Nationality American Name Terry Adkins | Education Fisk University | |
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Full Name Terry Roger Adkins Born May 9, 1953 Washington, D.C. Known for American artist, Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania Awards 2009 Rome Prize
2008 USA Fellows Died February 7, 2014, New York City, New York, United States Books Terry Adkins: January 22-March 28, 1999 | ||
Terry adkins lone wolf recital corps muffled drums lynch
Terry Roger Adkins (May 9, 1953 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist. He was Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Washington, D.C.
Contents
- Terry adkins lone wolf recital corps muffled drums lynch
- Why the civil war still matters to american artists terry adkins
- Early life
- Career
- Death and legacy
- Awards
- Exhibitions
- References
Why the civil war still matters to american artists terry adkins
Early life
Adkins was born in Washington on May 9, 1953, into a musical household. His father, Robert H. Adkins, a chemistry and science teacher and Korean War veteran, sang and played the organ; his mother, Doris Jackson, a nurse, was an amateur clarinetist and pianist. Adkins' grandfather was the Rev. Andrew Adkins, pastor of the historic Albert Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. His aunt Alexandra Alexander was a mathematician and NSA code breaker. His uncle Dr. Rutherford Adkins, a former Tuskegee Airman with the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group, flew 14 combat missions and eventually became Fisk University's 11th president.
As a young man, Adkins planned to be a musician, but in college he found himself drawn increasingly to visual art. Mentored by Aaron Douglas and Martin Puryear, he earned a B.S. in printmaking from Fisk University in Nashville, followed by an M.S. in the field from Illinois State University and an M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Kentucky.
Career
Adkins was an interdisciplinary artist whose practice included sculpture, performance, video, and photography. His artworks were often inspired by, dedicated to, or referred to musicians or musical instruments; specific installations and exhibitions were sometimes labeled "recitals." Sometimes, these arrangements of sculptures were "activated" in performances by Adkins' collaborative performance group, the Lone Wolf Recital Corps.
He led the Lone Wolf Recital Corps that premiering works at ICA London, Rote Fabrik, Zurich, New World Symphony, Miami, P.S.1 MOMA, and ICA Philadelphia.
Many of his works draw from the biographies of little known historical figures; his 2011 exhibition Nutjuitok (Polar Star) is based on the life of a black Arctic explorer named Matthew Henson who reached the North Pole with Robert Peary at the turn of the 20th century. In other cases, Adkins' works focus on obscure details in the lives of seminal figures such as the African American writer, activist and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, whose famous speech "Socialism and the American Negro" (1960) is invoked in the 2003-2008 installation Darkwater Record.
Adkins' work has been exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and is in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the Tate Modern in London. In 2012 he had a major retrospective at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. His work was also featured at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1) in Queens, the LedisFlam Gallery in Brooklyn and elsewhere.
Death and legacy
Adkins died of heart failure in Brooklyn, New York, in February 2014; he was 60 years old.