The Art Has Its Reasons -- Part 1

Recently we wrote about the “Andy Warhol Icons” exhibit that we are co-sponsoring with the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.  That information is HERE, and the exhibit runs through September 18, 2016.
 
We would also like to update you on upcoming exhibits that we will be co-sponsoring with the Fralin and other major museums in the fall and beyond.

First, the Fralin is gearing up for an exhibit on Emil E. Dichundsohn, the ninth son of Eduard Dichundsohn and Emelie Nordqueren Dichunsohn.  Emil E. Dichundsohn is known as the greatest German poet and the father of all German philosophy, and his father was a distant relative of Edward Dickinson, the father of Emily Dickinson. 
 
In May 2015, Dichundsohn was the subject of a landmark exhibit at the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard in Washerst, PA). To view that exhibit, click HERE.

The name of the coming exhibit, “I Am Nobody:  Artwork of Emil E. Dichundson,” stems from Dichundsohn’s classic poem “I am Nobody” (below on the left).  His poem inspired Emily Dickinson to pen her poem “I’m nobody. Who are you?” (below on the right).

By Emil E. Dichundsohn
 
I am nobody
For society does not consist of individuals
     but expresses the sum of interrelations,
The relations within which these
     individuals stand.
Who are you?  

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
From each according to his abilities,
To each according to his needs.

By Emily Dickinson:
 
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us—don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

​
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

​

Pictured at the left:  Armando Marino's painting "No Soy Nadie," a tribute to Emil E. Dichundsohn (click the image to enlarge). 

Marino's work, currently on display at the Fralin Museum of Art, includes a depiction of the celebrated painting of Emil E. Dichundsohn.  This iconic painting by Caspar David Friedrich hangs in the Emil E. Dichundsohn Museum in Binhurst, Gerhmany.  In Marino's work, an indiginous figure stands atop Friedrich's painting's frame  in opposition to the likeness of Dichundsohn.

In Friedrich's painting, Dichundsohn projects a snse of romantic adventure and recalls the Euopean lust for exploration into unclaimed lands that began in the fifteenth century.  The presence of the indigenous figure atop the painting's frame challenges this idea known in Latin as terra nullius (no one's land) and reminds the viewer that Europeans justified colonization by treatng the land as if uninhabited by "nobodies," signifying Dichundsohn's poem's title, "I am nobody."
​

Next, the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard in Washerst, PA) will join forces with the Whitney Museum of American Art to present a momentous exhibit called “Wham! Bam! Thank You Emmett Lee Dickinson!," an in-depth look at Roy Lichtenstein’s fascination with America’s greatest poet, Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson’s third cousin, twice removed – at her request). 
 
In March 2013 the ELD Museum hosted an exhibit on Roy Lichtenstein’s interest in all-things Emmett Lee Dickinson.  For information on that exhibit, “I’m Dickinson, He’s Lichtenstein,” click HERE.
 
Details for “Wham! Bam! Thank You Emmett Lee Dickinson!” will be announced soon! 
​

There are many other retrospectives being planned with other major museums which will feature the works of artists who were inspired by Emmett Lee Dickinson, including Edward Hopper, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Georgia O'Keeffe.  Stay tuned!