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Hop exhibits offer broad and personal histories

By Heather Castro Contributing Art Writer

In today's society, the past is with us more than ever. From the camera phone and YouTube's instant replays of real life to the easy accessibility of the History Channel, recent and long-past history are always within our grasp and consciousness.

So it comes as no surprise that a major theme of this season's inaugural Gallery Hop exhibitions is the past. Whether national or regional, or even a look into an individual life, exhibits open during Friday's Hop offer a glimpse of how the past can affect the present.

The Central Library Gallery's Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation is a national traveling exhibit marking the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Organized in panel form, it offers a plethora of information, including text, photographs, illustrations and, more fascinating, reproductions of Lincoln's letters and political cartoons that depict the presidential efforts to abolish slavery during the Civil War.

Special to the Lexington library's showing of the exhibition is a series of emotional photographs by Georgetown, Ind., artist Willie Johnson. Freedom's Struggle: The Underground Railroad Along the Ohio River in Kentucky and Indiana is a modern visual journey that, through historical captions, details both states' roles in the slave trade and route to freedom. The black-and-white works vary in subject from costumed actors to architecture and riverboats, but the most moving are the Ohio River landscapes, showing exact locations of the Railroad's river crossings. Here, presented in tranquil pastoral scenes, one can imagine the fear, determination and triumph of those whose drive for freedom knew no boundaries.

Accompanying Friday's reception are special events for the library's celebration of Emancipation Weekend. Monday marks the 146th anniversary of Lincoln's declaration of emancipation, and on tap for Friday is a reading of the Gettysburg Address and a program of Lincoln-era music and dance by the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra and Lexington Vintage Dance Society.

For more history close to home, check out Morlan Gallery's showing of The Transylvania University Collection. Curated by nationally recognized cultural historian Estill Curtis Pennington, the exhibit showcases outstanding examples of Transy's art collection, from early Kentucky portraits to early modern works by national artists, that offer a local perspective in the history of art.

Pennington "really has an idea of things that are culturally important for Lexington, and (says) why it's important," says gallery director Andrea Fisher. "He's really pulled out the university's history with each artist," including such notables as Sudduth Goff and Matthew Jouett.

While national history is patriotic and local history absorbing, individual history can be deeply curious. Three of the hop's shows provide a vantage point into other people's lives.

For art lovers who lean to the psychologically introspective, head to the LAL @ DAC's exhibit Farmer's Daughter Cycle. Installation and performance artist Lauren Argo brings out the trials and realizations of her rural Kentucky childhood in metaphoric space, video and performances, which are scheduled once an hour from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday.

Those who enjoy the technical skill and achievement that comes with continuous artistic excellence can pop across the hall to the Ann Tower Gallery for Flora and Fauna: New Painting by Robert James Foose. Recently retired from his longtime position as professor of painting at the University of Kentucky, Foose continues to produce intently detailed, vibrantly colored vistas, with these new works concentrating on layered views of animal and plant life.

The past repeats itself for Australian artist Sue Nagel, who, with her exhibit at Gallery B, returns to an American gallery after a 22-year hiatus. Nagel, a self-taught painter, shows a complex arrangement of her homeland's native wildlife and nature in her larger works while exhibiting a charmingly folkish quality in scenes of Outback horse racing and cowboys.