Palmer Museum highlights recently acquired contemporary works in new exhibition

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State opened its second exhibition for the season, "Amazing Stories: Recent Acquisitions," on Jan. 12. The show features a diverse range of contemporary works recently acquired by the museum, and runs through May 26.

"Amazing Stories" highlights 18 prints by late 20th- and 21st-century artists whose work relies heavily on representation and visual storytelling. The complex prints are by an array of artists eager to share intensely personal tales or to communicate ideas about mixed identities and ethnic stereotypes, as well as multicultural and shared histories. The narrative modes vary widely, from penetrating political caricature, starkly conveyed in graphic black and white, to vibrant Pop-inflected allegories that draw in equal part on appropriation and invention.

"The impulse to tell stories can be witnessed throughout history and across cultures," said Palmer assistant director Joyce Robinson, who curated the exhibition. "Despite the rejection of narrative content in much of the avant-garde art of the last century, the last 40 years have seen a resurgence of interest in figurative art and storytelling."

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IMAGE: Provided / Roger Shimomura / Palmer Museum of Art
Roger Shimomura, Kansas Samurai, 2004, lithograph, 44 ¾ x 31 inches. Purchased with funds provided by the Sidney and Helen S. Friedman Endowment, 2018.12.