FOR A BOOKLET published on the occasion of the third Hairy Who exhibition in Chicago, in 1968, Karl Wirsum drew a woman whose head has been replaced by a mandala not a groovy meditative symbol but a pulsating, agitated, electrified pattern vibrating in red, blue, yellow, and green. This must have been what the inside of Wirsum’s mind looked like: protean and always switched on. For sixty years from his graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1961, through his association with the Hairy Who in the mid to late ’60s, and right up to his death on May 6 Wirsum produced a legion
Two exhibitions of paintings are on display at the Reece Museum of East Tennessee State University â one by art professor Christian Rieben and another by Johnson City artist Joy McGinnis.
âFolly: recent work by Christian Riebenâ is on exhibit through July 2, and âMoments of Illuminationâ by McGinnis continues through July 30. The museum is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Special Sunday hours will be held on June 6 and July 11 from 1-4 p.m. Admission is free.
In âFolly,â Rieben, a visiting assistant professor in ETSUâs Department of Art and Design, paints a world where whimsy and tragedy cohabitateâwhere Lewis Carroll meets Carl Jung, and the bluebells toll for thee. Overall, Rieben says his work could be divided into two categories â those politically motivated and not politically motivated.