David Zink Yi, Marc Swanson, Sylvie Fleury, Jenny Holzer

Encounters from everyday experience are vibrantly transformed and playfully examined in the artwork collected by Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker.  The Museum of Art has on display selections from the Pritzkers’ notable collection of contemporary art.  These works investigate how traditional forms can be reinvented to explore the duality of everyday experience.

The Pritzkers’ collection features an array of international artists who investigate the fields of identity, origin, and social influences in today’s age.  Creating artificial palm trees of aluminum and stainless steel, artist David Zink Yi from Lima, Peru disassociates the tropical trees from an idyllic ocean setting and instead situates them in an urban, concrete, and steel context.  American artist Marc Swanson explores dimensions of his identity through creating iconic sculptures of rhinestone and Swarovski crystal-encrusted animals, examining the relationsip of masculinity and beauty.  Swarovski is known as the manufacturer of both high end riflescopes and fine crystals.  This irony is highlighted in Swanson’s Untitled (Crystal Ram), 2009, a trophy symbol of both raw masculinity and dazzling femininity.  Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury employs mixed media and sculpture to address issues of new age consumerism.  In her larger than life and brightly painted popcorn sculptures, she inflates everyday objects to a startling new size.  The great American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer is well-known for her large-scale projections of “Truisms” in public spaces.  While Holzer’s work is typically ephemeral, the inscibed writing in her stone bench signifies that the text deserves permanence and contemplation.

Anthony N. Pritzker is a co-founder and Managing Partner of The Pritzker Group.  Tony and his wife, Jeanne, are active members of the Los Angeles community, serving as a trustee of CalArts, Director for Heal The Bay, and members of the Dartmouth Board of Overseers.  In 2002, the Pritzkers established the Anthony Pritzker Family Foundation to aid health organizations and human services.  The Anthony Pritzker and Pritzker Family Trust Collection of Contemporary Art showcases his family’s commitment to the art and artists of our time.

Selections from the Pritzker Collection will be on view in the Ernst F. Ernst M. and Ida K. Lied Gallery on the main level of the museum.  Admission to this exhibition is free of charge.  Free docent-led tours of this exhibition can be scheduled with at least one week’s notice by calling the Museum Education Department at 801-422-1140.