Exhibition

Jim Hodges’ Unearthed is a monumental bronze cast of an uprooted tree stump. The truncated form resonates with majesty while also serving as a mournful reminder of humankind’s impact upon the natural world. The sculpture is suspended in stillness, suggesting what might have been above, stretching branches that had reached into the air towards the sun that once contained life in green and barky rough wildness. With this implication, and through our interaction with the sculpture, Unearthed opens generative thought toward relationships between environments and their communities. The work beckons us to consider fragility, ephemerality, as well as the sacredness of life. 

This work-in-becoming had its first residency in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral in 2019. Imagine that in the confines of that edifice the sculpture absorbed metaphysical power from everyday spiritual practice, from a celebration of life observed in rites of faith, musical performances, readings, by a community’s presence, participation, and social interaction. Unearthed has its second residency at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University, providing the academic and regional community an occasion to approach the work through intentional participation. 

In time, its roots will be reunited with the ground through burial, transferring its accumulated goodwill charged with incorporeal memories and energies into the Earth. Only its severed trunk will remain visible, indicating a new role in nature. 

Organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU. Funding for this exhibition is provided by the Walla Walla Foundry, Les and Carolyn Stephens, Sharon and Craig Campbell, Greg and Ronna Bell, the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Endowment, and friends of the museum.

About the Artist

Since the late 1980s, Jim Hodges has created a broad range of work exploring themes of fragility, temporality, love, and death, using an original and poetic vocabulary. His works frequently deploy various materials and techniques, from found objects to more traditional media, such as graphite, ink, gold leaf, and mirrored elements. Although now internationally renowned, Hodges’s formative years were spent in Spokane, Washington, where he explored the woods around his childhood home and became receptive to nature and the visual world around him. The artist lives and works between New York City and Milan, Italy.  

From 2013 to 2015, Hodges was the subject of a major touring retrospective, Give More Than You Take, which started in Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas and toured to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California.  

Hodges’ works are included in prominent collections internationally, including Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, USA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and Musee National, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.  

Location

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU is located in the Crimson Cube (on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium/Gesa Field and the CUB) on the WSU Pullman campus.

Visit

The museum is located at the heart of campus. Visitors can park closest in the Smith Center For Undergraduate Education parking garage. Daily parking permits can be purchased the same day online at parking.wsu.edu.

Artworks

To view images of selected artworks from the exhibition, click on the arrows after each image, or click the individual work to scroll through full size images of the works.