José Clemente Orozco:
The Drawings for Prometheus
January 22 - March 3

This exhibition celebrated the recent acquisition of preparatory drawings by José Clemente Orozco for the great Prometheus mural on the Pomona College campus (see “Collections”). It represented the first time that all seventeen studies were seen together since they became a part of the College’s permanent collection. For this occasion, a monographic study of Orozco’s mural and related works was published. Containing essays by David Scott, Mary K. Coffey, Renato González Mello, and Marjorie Harth, the book appears in both English and Spanish. Shortly after the close of the show, nine of Pomona’s drawings became part of a major exhibition of Orozco’s work in the U.S. organized by the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, in collaboration with the Museo de Arte Álvar y Carmen T. de Carrillo Gil and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, that traveled to the Los Angeles area in 2002. More...

Project 13: Hilja Keading
January 22 - March 3

Keading creates video installations that examine social and cultural norms, in particular, the discrepancy between facade and reality, judgment and perception, and the point at which documentation becomes transformation. Subtly influenced by Hollywood, where illusions are created and consumed, Keading addresses issues of performance as a behavioral pattern along with the desire to create and believe in fantasy. For this occasion, Keading presented a new video installation and related photographs. More...

Working in America:
Images of Labor, 1930 - 1950
January 22 - April 7

Work is a central part of our everyday lives. To a great extent, the labor we engage in, paid or unpaid, determines how other people see us, as well as how we see ourselves. But our understanding of the significance of particular types of labor, and of the importance of our own work in relation to that of others, is historically and socially constructed. It is the result of the material organization of labor, on the one hand, and, on the other, the cultural images of labor that circulate throughout society in books, magazines, movies, television, computers, and works of art. This exhibition presented a selection of such cultural images of labor in the form of paintings, prints, photographs, and posters produced in the United States between 1930 and 1950, drawn from the Pomona College and other local collections. Curated by Frances Pohl, Professor of Art History, it complemented the adjacent exhibition of Depression-era photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The Public Record:
Photographs of the Great Depression from the J. Paul Getty Museum
March 10 - May 19

To a remarkable degree, the American public’s concept of the Great Depression—both at the time and now—was informed by images taken by a small group of photographers working for the government. Under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration, young and, at the time largely unknown, artists like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, and Arthur Rothstein were hired to travel throughout the country and, initially, to record the effects of the Depression on the land and the people. The intent was specific—to generate support for Roosevelt’s New Deal programs—and the resulting photographs, some of which were widely published, became imprinted in the public consciousness. More than any single image, Lange’s Migrant Mother became identified with the Depression and the hardships it caused.

The exhibition was selected by Judith Keller, Associate Curator of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, from that institution’s extraordinary collection. It was organized in cooperation with Pomona College’s Hart Institute for American History, which is dedicated to the study of history through an intense focus on original documents, and in conjunction with a series of lectures and seminars given by political historian Alan Brinkley. The “documents” upon which Brinkley focused were the photographs of Dorothea Lange, and the exhibition was designed in part to enhance this exploration by examining the nature of documentary “truth” and the ways in which our understanding of history is constructed.

Project 14: Charles Timm-Ballard
March 10 - April 7

Timm-Ballard has, in the past, focused on the physical landscape of the working-class, urban-industrial Midwest. Since his recent move to Southern California, he has begun to investigate the impact of human activity on the local environment. Interested in the way personal and historical images reflect the way we construct the spaces in which we live, Timm-Ballard makes landscapes of earthen materials fused into slabs. His work operates in the space between the earth-bound, sculptural quality of ceramics and the more ethereal realm of landscape painting. More...

Pomona Student Exhibition
April 16 - April 28

The annual Pomona Student Exhibition was open to all students enrolled in studio art classes at the College. Participation was competitive and work was juried by members of the Art faculty. The resulting exhibition, which helped students learn to prepare their work to be shown publicly and allowed them to see it in the context of a professional museum, reflected the high quality an exciting diversity of the Pomona College Studio Art program.

Pomona Senior Exhibition
May 8 - May 19

All studio art majors, along with media studies majors concentrating in studio art, are required for graduation to undertake a final project culminating in exhibition. The graduating seniors, who were responsible for all aspects of the exhibition's organization and presentation, gained professional experience while giving the public an opportunity to view their work.