Brodigan Gallery Exhibitions
By design, the exhibits at the Christopher Carey Brodigan Gallery complement those at The de Menil Gallery by bringing the work of contemporary artists to campus. Located on the first floor of the Dining Hall, the Brodigan Gallery features a more rapidly changing exhibit schedule, and the exhibiting artists often conduct workshops for Groton art classes.
even a woman or a slave
Ceramics by Kristina Batiste
January – March , 2025
“even a woman or a slave” is based on a “throwaway” line from Aristotle’s Poetics, the classic treatise on storytelling: “Even a woman or a slave can be a good character, even though women are inferior beings and slaves are basically worthless.”
"That word, ‘even,’ got under my skin, because it really betrays the pervasiveness of that idea that women and people who are slaves or are powerless—take the word slave as you will—are incapable of really being the main character, of really carrying the story,” said Ms. Batiste. “That’s so important, because the stories we tell are not just the stories we tell. They shape the world we live in. And so I wanted to create these sculptures in opposition to that and show that, yes, even someone who looks like me can carry those things."
Effulgence
Works on paper by Fred Liang
January 13–March 6, 2020
Fred Liang's work, using traditional Chinese paper cutting or Jianzhi as well as Song Dynasty scroll paintings, intertwines Eastern and Western philosophy, art and science, and both ephemeral and concrete references to places near and far.
Some pieces examine the interwoven connections between Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Nature, and Taoist poetry, which merges the intellect and soul through their relationship with nature’s forces large and small. Liang believes that self-expression, identity, and social structure are rooted in nature’s rhythms and sow the seeds for our creative and spiritual existence.