The Cornell Fine Arts Museum Presents the First Exhibition of The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art

Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956/Chile), Muxima (film stills), 2005, digital film with sound. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Lelong, New York, NY. On view at “Fractures Narratives,” Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park.

Winter Park. “Fractured Narratives: A Strategy to Engage” is the first exhibition inspired by The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College. The exhibition features work by established and emerging artists who address contemporary global issues such as privacy, modern warfare, the environment and freedom of expression. The selected works offer diverse and nuanced considerations of the changing political, cultural, psychological and social context of the past 10 years.

“Fractured Narratives” includes works from The Alfond Collection as well as from major loans. Co-curated by Cornell Fine Arts Museum curator Amy Galpin and independent curator Abigail Ross Goodman, it features works of film, photography, painting, sculpture and sound by 14 artists from around the world, including Dawoud Bey, Omer Fast, Eric Gottesman, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Amar Kanwar, William Kentridge, An-My Lê, Maya Lin, Goshka Macuga, Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), Rivane Neuenschwander, Trevor Paglen and Martha Rosler.

The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College was established by Barbara and Ted Alfond (Rollins class of 1968) in 2013. It includes more than 220 works by established and emerging artists. Many works are on rotating display at the nearby Alfond Inn, a 112-room boutique hotel owned by Rollins College. Since opening in August 2013, net proceeds from the Alfond Inn have been directed to The Alfond Scholars program fund, which has awarded three full scholarships to date.

Among the works in the exhibition, Kanwar’s Listening Bench #1 (2013), constructed from reclaimed wood from a 19^th-century organ found in a chapel on the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, stands out. The audio element of the piece explores environmental and labor issues related to mining in Odisha, an eastern state in India, with stories of the community told by the artist and ambient sound. Also of note is Muxima (2005), a video work by Jaar. It is titled after an Angolan folk song that means “heart” and encourages viewers to ponder the power of music as images of landmines, the AIDS crisis and the remnants of colonialism in Angola are evoked through fragmented vignettes. “Fractures Narratives” opens on Sept. 17 and is on view through Jan. 4, 2015.