Anne Labovitz: Solo Exhibit at Rochester Art Center & Walker Art Center Acquisition
The Nexus of Well-Being and Art
Anne Labovitz
February 18 – July 30, 2023
Opening Reception | February 18, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Gallery Tour with the Artist | March 4 , April 8, May 6 and July 15 at 1:00 PM
The Nexus of Well-Being and Art, is a new body of work by noted international and Minnesota-based artist Anne Labovitz. The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, installation, and public participatory works created specifically for the Rochester Art Center. These artworks are an examination and experimentation with light and color, and are underpinned by the concept of art connecting to well-being. Each work reflects extensive research and interviews with health professionals and is manifested through the materiality, intense mark-making, abstracted text, and precise and intuitive color selection.
The interconnection of health and art provides space for creativity and the opportunity for us to consider ideas of wellness and emotive responses. The artist assembled the exhibition to be an active place for creativity, contemplation and conversation. Light, words, voices and text become mediums in the work. Key words gleaned from the research and interviews include: Hope, Love, Rest, Resilience, Wellness, Connection, Community, Purpose, Peace, and Calm.
The exhibition encompasses nearly 30 new artworks, including six 6 x 6 ft. paintings that incorporate words from interviews and research in health and well-being, three large 6 x 6 ft. light sculptures entitled LightWindows, an immersive 15 x 15 x 3 ft Tyvek® sculpture that hangs from the ceiling, and 16 small Tyvek® paintings between heavy panels of acrylic. In what has become a signature element of many of Labovitz’s exhibitions, you will be offered an opportunity to participate and contribute to the content of the exhibit. The participatory Well-Being Wall invites visitors to create their own artwork and exhibit it on the large grid wall.
Artist Statement
This exhibition is an exploration into interconnection between art and health and how one can impact the other. Questions that I considered are: What are the connections between creativity, self expression and health? Can color, light and atmosphere provide a pathway towards well-being? Or even a fleeting moment of happiness, a spark of joy or a journey towards purpose?
The Nexus of Well Being and Art is an examination and experimentation with light and color, and the conceptual underpinning of art connecting to well-being. The work in this show reflects extensive reading and interviews with health professionals. Light, words, voices and text become mediums in the work.
Listening to the interviews provides a rich and varied source of reflection by professionals in the health field. They pose questions and offer avenues toward possible wellness. Each interviewee reflects a specialty of work and offers diverse perspectives into health while there are common threads interwoven.
Research plays an important part of my artistic practice. This work is based on years of investigating color and light, and the impact they have on viewers. Previous bodies of work, such as my early portraits of humans, 122 Conversations: Person to Person, Art Beyond Borders and the I Love You Institute, embody this approach — a practice that is rooted in an enduring interest in the human condition, creating community, seeing one another and participatory experiences for visitors.
As an artist, I am concerned with providing a platform for curiosity, exploration, and making around the theme of well-being and its visual embodiment. I hope that you will take something with you — an idea, a feeling, a color, a memory, or audio to listen to later, that may provide space for contemplation and reflection.
Atrium Commission
In addition to the exhibition, Rochester Art Center commissioned Labovitz to create an artwork specifically for its soaring, three-story atrium. Labovitz designed the dramatic, large-scale installation to incorporate the themes of The Nexus of Well-Being & Art as well respond to the light, air and unique architecture of the atrium space. Entitled, Will to Meaning, the enormous artwork is 40-feet by 35-feet by 5-feet is made of vibrantly painted Tyvek® scrolls that subtly move and create an ever-changing interplay with the abundant natural light that filters in from the overhead skylights and surrounding windows. Will to Meaning is on display through 2023.
ACQUISITION BY WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS
Anne Labovitz’s work Untitled, Word Work Series, 2022, was acquired by the Walker Art Center through a generous donation from her colleague Greg Stenmo.
Untitled, Word Work Series, 2022, Acrylic on Rives BFK, 30” x 44”
About the Artist
Labovitz received a BA, Art & Psychology, Minor: Art Education & Art History from Hamline University (1989) and an MFA from Transart, Plymouth University, NYC, Berlin (2017). She has an extensive exhibition history, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Upcoming and current projects include solo exhibitions at Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA (2023) and the Minnesota State Capitol (2024), 122 Conversations: Person to Person: Art Beyond Borders at the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport, and the I Love You Institute.
Labovitz’s work is held in many private and public collections, including Walker Art Center; Minneapolis, MN; Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport, Minneapolis, MN; Frederick R Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN; Minnesota Museum of American Art; The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul, MN; International Gallery of Portrait, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Växjö Kommun, Sweden; Isumi City Offices, Japan; University of Raparin, Rania Iraqi Kurdistan; and City of Petrozavodsk, Russia.
Labovitz is currently Adjunct Professor and Mentor at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, in the Master of Fine Arts program.
More information is available at labovitz.com