By NATALYA CHERNYAK
Waltham Times Contributing Writer
The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is among the nation’s premier university museums dedicated to 20th and 21st century art.
With its international collections, changing exhibitions and diverse public programs, the Rose affirms and advances the values of freedom of expression and social justice.
These themes are reflected in the museum’s new exhibitions: “Hugh Hayden: Home Work,” “Lichtenstein100” and “Face to Face: Portraits of Self and Others.”
Hugh Hayden (b. 1983, Dallas, TX) has become a leading artist of his generation.
In the artist’s first solo exhibition in New England, “Hugh Hayden: Home Work” surveys Hayden’s work over the last decade. It includes a bold, site-responsive installation newly conceived for the Rose Art Museum. “Home Work” focuses on the artist’s exploration of the American dream, its pathways and architecture.
Hayden states, “All of my work is about the American dream, whether it’s a table that’s hard to sit at or a thorny school desk. It’s a dream that is seductive but difficult to inhabit.”
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) is a key figure in the pop art movement.
“Lichtenstein100” showcases work in the museum’s permanent collection, including Lichtenstein’s iconic 1962 painting “Forget It! Forget Me!” alongside ephemera, photography. and other source material, shedding light on Lichtenstein’s lasting impact on art history and popular culture.
Near the entrance museum visitors can read the artist’s motto, which prepares them to see his work: “’I was very excited about, and interested in, the highly emotional content yet detached impersonal handling of love, hate, war, etc., in these cartoon images.”
“Face to Face: Portraits of Self and Others” explores photographic portraits by a diverse range of artists, primarily from the museum’s collection. The exhibit explores the artist’s role in capturing personal and collective identities while igniting questions about intersectionality and the evolving nature of the photographic medium.
Visitors walking through the exhibition will see that some photos present fragmented self-portraits while others feature conventional or alternative family portraits, which represent intimacy, love and desire.
Tours of the museum led by the its education coordinator Yasmine Vera and Madeleine Day Delpha, its assistant director of programs and community engagement, are scheduled for Oct. 23 and Nov. 1 at 12:30 p.m.
These tours will discuss artworks on view in the exhibitions “Lichtenstein100” and “Face to Face: Portraits of Self and Others” that touch on American value systems, radical and revolutionary action, and civil rights.
Also, the museum on Oct. 27 will host a virtual screening of Michael Blackwood’s 1975 documentary “Roy Lichtenstein” in honor of the artist’s 100th birthday.
Register for the tours and virtual screening through the Rose Art Museum’s website.