Coming to the Benton Museum of Art: 'Dotted Dialogues'

The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut at Storrs will open Sept. 1 with the new exhibition Dotted Dialogues: Contemporary Indigenous Art from Central Australia.

The exhibition, which was curated by the students in the Spring 2015 Anthropological Perspectives in Art class under the direction of Professor Françoise Dussart, presents paintings and sculptures that incorporate traditional iconography of the Aboriginal culture and reveal ancestral stories that reconnect indigenous communities with their ancestors, their land, and their heritage, while also sharing it with others.

The Speak Up! Speak Out! Bread & Puppet Theater exhibit will remain on view through Oct. 11. The 50-year retrospective of the theater company’s work features their activist responses to fundamental political and social issues that have defined American culture, including the war in Vietnam; Central American turmoil and Liberation Theology; the politics of black liberation as represented by the Attica prison uprising and the M.O.V.E. family in Philadelphia; opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear power; and the war in Iraq.

The Benton will be closed for Labor Day weekend, Sept. 5, 6, and 7.

FREE PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Outdoor Film Series
September 2, 7:30 pm: Brother Bread, Sister Puppet
September 9, 7:15 pm: Across the Universe
September 16, 7:05 pm: Film to be announced
Rain date: September 23, 7 pm

September 15, 12:30 pm
Gallery Talk by Dr. John Bell, Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry

September 23, 12:30 pm
Gallery Talk by the Student Curators of Dotted Dialogues

September 25, 5 to 7 pm
The Salon at the Benton: A discussion of Dotted Dialogues

COMING EXHIBITIONS: Oct. 22 through Dec. 20, 2015
• The 49th Annual Art Department Faculty Exhibition
• Sacred Sisters: In Praise of Art and Poetry. Visual artist Holly Trostle Brigham and award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson combine their talents to explore issues of gender and creativity, religion and history, and the connections between the visual and literary arts.

The William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut’s official state art museum, is located at the University of Connecticut, 245 Glenbrook Rd., Storrs. HOURS: Tuesday through Friday: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday: 1 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.

For information, call 860-486-4520 or log on to benton.uconn.edu