mason. “That includes involving students in every aspect of our exhibitions, from background research to installation design to actually choosing the artworks and writing the interpretive labels. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the start of our 10th anniversary year than with an exhibition that was entirely conceived, planned and implemented by students. This is exactly what a teaching museum should do.”
“Saints and Syncretism in Global Christian Art” will run through Saturday, May 17. An opening reception with remarks by the student curators will be held on Friday, Jan. 17, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Check the museum’s website at hope.edu/kam for additional exhibition and program details.
Salvador Dali was a leading figure in the Surrealist art movement from the 1920s to the 1970s. “Salvador Dali: Memories of Surrealism” is a focus exhibition featuring 12 lithographic prints created by Dali in 1971 as a reflection on his long artistic career. French art critic Pierre Restany interviewed Dali about the prints and used the artist’s words to create an accompanying text for each image. Those accompanying texts are reproduced in the labels of this exhibition to convey the full Surrealistic effect of Dali’s art.
The prints on display in “Memories of Surrealism” were donated to Hope by Orville C. Beattie, who was a 1939 graduate of the college. The focus exhibition will also run through Saturday, May 17.
The Kruizenga Art Museum, which opened in September 2015, functions as an educational resource for Hope College and the greater West Michigan community. The museum features two public galleries as well as a classroom and climate-controlled storage space for its 10,000-object permanent collection. It is named in honor of a leadership gift from Dr. Richard and Mrs. Margaret Kruizenga, both of whom were 1952 Hope graduates.
The Kruizenga Art Museum is located at 271 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets. Public visiting hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to the museum is always free.
To inquire about accessibility or if you need accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Updates related to events are posted when available at hope.edu/calendar in the individual listings.
*Insert Photo:
Title: Saint George Slaying the Dragon
Artist: Qes Adamu Tesfaw (Ethiopian, b. 1930)
Date: 1997
Medium: Paint on cloth
Credit line: Hope College Collection, Gift of Neal and Elizabeth Sobania, 2018.25.4