Andrea Dezsö: The Visitors

The Museum of Art is excited to open The Visitors, a new exhibition that brings together new works by Andrea Dezsö, the 2019–2020 halley k harrisburg ’90 and Michael Rosenfeld Artist-in-Residence, with objects from the Museum’s collection and from the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum. Curated by the artist during her residency and organized in collaboration with Zac Wilson ’20 and Jackie Brown, The Visitors puts viewers in the company of imagined beings, magical spirits, and hidden forces as part of the artist’s ongoing exploration of the undisclosed presences that inhabit our world. Dezsö’s engagement with the unseen and supernatural guided her curation of the figurines and ceramics from the Museum of Art and ivory tupilak figures from the Arctic Museum. These works accompany a new series of watercolors completed during her residency.

Currently Professor of Art at Hampshire College, Dezsö’s work includes incredibly intricate multi-layered paper tunnel books, large-scale public art installations, drawings, paintings, cut paper, embroidery, animation, sculpture, and more. Dezsö’s large-scale public mosaic, Community Garden, installed at the Bedford Park Boulevard subway station in New York City was awarded the Best American Public Art prize in 2007. Born and raised in the Transylvania region of Communist Romania, Dezsö has exhibited her work at major museums, galleries, and venues in New York, San Francisco, Miami, France, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea. Her illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Harper's, Newsweek, and Time. In a review of Dezsö’s exhibition of tunnel books and embroidery in ARTNews, Lea Feinstein said that “Tim Burton and Frida Kahlo are kindred spirits . . . she is fanciful and inventive, her draftsmanship is exquisite and her sense of humor acidic.” 

Now in its fifth year, the halley k harrisburg ’90 and Michael Rosenfeld Artist-in-Residence program brings visual artists to campus to work directly with students. During her residency, Dezsö worked in the Edwards Art Center alongside Zac Wilson, a visual arts major, who authored the labels for The Visitors and who assisted her in the printmaking studio. Dezsö was also able to explore the collections at the Museum of Art and the Arctic Museum over the summer, opening up exciting conversations about how artists engage with museum collections. “I feel a genuine connection with the anonymous artists and artisans who lived centuries ago, whose powerful artifacts I had the privilege of working with,” commented Dezsö. During her fall visit to campus, she met with visual arts classes at the Museum to talk about how such collections influence her practice. “Creating the exhibition has been a collaborative process involving students, faculty, and Museum of Art staff. It’s been exciting and deeply rewarding.”

Jackie Brown, Marvin H. Green, Jr. Assistant Professor of Art, Bowdoin College

Sean P. Burrus, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, Bowdoin College Museum of Art