My Work

Art, Activism & Advocacy initiates a conversation about art’s changing role in our contemporary world. More and more, artists are using their artistic practice as a form of activism, turning their artwork into prominent statements of advocacy for themselves, their local communities and broader global populations.

American Modern: Works from the Collection of Alice C. Simkins surveys the brilliant innovations American artists brought forward in the first decades of the 20th century. This exhibition features 17 works on paper by artists including Oscar Bluemner, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joseph Stella, Helen Torr, and Max Weber.

The Stottlemyer collection of over 500 works, which comprises the core of the Juniata College Museum of Art permanent collection, includes 18th and 19th century American and European paintings, prints and drawings; 19th century Japanese color woodblock prints; and 18th – 20th century portrait miniatures.

More and more, contemporary artists are using their artistic practice as a form of social activism, turning their artwork into prominent statements of advocacy for themselves, their local communities and broader global populations. The artwork presented in this exhibition addresses national and international social justice issues and concerns.

A Maker’s Mark introduces a group of emerging and local artists that apply non-traditional methods to the typical instruments of art-making. Using a variety of innovative processes, these artists create objects that are layered in both surface and meaning. They take risks, explore alternative processes and confound expectations. They advance concepts and defy conventions, thereby redefining contemporary aesthetics.

This exhibition showcased the works of 11 international artists, each deeply embedded in a complex conversation with academic, art historical approaches through a range of diverse media. The challenge with these didactics—which were deliberately minimized in the gallery—was to provide a framework for interpretation without immediately offering (or forcing) a single perspective or "right" answer.

When you look at a painting, what makes it good or bad? Is it the way it looks, or how it makes you feel that’s most important to you? To be a great painter, does everything you paint have to be a masterpiece?

George Benjamin Luks (1867-1933) grappled with these very same questions. His canvases question conventional beauty, express frustration, and highlight social conditions at the turn of the 20th century. However, these paintings also betray a self-conscious desire for fame and success. Luks desperately wanted his art to please people.