Volumes: Stella Waitzkin +Rita Barros
Stella Waitzkin began her career in the 1940s studying painting and drawing with Abstract Expressionists Hans Hoffman and Willem de Kooning in New York City. In the 1960s and 1970s, her ways of working expanded into the disciplines of sculpture, performance art, and film. During this time, Waitzkin’s work flourished under the roof of Manhattan’s cultural landmark, the Hotel Chelsea, a haven for creatives of all walks including Beat writers, jazz and rock musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists.
Over decades, Stella fashioned her own personal vision, composing the walls of her small fourth floor apartment with a library of colorful, cast-resin books and other sculptural objects. In 2007, with the help of the Waitzkin Memorial Trust, the Arts Center became home to an elaborate three-wall section of the artist’s Chelsea environment, and in 2016 acquired more than 100 additional works of Stella’s that will be on view this year.
Photographer Rita Barros (NY) has lived on the tenth floor of the Chelsea since 1980, occupying the apartment where Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey. For more than three decades, Barros has documented the vibrant and ever evolving spirit of the hotel through portraits of neighbors, guests, and friends. Her photographic and written response illuminated the bohemian community that fortified aspects of both her and Stella’s work.
Read a special Q & A from the responder, Rita Barros, in our gallery handout.
The Artists
The Responders
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding was also provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., Herzfeld Foundation and Sargento Foods Inc. The Arts Center thanks its many members for their support of exhibitions and programs through the year. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) organization; donations are tax deductible.
The Road Less Traveled 50th anniversary program was conceived by Amy Horst, deputy director for programming. The exhibitions series was organized and curated by Arts Center Curator Karen Patterson. Special thanks to Emily Schlemowitz, assistant curator, for the curation of Driftless: Nick Engelbert & Ernest Hüpeden and Folk & Fable: Levi Fisher Ames & Albert Zahn, and Amy Chaloupka, guest curator of The World in a Garden: Nek Chand and Volumes: Stella Waitzkin.
