Imagine being able to just waltz into any one of the four major Grand Rapids museums, skip the front desk and wander directly into the exhibits without being stopped by security.

In an unprecedented move, the four major Grand Rapids museums announced plans to open their doors to all comers on four occasions. Under the banner of "4 Sundays, 4 Museums, Free Admission" the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids Children's Museum, Grand Rapids Public Museum and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum will all offer free admission from noon until 5 p.m. during four occasions in 2012 beginning on Jan. 22.

While each individual museum has periodically offered free or reduced admission, the combination of incentives by all four museums on a regular, quarterly basis has the potential to increase regular downtown foot traffic, especially with regards to families with children. A family of five could save as much as $114 on admission if all family members visited each museum on one of the "Free 4 All" days. Cha-ching!

The hope is the increased downtown traffic will boost local businesses as well as give non-members of the downtown museums reason to consider the perks of membership. Additionally, visitors will have the opportunity to become familiar with the downtown shops, parking and restaurants.

"The beauty of the collaboration for museums is that they are able to offer their core exhibits and basic programs without using precious resources to create or accommodate a special event," said Organizer Rebecca Westphal in a press release.

Free general admission will be offered during these Museums Free 4 All dates and hours:

Sunday, Jan. 22, noon–5 p.m.
Sunday, April 15, noon–5 p.m.
Sunday, July 15, noon–5 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 21, noon–5 p.m.

Any special programming or exhibit fees may still apply.

In its first stop as a traveling exhibition, Warrington Colecscott: Cabaret, Comedy & Satire has come to the Grand Rapids Art Museum through Jan. 15 and emphasizes the artist's work over an impressive 60-year span.

Curated by Mary Chapin and taken from the Milwaukee Art Museum, which boasts the largest collection of Colescott's work, and GRAM's own collection, the exhibition showcases 73 Colescott prints made between 1948 and 2008. Typically humorous and colorful, Colescott's etchings tell a story all their own. GRAM Associate Curator Cindy Buckner addresses the exhibition's presentation of the characteristics adherent to the artist's work.

"It shows his work in theories," she said. "Within the print it tells a story and within a series of prints it tells a larger story."

One of those stories can be found in Colescott's piece, History of Printmaking: Picasso at the Zoo, 1978. Part of a larger series, the piece looks back to Colescott's predecessors and their body of work. With this print, Colescott puts a magnifying glass on Pablo Picasso's life, rife with mistresses and children, and exclaim

Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy & Satire Grand Rapids Art Museum Through Jan. 15, 2012 $5-$8, free for members artmuseumgr.org, (616) 831-1000

s that the artist must surely have taken them all to the zoo, and hints that this is where many of his ideas must have come from.

Not only does Colescott's work pay humorous homage to famed artists, it mixes past with present in a playful, satirical way as he often laces fact with fiction. Buckner says the exhibition's humor will be a magnet for viewers in Grand Rapids.

"It reflects the current taste for fine art that borrows from current culture and history," she said. "He includes found objects in his prints. He's combining things from popular culture into a high art form. And also the fact that it has inside jokes that people need to be familiar with in order to get the joke in the print."

Throughout January, GRAM presents Warrington Colescott: Artist, Storyteller & Trailblazer, a lecture series that offers a chance to learn more about the influential artist's impact on the art world and his use of narrative and image to tell stories in varying and exciting ways.

Join Mariel Versluis, Artist and Associate Professor of Printmaking and Drawing at Kendall College of Art and Design on Jan. 7 at 2 p.m. in the Cook Auditorium for Warrington Colescott and the History of Printmaking and on Jan. 14 at 2 p.m. join Brett Colley, Artist and Associate Professor in Art & Design at Grand Valley State University, for Whether to Laugh or Cry: Satirical Printmaking in America.

 

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Infrared Photography by Christopher Light
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts / Through March 18, 2012
$5 suggested donation, free for members / kiarts.org, (269) 349-7775

Kalamazoo native Christopher Light presents his urban and natural world shots through infrared digital photography in his museum debut. Though infrared light is invisible to the human eye, digital cameras are sensitive to this portion of the light spectrum. Light's infrared style presents his photographs uniquely, as there is a lack of atmospheric haze, foliage appears light and skies are dark.

Alisa Henriquez: Woman I
UICA, Grand Rapids / Through Feb. 16, 2012
$4-$8, members are free / uica.org, (616) 454-7000

Alisa Henriquez takes the highly digested portrayal of women in media and pop culture and vomits them out to create collages relating themes of gender, beauty and material desire. She picks her collage pieces from popular women's magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Glamour and represents them in a way that is overloaded and complex -- similar to the way we consume these images in grocery stores and our own homes.

For its third stop in just more than a year, The Strange Life of Objects: The Art of Annette Lemieux comes to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Dec. 17, 2011-March 4, 2012 and highlights some of the artist's most prominent work over a 25 year span.

Curated by Lelia Amalfitano and Judith Hoos Fox, the exhibition made its debut and subsequent showing at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Mass. Amalfitano recollects the lengthy process of the exhibition's assemblage and how the varying works speak to the diversity of Lemieux's thematic elements.

"Quite honestly we had been working on it for a number of years," Amalfitano said. "We really think of it as sort of a mid-career review of her work. The intentions were to clarify many of the themes in her work: memory, history, social and cultural issues and basic issues of life and death."

Raised by a single mother in Torrington, Conn., Lemieux would accompany her to antique shops, which grew her interest in recycled materials, a medium she incorporates into her work today. But her repertoire goes far beyond those resources.

