Student Picks: Interior, Exterior - Parisian Harmony vs. Discord, 1876-2009

Student Picks is a SCMA program in which Smith students organize their own one-day art show using our collection of works on paper. This month’s student curator and guest blogger Meredith Shanoski '16 discusses her show “Interior, Exterior: Parisian Harmony vs. Discord” which will be on view THIS FRIDAY, December 6 from 12-4 PM in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. We hope to see you here!

"Interior, Exterior: Parisian harmony versus discord, 1876-2009" explores tensions in the portrayal of French culture. Those tensions probe the spectrum between 19th century and current art, between photography and drawing, between the intimacy of interior scenes and the urban scape, between color and black and white. 

^{Edouard Vuillard. French, 1868–1940. Printed by Auguste Clot. Intérieur aux teintures roses II, 1899. Lithograph printed in pink, red, maroon, yellow, green, gray-green and blue on paper. Gift of Selma Erving, class of 1927. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1978.1.58a.}

^{Edouard Boubat. French, 1923–1999. Places des Vosges, Paris, 1979. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Lynn Hecht Schafran, class of 1962. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2000.38.6.}

The images play off each other to establish these tensions, yet to build a unified body of images. In selecting the pieces, I looked to artists within the Smith collection that I was more familiar with like Vuillard, Bonnard, and Magritte, but also discovered others like Moyra Davey and Nan Goldin whose works bring a new perspective to the more classical artists included in the exhibition. This integration establishes the sense of past and present which I find poignant within French culture. 

^{Moyra Davey. Canadian, b. 1958. Untitled from 16 Photographs from Paris, 2009. Folded digital c-print with paper and cellophane tape, postage, and ink. Purchased with the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2010.19.12.}