Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
Montgomery, AL
334-244-5700
http://www.mmfa.org/
after HISTORY: The Paintings
of David Bierk
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts presents
"after HISTORY: The Paintings of David Bierk" 
on view from
November 11, 2000 through January 7, 2001. David Bierk, an artist who has
reconsidered traditions and ideas of the past to create an art for the new
millennium, focuses on three distinct subject areas in his paintings - landscapes,
still lifes, and what the artist calls "history paintings." Bierk
abstracts and adapts these subjects to create personal tributes to the works
of such renowned masters as Caravaggio, Vermeer, Ingres, Fantin-LaTour,
Manet, Bierstadt, and Hopper, among others. While basing his compositions
on art masterpieces from the past, he places these new images in a contemporary
context with a boldness and bravura that is vintage Bierk. (left:
Portrait in Stone, from Leonardo, 1999, oil on canvas, concrete,
From the collection of Kristan Newell, Toronto, Canada; right: Locked
in Migration, to Petrus Christus, 1998, oil on canvas, steel)
Well
before the movement or term "appropriation" was coined, Bierk
was plumbing the riches of 
art history for images that suited the direction of
his work. As early as 1969, he revisited a Leonardo da Vinci landscape as
a background for his own self-portrait. The artist's approach to historical
images is not simply curatorial, but conceptual. The work he creates "after"
the masters is never a straight copy, rather it is always contemporized
and re-contextualized by adjusting its traditional presentation. Thus, Bierk's
paintings after the masters are created purely in the spirit of praise,
celebration, and as an homage to the act of painting. (left: A
Eulogy to LIfe, Locked in Migration, to van Brussell, 1998, oil on canvas,
rusted iron on board, Collection of Becky and William Matthews, Atlanta,
Georgia; right: A Eulogy to LIfe, Locked in Migration, to Van Os,
1998, oil on canvas, rusted iron on board)
Viewers will experience the fusion of past and present
in this exhibition of works from Bierk's early career to his 
most
recent works. His compositions frequently address the nostalgia of our times
for the traditional painting styles of previous centuries, while demonstrating
how these classic styles have coalesced and been transformed to create the
pluralism indicative of the modern age. (right: Locked in Migration
to Manet, No. 1, 1997-98, oil on board, steel)
By
confronting the present with the styles and techniques of the past, David
Bierk creates an art that is both classic and contemporary. Bierk's paintings
are respectful celebrations of art history and a recapitulation, for a new
age, of ideals and values that are timeless. In opening this dialogue with
history both the artist and the viewer must now reconsider the past as we
move into the future. (left: A Eulogy to Art & LIfe, Locked
in Migration, to Rembrandt, 1999, oil on canvas, steel, From the Collection
of Mimi and Richard Fishchbein, New York, New York)
This
exhibition, organized and circulated by the MMFA, is sponsored locally by
Regions Bank and co-sponsored by the Harmon-Cone Company. Following its
showing at the MMFA, after HISTORY: The Paintings of David Bierk
will travel to the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN; Telfair
Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV; and Evansville
Museum of Arts and Sciences, Evansville, IN. (left: A Distant
Light, Locked in Migration, To Bierstadt, 1999, oil on canvas, steel)
Rev. 11/1/00
Read more about the Montgomery
Museum of Fine Arts in Resource
Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 4/6/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts presents
"after HISTORY: The Paintings of David Bierk" 
on view from
November 11, 2000 through January 7, 2001. David Bierk, an artist who has
reconsidered traditions and ideas of the past to create an art for the new
millennium, focuses on three distinct subject areas in his paintings - landscapes,
still lifes, and what the artist calls "history paintings." Bierk
abstracts and adapts these subjects to create personal tributes to the works
of such renowned masters as Caravaggio, Vermeer, Ingres, Fantin-LaTour,
Manet, Bierstadt, and Hopper, among others. While basing his compositions
on art masterpieces from the past, he places these new images in a contemporary
context with a boldness and bravura that is vintage Bierk. (left:
Portrait in Stone, from Leonardo, 1999, oil on canvas, concrete,
From the collection of Kristan Newell, Toronto, Canada; right: Locked
in Migration, to Petrus Christus, 1998, oil on canvas, steel)
