Current Exhibitions

Note: Based on guidance from the University System of Georgia (USG), all vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are encouraged to wear a face covering while inside campus facilities. Unvaccinated individuals are also strongly encouraged to continue to socially distance while inside campus facilities, when possible. Learn more. 

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  Ruth V. Zuckerman Collection: Inside Out

  Long-term display 

  Location: Ruth Zuckerman Pavilion 

  Curated by Teresa Bramlette Reeves

  For the preservation of artwork, museums must often hold their permanent collections in storage rather than on public view. "Visible storage," maintains necessary safe-keeping of the objects while allowing museum visitors to see and study work that would otherwise be unavailable. This installation employs visible storage to showcase a substantial number of Ruth Zuckerman's sculptures and drawings from the KSU Permanent Collection, while making aspects of a collection's care transparent for the public.

  • Learn more about the Ruth Zuckerman Collection

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  The Windgate Artists in Residence Inaugural Exhibition

  June 4 – July 30, 2022  

  Mortin Gallery

  The Zuckerman Museum of Art is pleased to present the work of artists Amy Pleasant, who served as the fall 2021 Windgate Artist-in-Residence, and Anthony Goicolea, who served as the spring 2022 Windgate Artist-in-Residence. Artwork created by the artists during their residency is featured in a summer exhibition at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. Additionally, one artwork from each artist will become part of the Zuckerman Museum of Art permanent collection and will be utilized as a teaching tool to further learning engagement and cultural enrichment opportunities across the KSU campus. The 2022 Windgate Artist-in-Residence exhibition was co-curated by MA Art & Design Museum Studies students Brandy Barker and Liliana Said under the direction of Cynthia Nourse Thompson. 

  The School of Art and Design at Kennesaw State University is grateful to the Windgate Foundation for choosing to invest in the future of our students. The Foundation's vision and contribution enabled KSU to develop the Windgate Foundation Artist Residency Program. This program is instrumental in providing our students with an experience of working with visiting professional artists in their field of study and growing as industry leaders. For six semesters through 2024, grant proceeds will be used to host professional artists at KSU, supporting the shared goals of the Windgate Foundation and the School of Art and Design to advance contemporary craft and strengthen visual arts education. KSU is fortunate to be able to offer students unique artist-in-resident experiences of this magnitude as part of their scheduled curriculum. The generous gift from the Windgate Foundation enables KSU to host internationally known artists to lead and inspire students through art-making and to share that art and inspiration with the community at large. Through the Foundation's continued support of the School of Art and Design, we can offer the highest level of artistic excellence and quality to our students, community, and visiting artists.

  • About Anthony Goicolea
    Anthony Goicolea is a first-generation Cuban American artist who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Anthony utilizes a variety of media- including painting, photography, sculpture and video installation- in the creation of his compelling and many times foreboding visual narratives. Goicolea will discuss his work in these varied mediums and the principal ideas and explorations addressed in his work which include personal history, heritage, identity and cultural tradition. These are reflective of his own personal familial experiences— his extended family fled Cuba, not long after Castro came to power, and immigrated to the US. His works are also powerful and engaging contemplations on displacement and alienation.
  • About Amy Pleasant
    Amy Pleasant received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University (1999).

    She has held solo exhibitions at Geary Contemporary (NYC/Millerton, NY), Laney Contemporary (Savannah, GA), Institute 193 (Lexington, KY), Jeff Bailey Gallery (Hudson/NYC), whitespace gallery (Atlanta, GA), Augusta University (Columbus, GA), Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IN), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), Atlanta Contemporary (GA), Auburn University’s School of Liberal Arts (AL), Rhodes College (Memphis, TN),  Candyland (Stockholm, Sweden), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (AL) among others.

    Group shows include Brackett Creek Exhibitions (Bozeman, MT), Hesse Flatow (NYC), SEPTEMBER (Hudson, NY), Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami, FL), Tif Sigfrids (Athens, GA),  Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.), Adams and Ollman (Portland, OR), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (AL), Cuevas Tilleard Projects (NYC), The Dodd Galleries (Athens, GA), Zuckerman Museum of Art (GA), Knoxville Museum of Art (TN), Weatherspoon Museum of Art (NC), Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), Columbus Museum of Art (GA), National Museum of Women in the Arts (D.C.), The Mobile Museum of Art (AL), and the U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic.

    Her work has been reviewed in publications such as World Sculpture News, Sculpture, The Brooklyn Rail, Art in America, Artforum, Art Papers, Bad at Sports and BURNAWAY.

    Awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2018), South Arts Prize for the State of Alabama (2018), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2015), Mary Hambidge Distinguished Artist Award (2015), Cultural Alliance of Birmingham Individual Artist Fellowship (2008), and Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship (2019/2003).

    Her first monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, was released in 2019, co-published by Institute 193 and Frank.

    Pleasant also co-founded the curatorial initiative The Fuel And Lumber Company with artist Pete Schulte in 2013.

    Her work has been reviewed in many publications including Art in America, Art Papers, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail and Sculpture. 
    Add: Exhibition Closing Reception date and information: Friday, July 29, 5:00 pm to 7:30 pm

   

  • Learn more about the Windgate Artists in Residence Inaugural Exhibition

ZMA Project Wall Installations:

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  Project Wall East: Kayte Terry

  August 28, 2021—July 30, 2022

  The ZMA is pleased to present a newly commissioned work by Philadelphia artist Kayte Terry.

  Terry’s work examines the literal and figurative boundaries of the body. Through photography, video, collage, installation and object-making, she unravels issues of illness, family, memory, longing and loss. The patchwork of materials she uses form a personal language that speaks to the fuzzy intersection of personal desires and cultural expectations as seen in the work on display. As a queer woman living with a cluster of auto-immune diseases, she is interested in making the invisible illness visible, as well as finding beauty in pain and restriction. Most recently,  she  explores inter-dependency and love, particularly through d/s, communal and ethically non-monogamous relationships. Terry often pieces together materials that are imprinted with the shape of the body such as socks, gloves, and her own skin with materials like shower curtains, balloons and fashion magazines. The patchwork of these materials form a personal language that speaks to the obscured intersection of her own personal desires and feminine cultural expectations.

  • About the Artist

    Kayte Terry studied Art History and Women’s Studies at Simon’s Rock College of Bard and received her MFA in Studio Art at University of the Arts. She has also studied abroad with the School for International Training in Fortaleza, Brazil and at the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy. Kayte has been in group shows in New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA and Seattle, WA, including the show Adorned: Beauty in Excess at Joy Pratt Markham Gallery at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, AK. Most recently, Kayte has been a visiting artist in grad programs at Mass Arts in Boston, MA and University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Kayte is also a member of the art collective Little Berlin in Philadelphia, where she has curated several shows.  

   

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  Project Wall West: Jamele Wright Sr.

  August 28, 2021— July 30, 2022

  Curatorial Project Director: Emily Knight 

  The ZMA is pleased to present a newly commissioned work, ReBORN #4.02 by Atlanta artist Jamele Wright, Sr.

   Wright creates abstract works that explore the Black American vernacular experience that also generate dialogue regarding the Black American experience in the South.  Wright collects and combines found materials, Dutch Wax cloth, and Georgia red clay to create conversations surrounding family, tradition, and the spiritual relationship between Africa and the South. The ZMA is thrilled to support a local artist of merit through this commission. 
   
  From February 22 to July 30, 2022, the ZMA is pleased to present an additional new work by Wright on the Project Wall North by the artist, in association with the large-scale commissioned work.

  • About the Artist

    Born and raised in Ohio, at the age of 22, Jamele Wright Sr. moved with his family to Atlanta, Georgia. While raising a family, Jamele produced art, jazz, and poetry events throughout Atlanta. Realizing that many young artists were not being represented, he started a gallery called the Neo-Renaissance Art House. After curating the gallery for over a year, Jamele was inspired to pursue his own artistic career. After several solo and group exhibitions, Mr. Wright graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in Art History. He concentrated on African and African American Contemporary Art. Jamele graduated with an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York. He completed a fellowship at Project for Empty Spaces in Newark, New Jersey. In August 2020, Wright was one of three artists selected for a collaboration between MARTA Artbound and Decatur Arts Alliance to create public artworks for the East Lake, Decatur, and Avondale MARTA stations. Wright's work will be featured in the upcoming Marietta Cobb Museum of Art (MCMA) exhibition, The Four Elements: A Group Exhibition, on view from April 10, 2020, through June 20, 2021. The artist is represented by September Gray Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia.  

     
    “My work is concerned with the Black American vernacular experience. The work entails collecting found materials, Georgia red clay, and Dutch Wax cloth, by creating a conversation between family, tradition, the spiritual and material relationship between Africa and the South. My process is influenced by the way Hip Hop gathers different cultures through sampling and is charged with an energy channeled and passed through the Pan African lineage. The “In Transit” Series and my textile work is inspired by the Great Migration of Black Americans, who left the familiar in the hope of something better.”

     — Jamele Wright, Sr.