The Gift – Hispanic Artist Featured @ Internal Art Exhibit.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts presents The Gift: Generous Offerings, Threatening Hospitality, a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by Independent Curators International, that investigates the intricacies of personal relationships through artwork that focus on the giving and receiving of gifts. The Gift features more than forty works of art—photography, video, sculpture and installation—from an international roster of thirty-seven established and emerging artists.

With the aim of shedding light on the multiple meanings veiled in the acts of giving and receiving, The Gift presents works that have been conceived by artists as gifts, dedications, homages, invitations, gestures of hospitality, and gratuitous offerings. Uniting art from the past and works specifically conceived for this exhibition, they range from gifts of objects, one’s self or body to insidious and threatening invitations. Other works explore the relational nature of the work of art and the ambiguous nature of gifts.

“The Gift will bring the best of contemporary art production to the people of New York and the East Coast,” says Jenny Dixon, Executive Director. “In so doing, The Bronx Museum builds upon its rich exhibition history, and makes its own contribution by once again inserting the Bronx into the New York landscape as an integral component of the cultural capital of the world.”

The Gift: Generous Offerings, Threatening Hospitality is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York in collaboration with the Centro Arte Contemporanea Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena (Italy), which conceived the initial version, co-produced with the Centro Culturale Candiani in Mestre/Venice (Italy). Co-curators for the exhibition are Gianfranco Maraniello, a curator at the Centro Arte Contemporanea Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena (Italy), and Antonio Somaini, a philosopher, art critic, and professor in Milan.

The Gift: Generous Offerings, Threatening Hospitality is accompanied by an illustrated brochure produced by ICI, with an introduction by the curators. Also available is the 350-page bilingual (Italian/English) catalogue of the exhibition presented at the Palazzo delle Papesse, with twenty essays by philosophers, anthropologists, art critics, and comparative literature scholars on the themes of gifts and hospitality.

Exhibition Itinerary
The Gift will travel to Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, April 14-June 15, 2003; Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, September 13, 2003–January 2004 and other venues, to be announced, through spring 2004.

Exhibition Related Public Programs

On Point: Perspectives On Contemporary Art & Culture
On Point, an ongoing series of dialogues, panels, and presentations in which curators, artists, critics, scholars, and cultural producers discuss contemporary art and culture will host two dynamic panels on the nature of gifts. Each panel will consist of anthropologists, philosophers, curators, and art critics.

Wednesday, February 5, 2003 7:00 p.m.
The New School
The Ethics of The Gift
Invited panelists: J.T. Godbout, University of Montreal; Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago; and Arthur Danto and Michael Taussig, Columbia University. Antonio Somaini, moderator.
$5

Wednesday, February 12, 2003 7:00 p.m.
The Bronx Museum
Figures of Gift and Hospitality in Contemporary Art
Invited panelists: Marina Abramovi, Dan Cameron, and Gabriel Orozco.
Antonio Somaini, moderator.
Free

Co-presented by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics in conjunction with the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the Independent Curators International.

BOUNCE: Art Music Video New Media Performance & Urban Lifestyles
Bounce is a monthly Friday night party that brings DJ and club culture into the museum, blending urban lifestyles with an eclectic mix of music, live performances, video, and new media projects.

Friday, December 13, 8-11:00 p.m.
Performances at December’s Bounce: Giving the Gift of Art and Music includes Shequida, America’s only Juilliard-trained drag opera diva; DJ Olive, spinning an alternative mix of electronica and experimental sounds; and visuals by Quanteye.

Families First
On the first Saturday of every month during exhibitions parents and children, 12 years old and under, are invited to participate in special interactive tours of the exhibitions and discover hands-on art-making projects led by our team of artist-educators.
December 7, 2002, January 4, 2003, & February 1, 2003

Family Affair
Family Affairs are quarterly open-house events held at the beginning of an exhibition cycle to introduce families to the Museum’s programs and exhibitions. The event includes art-making activities, tours of the exhibitions, and performances.

On Saturday, December 21, 3-6:00 p.m. the Museum will celebrate the holidays with its “Family Affair: Grab Bag Holiday Party.”

Education programs at The Bronx Museum of the Arts are supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, The Heckscher Foundation for Children, The Louis Calder Foundation, and The Barker Welfare Foundation.

For more information at http://www.bxma.org

General Information
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is a twentieth-century and contemporary art museum, founded in 1971, to serve the culturally diverse populations of the Bronx and the greater New York metropolitan area. The Museum has a long-standing commitment to increasing and stimulating audience participation in the visual arts through its Permanent Collection, special exhibitions, and education programs.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts receives ongoing general operating support from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with the cooperation of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carríon and the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council; U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; New York State Council on the Arts; Bronx Delegation of the New York State Assembly; and private supporters.