Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center will be open free to Savannah and Chatham County residents this weekend, April 16-18.

From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, the museum will offer free admission to the large contemporary art space on Telfair Square, in partnership with the City of Savannah. Face masks are required, and occupancy limits will be enforced for social distancing. For more on Telfair’s safety procedures, visit telfair.org/hours-admission.

Visitors to the Free Family Weekend are invited to tour current exhibitions—including the special exhibition Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage, a partnership with the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio—and explore art activities created by Telfair’s education team, including a limited number of free take-home art kits for children.

“This is the public’s first and only opportunity to see for free Picasso to Hockney, an incredible collection that explores major artistic works related to the theater and ballet movements of the 20^th century,” said Ben Simons, Telfair’s executive director/CEO. “To preserve the spectacular pieces in that show, the galleries are dimly lit—it’s a deeply moving presentation—and for people stepping in from the bright, beautiful weather we’re expecting this weekend, it’s really going to be a magical experience.”

Other exhibitions currently on view include Vehicles of Change; Complex Uncertainties: Artists in Postwar America; David Gumbs: From Dust to Gold; and Youthful Adventures: Growing Up in Photography, which closes after Sunday.

Sauda Mitchell solo exhibition opens

Also on view at the Jepson will be a new solo exhibition by Sauda Mitchell (American, b. 1981), a well-known Savannah artist and the SCAD Jen Library Archives and Special Collections Librarian at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Part of Telfair’s multiyear Legacy of Slavery in Savannah series, as well as the museum’s #art912 initiative featuring local artists, Mitchell’s Re-Cor-Dare collects many of her prints, paintings, and artist books in a thematic study of the Black experience.

“Mitchell’s incredible work as a printmaker is enhanced by her experience as an archivist,” said Erin Dunn, Telfair’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art, who organized the exhibition. “By including links accessed through QR codes in her images, she expands the historical and narrative meanings that are essential elements of her work.

The public is invited to a free Zoom opening lecture featuring a conversation between Mitchell and Dunn at 6 p.m. Thursday April 15, the evening before the exhibition opens. Anyone can register at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__VcDfstRSIKKAp56IqjvrQ.

And at 3 p.m. Thursday April 29, Mitchell will participate in a free, virtual Comb the City event in partnership with Telfair and SCAD. You can register for that event at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/comb-the-city-with-scad-alumni-sauda-mitchell-at-telfair-museum-tickets-145538779407.

The exhibition’s hyphenated title, Re-Cor-Dare, calls attention to the definition of the word “record” through its Latin roots―explicitly “Cor” (heart) and “Dare” (to give). Through five distinct but interconnecting series, Mitchell traces the legacies of slavery in the United States from the Middle Passage to present-day social injustices faced by Black Americans. Ultimately, her work exists as a catalyst for discussion, reflection, and a celebration of the human spirit.

“I think audiences will respond to Sauda Mitchell’s uniquely personal perspective as a printmaker, archivist, and educator,” Dunn added. “Through compelling imagery, descriptive text, sound, and educational resources, Mitchell’s exhibition considers the layered complexity of human experience and history more broadly.”