Michelle Holzapfel: Chronicles 1977–2017

NOVEMBER 5, 2027 – MARCH 18, 2028

CURATOR: DAVIRA S. TARAGIN

Michelle Holzapfel. Photo: David Holzapfel

Ingenue Vase, 2000. Butternut and American walnut, 10 x 6 x 6 in. Collection of Ken Spitzbard and Keisha Wardlaw Spitzbard. Photo: David Holzapfel

Georgia O Vase, 1998. Cherry burl, 13 x 12.5 x 5 in. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gift of John and Robyn Horn, 2012.405. Photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Thomas R. DuBrock

Cushioned Bowl #2, 1998. “Fiddleback” sugar maple, 6 .75 x 11.25 x 10.5 in. Collection of Wendy Evans Joseph. Photo: David Holzapfel

Self-Portrait, 1987. Cherry burl, 15 x 9 x 8 in. The Center for Art in Wood Museum Collection, Donated by Marina Kaiser, OBJ 1236. Photo: John Carlano

Collector’s Vase, 1998/2012. Vase, 1996: split-leaf maple burl, ebonized American walnut, yellow birch, cherry burl, and gilt; base, 2012: maple, Vase: 23 x 14 x 14 in. Collection of Fleur Bresler. Photo: David Holzapfel

Pandora’s Box, 1995. Basswood, birch, American walnut, and waxed linen, 15 x 11 x 11 in. Collection of Barbara Tober. Photo: David Holzapfel

Going well beyond her contemporaries in advancing the conceptual in turned-wood objects, Michelle Holzapfel’s carved, sometimes lathe-turned vessels and three-dimensional reliefs tell stories. Finding inspiration in her upbringing, marriage, family life, and a myriad of far-reaching interests, Holzapfel mines art history, popular culture, mainstream literature, and mythology for the vocabulary to create artworks that serve as metaphors for self and identity. At times, she addresses society’s inequities, some of which she has experienced firsthand. Her passion for making and consummate craftsmanship resonates throughout.

The first comprehensive examination of Holzapfel’s groundbreaking career, Michelle Holzapfel: Chronicles 1977-2017 will document her development, standing among contemporary woodturners, and recognition within the larger studio craft movement. The pluralism of 1970s art, with its wide variety of styles ranging from intense realism bordering on illusionism to pattern and surface decoration to body and performance art, exerted an enormous influence on Holzapfel during her formative years and ultimately informed her entire aesthetic. Guest-curated by Davira S. Taragin, this show will be unique in its evaluation of Holzapfel’s career and oeuvre within the context of the intersection of craft, art, and gender of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries.

Michelle Holzapfel: Chronicles 1977–2017 is generously supported by the Cambium Giving Society of the Museum for Art in Wood, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Bresler Foundation, The Klorfine Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Windgate Foundation.