Personal Recollections: Gifts from Robert Dannin & Jolie Stahl
Friday March 27, 2015 - Sunday May 24, 2015
Barbara Kruger (American, born 1945), Untitled (We will no longer be seen and not heard), 1985, portfolio of 9 color prints. Gift of Jolie Stahl and Robert Dannin in honor of Isadora Dannin '14. Copyright: Barbara Kruger. Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, New York. (copy photo: R.J. Phil)
Inspired by anthropological theories of gift giving, Jolie Stahl and Robert Dannin recently donated a collection of 69 prints, photographs, and multiples to the Davison Art Center in honor of their daughter, Isadora Dannin '14. Their gift also included 26 rare photography books for Special Collections and Archives at Olin Library.
As Dannin explains, "The idea of gifting and re-gifting is basically that you are circulating it, nobody really possesses it, and this is…appropriate for a work of art…." Most of these prints, photographs, and books were originally personal gifts to Stahl and Dannin from the artists. Now the couple is "re-gifting" the work to Wesleyan. The spring exhibition, Personal Recollections, highlighted this fascinating gift, which includes artwork from New York in the 1980s and 1990s and iconic news photographs from members of the Magnum Photos cooperative.
Among the works in the exhibition were prints and multiples by Barbara Kruger, Richard Mock, and Kiki Smith, as well as photographs by Eve Arnold, Stuart Franklin, Steve McCurry, Nan Goldin, and Sebastião Salgado.