January 6, 2011

From January 12th to February 5th, The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery will house Alexandra’s Forgiveness, an exhibition of installations, photographs, videos and performance pieces by Israeli Glasshouse artists Lital Dotan and Eyal Perry. Dotan and Perry are coming as Stein recipients, a grant provided by the Louis and Bessy Stein Foundation to promote exchanges between Israeli universities and Drexel. There will be an opening reception on January 12th featuring a performance piece entitled “Our Bed” at 5 PM followed by the reception. Also in February, Art & Art History Professor Pia Brancaccio will host Sandhini Poddar for a lecture on Indian Art. Poddar is the Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the Guggenheim Museum and she will discuss India’s contemporary art scene. She will focus especially on new media and how the Guggenheim positions itself as an institution committed to emphasizing emerging trends in contemporary art from Asia.

A few months later, in conjunction with PIFA - Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts - the exhibition Brave New World: Fashion and Freedom, 1911-1919 will be at the Pearlstein Gallery from April 7th to May 7th 2011. This one of a kind exhibition will focus on the tumultuous years between 1911 through 1919; a period when the interplay between the fine arts and fashion was particularly strong. During this pivotal decade, fashion changed dramatically and adventurous style-leaders cut their hair, abandoned their corsets and adopted shorter skirts. Clare Sauro, the curator of Drexel’s Historic Costume Collection, has selected garments, with appropriate accessories, all from the Drexel Historic Costume Collection, to be displayed. As part of the exhibition we will welcome Rebecca Jumper Matheson, fashion historian and faculty member in the History of Art Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Matheson’s lecture “Beyond Romanticism: The Art, Commerce, and Modernity of Lucile” will focus on the couturière Lucile (Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, 1863-1935).