Apr 09, 2018 |
The exhibition “Merton & Lax: Image and Word,” which originated at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, opens at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 13.
The opening is part of the Center’s M&T Second Friday special events series. The exhibition will remain on view until Aug. 26, 2018.
The exhibition, consisting of works of the Catholic writer and theologian Thomas Merton and his friend Robert Lax, an Olean native and poet who spent much of his life pursuing a simple existence on the Greek island of Patmos, ran at St. Bonaventure’s Quick Center from May to September 2017. It was curated by Anthony Bannon, director emeritus of the Burchfield Penney Art Center and a 1964 graduate of St. Bonaventure, and Paul Spaeth, Rare Books and Special Collections librarian at St. Bonaventure, curator of the Thomas Merton Archives, and the founder/curator of the Robert Lax Archives.
The friendship between Merton and Lax, who met as students at Columbia University, was based on a set of innate sensibilities that flowered in each in somewhat different ways. Though both were drawn to the written word, and both were drawn to a withdrawal from the world at large, each was drawn to photographic and graphic images as a means of expression.
The exhibition consists of a complete display of a publication that Lax edited in New York City between 1956 and 1962 called “Pax.” Merton was one of the main contributors, along with many other famous writers and graphic artists of the time, including Jack Kerouac.
Along with these printed broadsides there is a selection of photography by Merton and Lax. This marks the first time that the work of these two friends has been displayed together and the first time a major selection of Lax photography has been displayed at all.
Admission to the Burchfield Penney Art Center is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens (age 62 and older) and $5 for students with proper identification. Children age 10 and under will be admitted for free when accompanied by a paid adult or senior citizen admission.
The Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State is located at 1300 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.
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