Icons, Archetypes, and Portraits: From the Mythic to the Everyday: At The North Dakota Museum of Art

Icons, Archetypes, and Portraits: From the Mythic to the Everyday features artwork by artists from around the globe utilizing a wide array of media from painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, and textiles. The exhibition poses a fundamental question: how does a work of art conjure presence of a human subject? While portraiture often accomplishes this task by presenting a faithful visual likeness of a subject, other artworks in this exhibition approach this question more obliquely by invoking presence through materials associated with the subject—such as hair, bone, jewelry, or articles of clothing. Other artworks imbue their subjects with a sense of otherworldliness, elevating them to a quasi-divine status as icons. Additional examples show how artists deploy archetypes to examine their subject’s role in society, or as protagonists in a historical narrative or classic myth.

Historically, representing the human subject in art has been closely allied to power and influence: from ancient gods and rulers, to monarchs, saints, wealthy patrons or titans of industry. Many of the contemporary works featured here dismantle this tradition and present icons, archetypes, and portraits of people traditionally overlooked or neglected in the history of art.

Exhibition support provided in part by a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.