Wooster Collective | USA Character Blog

Spring Break: Museum Tour

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:30:00 -0500

Taking some time off to celebrate spring break at a beach or other warm weather destination doesn't mean you have to give up the opportunity to experience some of the nation's best art museums. In California, for example, both the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are known for their innovative showcases of emerging new artists who are changing the face of American culture. In Florida, a visit to the Salvador Dali Museum will give you a new perspective on how surrealist master Salvador Dali changed the artistic landscape forever.

Read our Character Approved picks in the slide show below!

[Image: The Dali]

Cindy Sherman at MoMA

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Ever since her rise to prominence in the New York art world nearly 30 years ago, Cindy Sherman has been turning heads with her unique approach to photography. Her willingness to experiment at the boundary of personal identity in order to create new conceptual portraits marks her as one of the most original voices in the American art world. With her latest exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Sherman is unquestionably worthy of the distinction Character Approved.

The current retrospective show at MoMA features more than 170 photographs from Sherman, including some from her most popular photographic series, such as "Untitled Film Stills," and her detailed history portraits, in which she poses as everything from an aristocrat to a milkmaid. Sherman's sheer range of personae can be staggering, showing her ability to capture nuances of class, gender and age.

In a digital world in which we all have access to a flood of images from mass media and the Internet, Sherman was one of the first contemporary artists to willingly appropriate these images to challenge our notions of identity. While the characters she created were of her own invention--owing to her ability to act as her own stylist, makeup artist and wardrobe mistress--they are essentially timeless, blurring the line between celebrity and everywoman. Looking at them, it's impossible not to be impressed.

[Image: MoMA]

Women's History Month: Rosson Crow

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:30:00 -0500

Rosson Crow is one of the brightest up-and-coming talents in the art world, with a bold style that combines European influences with elements from the cowboy culture of Texas where she grew up. Her large-scale history-themed paintings have been described by Norman Klein as "massively architectonic, very immersive ... like a Baroque castle inside a theme park, historical paintings inside a half-baked memory system, inside a desire that has been marketed, but never satisfied." With her highly anticipated show at Honor Fraser in Los Angeles this year, Rosson Crow has earned the label Character Approved.

Crow's BALLYHOO HULLABALOO HABOOB show at Honor Fraser, her second solo exhibition with the gallery, features recent abstract artwork that explores the highs and lows of different gilded eras--including the one that we just lived through. She reminds us of the cyclical nature of American history, which can be disorienting precisely because of the rapidity with which steep lows can follow the highest highs. Experimenting with a new method of painting that combines dyed fabric canvasses and bleach, Crow creates black-and-white imagery that blurs the line between dust and debris, confetti and fireworks.

The exhibition in Los Angeles builds on the momentum that Crow has already generated in the art world. The Wall Street Journal recently named her one of the top 10 emerging artists in the United States. Her solo museum exhibitions include FOCUS: Rosson Crow at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2009) and Myth of the American Motorcycle at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (2010). Her work has also been included in exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

[Image: "April 9th, 1968," 2012 by Rosson Crow via Huffington Post]