June 3 - October 24, 2021
From the Elizabet Ney Museum:
“After 15 months of outdoor access and solely online programming, the nearly 130-year-old home and studio turned Elisabet Ney Museum is reopening—with new exhibitions and a calendar of summer programs. Along with the Ney’s permanent collection of sculptures and ephemera from her colorful life, there will be a new exhibition on view in the galleries from Austin artist Jade Walker, titled Reweave: 2021. The indoor piece Birdsong will complement Walker’s Mire + Mend outdoor, participatory installation on the museum grounds.
“In Elisabet’s lifetime and for most of the years since she built and worked from Formosa (what she called her homestead and studio), this space has been open to all, hosting lively conversation, visitors from near and far, salons and an ongoing dance with the art,” said Oliver Franklin, Museum Site Coordinator. “After this important time of protecting one another and deep reflection in isolation, we’re thrilled to be throwing our doors open once again to welcome the world back with such an invigorating—and nurturing—set of exhibitions by Jade.”
The museum will be reopening its doors on Wednesday, June 9 with ongoing hours being Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. weekly. Masks will likely be suggested for visitors, and staff will remain masked for the time being. Walker’s exhibitions will be on view through October 24, 2021.
Reweave: 2021 inside, Mire + Mend out
Inside the museum visitors will find Reweave: 2021 including Jade Walker’s Birdsong, a piece that considers the ecological state of our planet and the ways in which humans conflict with one another in the face of this challenge—while offering hope in the balance between activism and care. Birdsong asks the viewer to look at what is around us and listen for bird songs as a marker of safety and potential.
Outside at 45th Street and Avenue G is Mire + Mend, a site specific and participatory installation consisting of a vibrant construct of ropes, strings, yarns and cables. The public is invited to engage with it, adding strips of fabric or rope or other threads to the piece. This piece was installed as part of the City of Austin’s Arts Responders program and will expand into other “looms” constructed on the site over the summer.
For a preview or solely online exhibition of these pieces, visit www.theney.org/reweave-jade-walker. There the public will also find video of Walker explaining her work, and her thoughts on art and its capacity for healing and affecting communities. The online exhibition is available now.
Programming Returns
In tandem with these exhibitions, the museum will host events throughout the Summer. On Saturday, June 26 and Saturday, July 10, from noon to 2 p.m., the Ney presents all-ages, socially-distanced family weaving events. Held outdoors, mini looms will be built in which anyone, even little ones, can engage with the healing reweaving process. The public is encouraged to bring materials to weave, including rope, old leashes, strips of fabric from un-wanted or worn out clothing—whatever will help to integrate their own spirit. These pieces will also remain on the grounds for the duration of the exhibition, so participants will become part of the installation. Family-friendly refreshments will be served. A larger scale opening and healing event will take place on July 24, complete with an artist talk, face painting, “slingshot-weaving,” and more.
The Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum, a support group for the site and staff, has also sponsored the creation of a new website, meant to extend the broad online access many enjoyed throughout the pandemic. www.theney.org
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About Jade Walker
Jade Walker is a sculptor living in Austin, Texas. She received her BFA from the University of Florida and her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin. Walker’s soft sculptures consist of her personal struggle with spectatorship, binaries within gender and race, abstraction, narrative, found objects, desire, and the body as temporal. www.jadewalker.org
About the Elisabet Ney Museum
The historic home and studio of Elisabet Ney, a wildly iconoclastic German sculptor who moved to Austin in 1882, The Elisabet Ney Museum enthusiastically celebrates her art, her history and her legacy through exhibitions and events for the whole family. The museum enjoys numerous historic designations and is a cornerstone of the Hyde Park National Register Historic Neighborhood. Admission is free. www.elisabetneymuseum.org and Friends of the Ney: www.theney.org”
Special event: June 26, 2021 | 12–2 pm
Socially-distanced outdoor family weaving event
Special event: July 10, 2021 | 12–2 pm
Socially-distanced outdoor family weaving event
Artist talk: July 24, 2021 | 12–2 pm
304 East 44th Street
Austin, 78751 TX
512-458-2255
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