UNIVERSITY PARK, PA.- The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University presents the exhibit Couples Discourse through December 15. The saying has it that opposites attract, but societal practice—particularly among visual artists—seems to suggest otherwise. Couples Discourse brings together recent work by twenty-one artist-couples from New York, Los Angeles, and the Midwest. Dual-career rather than collaborative duos, these contemporary couples have enjoyed long and productive careers in the company of life partners whose passions and interests have been and remain centered on the creation of art.

The exhibition takes its title from Roland Barthes'A Lover's Discourse, a poignant little book in which the philosopher attempts to theorize the language used by lovers to describe each other. It is arguably a text about loneliness, suggesting that even romantic language confesses the distance that always exists between people—if we could achieve perfect unity with others, language would not be necessary. This exhibition is about how "couples" discourse—a show about the ways in which artists cope with the social connections and practicalities of being artists in a couple. It is about the commonalities as well as the differences, the intimacies as well as the public articulations.

It might be a truism to say that the very notion of "the couple" is undergoing significant transformation at the moment. Legal changes now allow many same-sex marriages in the United States, even as increasing numbers of people both gay and straight choose to enjoy unions and family structures beyond such conventional forms. Now is, of course, the perfect time to investigate more carefully the ways in which artists construct and articulate their positions as "couples."

Co-curated by Palmer Museum Curator Joyce Henri Robinson and Micaela Amato, professor of art and women's studies at Penn State, Couples Discourse will feature work by twenty-five artist-couples including Eleanor and David Antin, Nene Humphrey and Benny Andrews, Deborah Kass and Patricia Cronin, Joyce and Max Kozloff, Helen and Brice Marden, Gladys Nilsson and Jim Nutt, Catherine Opie and Julie Burleigh, Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell, Sylvia Plimack Mangold and Robert Mangold, Lisa Sigal and Byron Kim, and Betty and George Woodman, among others. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Penn State Press and with support from the George Dewey and Mary J. Krumrine Endowment, with an essay by Sarah Rich, assistant professor of art history, Penn State, and an introduction by the noted scholar and critic Robert Rosenblum.