TWO-PART EXHIBITION ON THE DEATH PENALTY:
UC DAVIS GALLERY TAKES ON ONE OF THE MOST DIVISIVE ISSUES OF OUR TIME

Where do you stand? Art can be seen as serving the purpose of reassuring us that everything is okay by invoking timeless beauty, or it can challenge us to rethink our understandings about the world. Malaquias Montoya, long time UC Davis faculty member in Fine Arts and Chicano Studies, presents a suite of prints, drawings and paintings titled “Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment.” Taking the role of activist and iconoclast, Montoya’s works passionately assail the inhumanity of the death penalty at the Richard L. Nelson Gallery, UC Davis, from March 30th, 2006 through May 21st, 2006.

“What concerns me is: Why do we kill and what happens to us as a humanity, as a culture? Why is state-sanctioned killing any different from a killing that takes place in the streets?” asks Montoya.

At the same time Swedish artists Bigert & Bergstrom will present their videotape, “The Last Supper.” This hour-long work (to be shown continuously) interviews those who prepare the final meals of condemned inmates around the world.

All three artists will be present and speak at the opening on March 30th from 6 to 8 pm. Admission is free. The Montoya exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated, 56 page catalogue, sales of which benefit various anti-death penalty groups. These exhibitions are part of a collaboration with the Religious Studies Program offering a simultaneous course on the ethics of the death penalty.

Also presented at the same time, in the office of the Nelson Gallery, is a small exhibition of drawings from the permanent collection by Beth Van Hoesen, and recent acquisitions by the collection shown at the Buehler Alumni Center. Included are works by William T. Wiley, Gaston Lachaise, Diane Althoff and Irving Marcus.

The Nelson Gallery is located in the UC Davis art department in Room 124. It is open Monday through Friday from 11 to 5 and on Sunday from 2 to 5.