New Martin Art Gallery Exhibit: “Funny Ball”
Sculptor and installation artist Claire Lieberman explores the relationship between play and conflict in contemporary culture.Thursday, March 10, 2022 08:56 AM
Funny Ball by Claire Lieberman. Photo by Ken Kashian, 2022.A new exhibit by multidisciplinary artist Claire Lieberman is featured in the main exhibition space at Muhlenberg College’s Martin Art Gallery.
FUNNY BALL runs March 10–April 9. An opening reception will be held from 6–7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 10.
Lieberman's solo show features highly polished black marble sculptures installed in a dynamic, game-like format and related cast paper prints. Her project explores the relationship between play and conflict in contemporary culture. The exhibition catalog includes an essay by Nancy Princenthal.
While on campus, Lieberman held a stone carving workshop for advanced sculpture students.
Lieberman is a sculptor and installation artist who combines such materials as marble, Jell-O and video. According to her website, her work explores a range of dichotomies, including "the sublime and the quirky, desire and danger, indulgence and guilt."
Lieberman is also known for her prints and sculptures of toy guns in glass. Her glass guns and photography can be found in the new book, Loaded: Guns in Contemporary Art by Suzanne Ramjlak and Schiffer Publishing 2022. UDBO - Unidentified Dangerous Beautiful Objects is a book about her sculpture published with Massey Klein Gallery.
She has had solo shows at Massey Klein Gallery, NYC; Gebert Contemporary, Scottsdale; Hot Wood Arts, Brooklyn; THE LAB, NYC; Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta; PDX, Portland; Seoul Art Center, Korea; the University of Alaska, Anchorage; Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University; and Southeastern Louisiana University.
Lieberman recently exhibited in line of sight. lethal vision, mudac museum, Lausanne, Switzerland, which traveled as Im Visier, to Forum Schlossplatz, Aarau, Switzerland. Group shows include Daydreaming, Massey Lyuben Gallery, New York, NY; Mein lieber Schwan (My Dearest Swan), ACC Galerie Weimar, Germany; The Food Show: The Hungry Eye, Chelsea Art Museum; Up in Arms, Parker’s Box, Brooklyn, NY; New Prints at the International Print Center, NY; and PULSE New York with Marcia Wood Gallery. Her work has been written about in Sculpture magazine, The New York Times, Art on Paper and ARTnews.
Lieberman has received awards from MacDowell (2022); Escape to Create (2022); The Arctic Circle, Territory of Svalbard; National Endowment for the Arts; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseilles, France; Künstlerhaus, Salzburg, Austria; and Yaddo.
The Martin Art Gallery is located in the Philip Johnson-designed Baker Center for the Arts on the Muhlenberg College campus at 2400 Chew Street, Allentown PA 18104. The Martin Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, noon-8 p.m., and the Gallery's Galleria Space is open every day, 9 a.m.-11 p.m.
All exhibitions and programming are free and open to the public. For further information, please contact the Gallery Director Paul M. Nicholson at [email protected] or 484-664-3467.
