Explores the graphic representation of time and the role visual forms have played in our evolving imagination of history.

Cartographies of Time

June 25, 2011 – September 18, 2011

How do you map time? Is history linear? The exhibition Cartographies of Time will explore graphic representations of European and American history, and the evolution of the modern timeline, through a selection of twenty-seven rarely seen books, manuscripts, charts, and other ingenious devices, drawn primarily from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the Princeton University Library.

The timeline is a metaphor so fundamental to the visual representation of time today—in almanacs, calendars, charts, and graphs—that it can be difficult to recall that a linear concept of time was “invented” at all. Cartographies of Time follows the mapping of biblical and secular histories, beginning with a medieval scroll listing the kings of France and England and an early sixteenth century edition of the Chronicle of Eusebius—the fourth-century Christian theologian whose tables of biblical and historical time were among the first printed books. The exhibition continues through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to the elaborate didactic chronologies and educational games of the nineteenth century.

Among the works in the exhibition will be the Astronomicum Caesareum, a magnificent volume explaining the celestial motions of the planets, moon, and sun with elaborately cut and hand-colored revolving paper discs. Published by the astronomer Petrus Apianus in 1540, the book could be used to compute the dates of historic events based on astronomical tables and charts. Also included will be Joseph Priestley’s A Chart of Biography (1765), perhaps the most important timeline to be developed in the eighteenth century, recording the lives of over two thousand famous men; and an English translation of the Strom der Zeiten (Stream of Time), an elegant chart first published by the Austrian chronologer Fredrich Strass in 1804, representing the progression of world history as a confluence of flowing rivers.

Guest-curated by Daniel Rosenberg, associate professor of history at the University of Oregon, and Anthony T. Grafton, the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, the exhibition celebrates the recent publication of their book Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline, published by Princeton Architectural Press. This exhibition is part of Memory and the Work of Art, a yearlong collaborative investigation into the arts and cultural memory, organized by arts and cultural organizations at Princeton University and in the Princeton community.

Free and open to the public

The Bunnell Decades
July 2, 2011 – October 23, 2011
Princeton University Art Museum

A timeline of collection photographs that appeared in each major exhibition curated by Peter C. Bunnell, Princeton’s first professor of the history of photography, 1972-2002.

As Princeton’s first professor of the history of photography, from 1972 to 2002, Peter C. Bunnell mentored a generation of scholar-curators while building one of the great North American teaching collections. In celebration of the endowment of the Peter C. Bunnell Curatorship of Photography, this exhibition presents a “timeline” of works representing the major photography exhibitions mounted at the Museum during Bunnell’s years. Showcasing the great range of his scholarly interests, from the daguerreotype to Pictorialism to contemporary color photography, the exhibition chronicles the collection’s evolution from its beginnings to the turn of this century, by which time it numbered over 20,000 objects.

In 1972, Peter C. Bunnell was appointed as the David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University. Over the following three decades, he combined a busy teaching schedule with service as curator of photography at the Museum, where he also served twice as director (1973–78 and 1998–2000).

Bunnell built a collection at the Museum that helped him to teach hundreds of undergraduates and fourteen doctoral students, who in turn have brought photography to a wider audience as curators at institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. This year, Bunnell’s remarkable legacy at Princeton has been secured with the endowment of the Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography.

The works in The Bunnell Decades illustrate a selective chronology of the principal exhibitions of photography mounted during Bunnell’s years at Princeton. The Steerage was the first photograph to enter the Museum’s collection, in 1949, and it appeared twenty-three years later in Bunnell’s first exhibition, on the work of Alfred Stieglitz and the members of his group, the Photo-Secession of New York.

In the year preceding Bunnell’s appointment, David Hunter McAlpin, Class of 1920, gave the Museum over 450 photographs as well as funds for further acquisitions. Building on these resources, Bunnell crafted one of the country’s leading teaching collections, all the while organizing exhibitions to reflect its diversifying strengths. Some of his scholarly interests, showcased here, include Pictorialism; photographs from nineteenth-century France and Britain, postwar Japan, and the American West; and that ever-shifting field, the “contemporary.”

The floor cases in the galleries feature objects Bunnell used in teaching and in his annual fall exhibition, What Photographs Look Like, a part of his perennially popular survey course in the history of photography.

Princeton University Art Museum Website

Pamela Kogen, a painter featured in the premiere April issue of Princeton Magazine, will present her recent series of paintings, “Pinup Girls”, a colorful exploration of the subject of female identity, beauty. Pamela is an east coast artist who spent her childhood in Levittown, Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Maplewood, New Jersey, and on the waters of Martha’s Vineyard. She moved to the East Village in the early 1980s and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Parsons School of Design. The iconic subject of clothing, which has been a recurrent theme in her artwork, has led her to pursue careers in the fashion industry as a wardrobe and prop stylist, and as an editorial and fashion illustrator for magazines (Mademoiselle, Vogue) newspapers (New York Times, Village Voice) museums (MoMA), and many of New York City’s department stores (Henri Bendel, Barneys NY). Her paintings and drawings have been shown in galleries and venues in New York City and Westchester, NY.

Pamela’s paintings are playful and graphic, the vibrant colors belying what is a layered issue comprised of the fulfillment and imposition of expectations upon dreams and desire. The “Pinup Girl” simultaneously reveals an absorption in the eternal quest to be “beautiful”, and the act of passing judgment, which is the prerogative of the viewer. Bold, but at the same time humanistic, her work is informed by social dynamics, pop culture and an ongoing interest in art history.

“Pinup Girls” will be on exhibit at CoolVines through December 6, 2009. “CoolVines and Small World Coffee are integral to the Princeton artistic community, enthusiastically and consistently exhibiting the work of local artists”. Pamela’s work can be viewed at www.pamelakogen.com

Robin Resch is a photographer and architect who lived and worked in Italy, France, and the Netherlands for over eight years. She left Europe to pursue her master’s degree in architecture at Princeton University, which she combined with advanced photographic studies under the auspice of Emmet Gowin. Known for her spontaneous and natural portraits, as well as her travel and commercial work, Resch’s photographs have been published in a variety of books and magazines, including the Witte de With Cahiers, the Rotterdams Dagblad, Victoria Magazine and a travel book, “A Romantic’s Guide to Italy.” Her pictures have been exhibited at the Lucas Gallery at Princeton University, the Pringle Gallery in Philadelphia, Princeton Project Space, and most recently Design Within Reach.

Robin’s show at Small World Coffee will include recent photographs from her series “Yosemite”. In her landscapes, Resch is fascinated by the power of nature and the duality of its ephemeral qualities and its ageless continuum. In “Yosemite” Resch considers the strength and majesty of the mountain withstanding the vagaries of weather and time. The proud peak of Yosemite Falls becomes a symbol for strength of self within the challenges of life. Robin Resch’s work will be on exhibit at Small World Coffee through November 3, 2009.

“The arts are such an important part of our vibrant town, but there are simply not enough venues for artists to show their work,” Robin said. “It’s very exciting that CoolVines and Small World Coffee are so supportive and that they are pairing up to create these unique art events.” Robin’s work can be viewed at www.studiorr.com and http://princetonnewsnetwork.com/iP