The Strange Life of Objects: The Art of Annette Lemieux Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Dec. 17, 2011- March 4, 2012 Suggested donation: $5, KIA Members, Free kiarts.org, (269) 349-7775

"[She will use] anything and everything," Amalfitano said. "What draws the work are the concepts. She will learn and find ways to use the media to say what she has to say. Sculpture, installations, mixed media ... she'll use whatever it takes."

The Strange Life of Objects pays homage to Lemieux's stake in the 1980s global art scene and her ability to continue to remain a significant artist today. With regular citations in contemporary art texts, Lemieux imparts her knowledge in her post as the Professor of the Practice of Studio Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

What can be viewed in The Strange Life of Objects are a diverse range of projects crafted between 1983 and 2010, respectively, and consists of books, found steel helmets, bricks and wood, among others and includes photographs, sculpture and oil on canvas, among others.

"I think one of the most important things that the viewer needs to do is go into the exhibition open to discovery and I think what they'll find is that Annette begins to tell a story in her work but although its universally based, there's room always for the viewer to add their own story and intersect with Annette," Amalfitano said. "She's not didactic in her work, she leaves room for the viewer. The conversation can really be quite rich. It's not a lecture."

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Other Art Events | By Lindsay Patton-Carson

Disrupted Environment
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids
Through Dec. 30
$6-$8, members free
uica.org, (616) 454-7000

Steven Stradley is using the UICA's Vertical Project Space through the end of this month for his Disrupted Environment piece. Stradley uses charred wood fragments and suspends them in order to create a new environment. The result shows the viewer elements of collapse through the charring of the wood, as well as lending the viewer a new way to observe what we see day-to-day.

First 100 Years: Pictures of the Best Kind
Muskegon Museum of Art
Dec. 11, 2011-Jan. 29, 2012
$5-$7, members free
muskegonartmuseum.org, (231)720-2570

As part of the Muskegon Museum of Art's year-long centennial celebration, pieces from the museum's collection will be reinstalled in new ways. First 100 Years: Pictures of the Best Kind features prints, paintings, drawings, sculpture and glass acquired by the museum since 1912. The museum's most cherished works from its permanent collection will be on display, as well as others that are not frequently seen.

Small Works by Enormously Talented Artists
LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids
Dec. 1-31
lafontsee.us, (616) 451-9820

In honor of the holiday season, LaFontsee Gallery is putting small, affordable works of art on display. Purchase these pieces for a holiday gift for a friend, family member or even yourself. In its fifth year, Small Works by Enormously Talented Artists will feature art of all mediums, all in miniature or small sizes. For a preview of some of the pieces on display, visit lafontsee.us.

As part of its upcoming 100th anniversary celebration, the Muskegon Museum of Art hosts Tiny Treasures, an exhibition featuring some of the museum collection's smallest and most intricate assets.

Since its dedication nearly one hundred years ago on June 21, 1912, the Muskegon Museum of Art continues to impress with its permanent collection and changing exhibitions featuring work by national and international artists. Tiny Treasures is no exception.

Collections Manager and Assistant Curator Art Martin handpicked pieces from the museum's permanent collection to be displayed as part of Tiny Treasures. He chose aesthetically pleasing pieces crafted by well-known and anonymous artists alike, and predicts the diverse exhibition will capture the imaginations of those who view it.

"[Tiny Treasures] grew out of us having a large number of pieces in our collection that were very small and that would normally get lost in an exhibit with larger pieces," Martin said. "I think that sometimes you will see things in a museum and they are easy to miss in the context of a show or bigger space; but in this more intimate space, they really get to be appreciated more for their intricacy. Here, you can appreciate them more for their scale and the work that went into them."

The exhibition features 72 pieces crafted between the 1400s and the late 1990s. To showcase the diversity of the museum's collection, Tiny Treasures has on display prints, paintings, sculptures and decorative objects. But Martin stresses the fun and quirkiness inherent in the exhibit.

Tiny Treasures Muskegon Museum of Art Cooper Gallery Through Feb. 19, 2012 $5-$7, free for members muskegonartmuseum.org, (231) 720-2570

"What I hope the casual viewer takes away from it is the sense of fun. To see somewhat casual subjects done so intricately ... Many of them are from a woman's collection of boxes from around the world. You can see something smaller than an acorn, a bowl of fruit that is blown glass ... odd, quirky little things."

Open docent-led tours of Tiny Treasures are offered on Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Reservations are not required.

In addition to Tiny Treasures, the museum will also host numerous other celebratory exhibitions throughout 2012, including New Art for the New Century, a collection of works not previously viewed by the public, and 50by50, a studio glass exhibit featuring 50 works by 50 artists who are said to shape the next 50 years of the movement.

"It really is going to be pulling out all the stops and touching on the past and what were hoping to do in the future," Martin said of the museum's momentous year ahead.

Pictured: Mabel Nano Keating Box Collection, Octagonal Box, Not dated, Silver. Bequest of Mabel Nano Keating

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Other Art Events
By Kristin Visser

Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy and Satire
Grand Rapids Art Museum
Through Jan. 15, 2012
$8, free for members
artmuseumgr.com, (616) 831-1000

As a celebration of Colescott's 60 years in print production, this exhibit of historical and contemporary events is full of his imagination as an artist. Colescott, a well-respected artist throughout the world, is known to be full of wit and complex techniques to interpret the historical and contemporary events.

Shimmerings of Light, Mysteries of Shadow
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Through Nov. 27, 2011
$5 suggested donation
kiarts.org, (269) 349-7775

Etching began in the 17th century then soon after fell into a lull. The art was revived in the 19th century, as it began to capture the moods of landscapes by just using lines and textures. The Shimmerings of Light, Mysteries of Shadow exhibit captures the etching that came about in the revival of the 19th century, it includes etches from James McNeill Whistler, Charles Meryon and Samuel Palmer. See how these artists are showing new ways of perceiving the world.