PURCHASE, NY.- Popular for hundreds of years, still life paintings containing arrangements of inanimate natural objects – fruits, game, vegetables, flowers -- and manmade objects – books, pipes, cutlery, and porcelain -- often were used as symbolic reminders of life's transience or by the artist solely to explore color, texture, and composition. In the 20th century, however, still life moved off the wall into three dimensions, challenging conventional notions of the still-life genre. Using diverse mediums such as sculpture, installation art, conceptual art, and multi-media works, still life was transformed and expanded.

Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life, a new exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art | Purchase College, examines the phenomenon of still-life as a genre recast in recent years. Layered with heroic, social, political, personal and psychological meaning, this exhibition displays work by 31 artists who push the boundaries. The objects on view contain traditional elements -- baskets, bell jars, books, bottles, candles, containers, eyeglasses, flowers, food, goblets, shells, skulls, and tables. But rather than focus on conventional meanings inherent to the genre, the work is created in a wide range of media that convey multiple aspects of our complex contemporary world. Shifting cultural values and socio-political issues concerning affluence, ecological pollution, homelessness, sexuality, endangered mental health, and spiritual and moral decline, are all addressed.

“Considering contemporary artists through the lens of history for this particular investigation, we expanded from the study of a few artists whose work overtly draws upon the genre and subverts its symbolism and fixed meanings, to looking at many more artists whose work would not initially be associated with still life,” notes Dede Young, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Neuberger Museum of Art. “When viewed all together, the objects in this exhibition show us not only an expanded view of still life, but a transition in recent art that is open to broad interpretation.” Some examples:

Dede: I suspect that the following examples speak more to the “expanded view of still life” than the “transition in recent art that is open to broad interpretation.” SO, if you would add some commentary to these examples – or give a couple of others – I’d really appreciate it. If you could get this back to me by Thursday with your changes, I’ll then send it to Thom and Anne. Much appreciated!

It soon becomes apparent that Orange Hole, the sculpture created by Beverly Semmes that looks like a bright red velvet slip dress fastened to the wall, could never be worn. Too long, too narrow, and there’s a hole cut into its middle on which ceramic pottery rests. “It’s the female siren’s call,” notes Young. “A highly feminist piece that is eccentric and sensual. There’s a hole that punctures the dream and that’s where the vessel stands. Is woman a procreator or provocateur?”

Tony Feher creates sculpture from found or disposable materials, deploying them in repetitive arrangements. His untitled (2006) is a startling work comprised of 19 hanging plastic bottles, half filled with colored fluids reminiscent of human waste and hospital IVs bags – castoffs of a throw-away society.

Jean Blackburn riddles her sculptures, made of everyday objects like vases and spoons, with holes – rendering them useless. These deconstructed household items have their own beauty beyond their original function and one is left to mentally reconstruct a new ideal. “I manipulate everyday objects to undercut their physicality and suggest that they, like we, are in a process of redefinition,” Blackburn once wrote. “They are meant to echo domestic relationships and situations."

Robert Gober’s short, thick Untitled Candle (1991) is flecked with human hair at its base, to be exact human hair store bought from a wig supplier-- as the artist sexualizes a simple object as he considers issues of mortality, AIDS, loss, sexuality, and religion. “There are issues here of spirit and vulnerability and concern for the human body,” Young points out.

The squashed silver coffee pot hanging from the ceiling next to a similar one in pristine condition in Cornelia Parker’s Alter Ego (Posh Coffee Poor Tea) 2004, takes up the issue of class distinction. “This is a commentary on what lasts. The coffee pot which prevails is clearly a pot used by servants, while the unblemished piece reminds us of the ruling class. It’s a little like ‘Upstairs Downstairs,’ and it’s Parker’s interpretation on what lasts,” Young says.

Jonathan Seliger’s All of My Eggs (2006), a stretched out, elongated, brightly colored basket is a reference, she says, to fertility. “It portrays a tall basket of eggs, but if you were to put all of your eggs in this basket, some might survive, but most would not. So, it has currency. It reflects life – you take your chances.” Using Pop and Minimalist references, it also is a commentary on consumer culture.

Other artists in the exhibition include David Bierk, Nancy Bowen, Sophie Calle, Michelle Charles, Emily Eveleth, Suzy Gomez, Subodh Gupta, Ann Hamilton, Julie Heffernan, John Kalymnios, Richard Klein, Charles Long, Liza Lou, Josiah McElheny, Peggy Preheim, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Jane Simpson, Jessica Stockholder, George Stoll, Yoshihiro Suda, and Maria Tomasula. Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life will be on view in the Museum’s South Gallery until January 21, 2007.