Exhibition - "Embodied Dreams: The Later Work of Boris Sveshnikov"
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museum VIEWS A quarterly newsletter for small and mid-sized art museums Spring 2011 By Stanton Thomas, Ph.D I n many ways, I am the last per- son in the world who should be writ- ing about how new technologies and particularly social media have revolu- tionized the museum world. After all, as a curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, I don’t maintain our Facebook page or work with our website. And in addition, I am not particularly techno-savvy. I rely upon my wife to update my computer software, and upon my pre-teen nieces and nephews to show me how to work my iPhone. On the other hand, like most people, I am always happy to use these most convenient and instantly gratifying amenities. A bit of history The revolution started very quietly. The first version of Facebook was created in 2003 by Harvard college student Mark Zuckerburg—subject of the not-so-flattering film The Social Network. He initially made it as an interactive directory of students on cam- pus. I am also told that its creation is—very conveniently for my purposes—tied to art his- tory. As it turns out, with all the time Zuckerberg spent working on developing Facebook, he found himself, as many students do, ill-prepared for his art history final. Two days before the exam, he uploaded 500 images of ancient Roman art to Facebook and encour- aged his fellow students to use the comment function to share their notes. The result was a virtual study-group, and Facebook’s first exer- cise in connecting art to people. On September 26, 2006, Facebook—now the seemingly ubiqui- tous social network service and website— opened its membership to anyone who was at least 13 years old and who possessed a valid email address. Today, just five years later, Facebook has hundreds of millions of active users from all over the world, including me. It gave me instant access to as many people as I wanted to find and then, of course, to “friend” (a newly minted verb meaning to propose a two-way digital relationship on Facebook). Accepting a “friend” invitation allows Facebook users to peer through a little window into each other’s lives—to glimpse wedding or vacation photos, to offer opinions of food or film or family, to hear about the music we enjoyed, to envy sunshine or snow or, depending upon how religiously we update our status, to know what we are doing from moment to moment—a wonderful- ly distant intimacy. Perhaps most deliciously, it allows us to comment upon all we see and read, and to share our com- Top: Peruvian, Moche, Stirrup-spouted vessel in feline form (detail), c. 300-600 CE. Ceramic. In “Transported and Translated,” Mt. Holyoke Art Museum, MA Above: Dorothea Lange, Tourists Take Over Main Street, 1953. Gelatin silver print. In “Three Mormon Towns,” BYU Museum of Art, UT continued on page 4 THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION: Have you “friended” me yet? THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION: Have you “friended” me yet? continued on page 4 Revolution!!! Revolution!!! PTHE MODERNIST REVOLUTION: Cézanne Preempts Science Revolutions take many forms: a popula- tion rises against a dictator; a woman refuses to ride in the back of a bus; a composer writes atonal harmonies; an artist drips paint on a canvas; a teenager goes to a museum instead of basketball practice. And then there was Cézanne, whose obsti- nacy and view of the world led to modernism in art. He was a neuroscientist. So says Jonah Lehrer in his book called Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Like Proust, who anticipated the forthcoming neuroscience on how memory works, Cézanne was accurate about the visual cortex. Virginia Woolf wrote that “on or about December 1910 human nature changed.” She was referring to the first exhibition of Postimpressionist paintings, in which Cézanne was the star. His pictures of humble subjects were revolutionary. Roger Fry, in his introduc- tion to the exhibit, commented that Cézanne’s style, his abandonment of “the cliché of repre- sentation” ended the insistence that “art aim at a pseudoscientific fidelity to appearance. This is the revolution that Cézanne has inaugurat- ed…. His paintings aim not at illusion or abstraction, but at reality.” The public’s love affair with the academic style in art had scientific roots: the senses were viewed as perfect reflections of the world. The eye was a camera. Cézanne, true to his charac- ter, ignored the conventional thought and paint- ed images that reflected the subjectivity of sight, the illusion of surfaces. “The eye is not enough,” he said. “One needs to think as well.” Unlike the Impressionists, he believed that light was only the beginning of seeing. Modern science tells us that Cézanne was right. Vision begins with photons. But the com- plicated process of seeing engages the brain in actions that transform those elemental photons into the world of form and space that we under- stand. The visual cortex constructs sight. “Reality is not out there waiting to be wit- nessed; reality is made by the mind,” says Lehrer. And this is how Cézanne’s art reveals the process of seeing. His paintings show us the world as it first appears to the brain—patches and strokes of color not necessarily separate from one anoth- er—before it has been processed by the brain. Yet, his patches and strokes are always recog- nizable as the objects or scenes they portray. He supplies our brains with just enough infor- mation to decipher the picture. Thus, Cézanne has shown us the beginning and the end of our sight, all on one canvas. What begins as an abstract mosaic of color becomes a real thing. The painting has emerged from our brain. Under the wing of his friend, Impressionist Camille Pissaro (“Do not follow rules and prin- ciples, but paint what you see and feel. And do not be shy of nature.”), both isolated because of their rejection of the academic style, Cézanne learned the techniques that led to canvases similar to the new style. But his were different. Cézanne was constantly inventing his own avant-garde because, contrary to Pisarro’s tenets, he had stopped worshipping light. The moment is more than its light, he believed. Impressionists may reduce the world to surfaces of light, but he would interpret what he saw. “His vision was centered much more in his brain than in his eye,” said one of his contemporaries. It was true. Vision begins with light falling on and altering the receptors in the retina. This triggers a chain reaction that ends with an electrical charge. The photon’s energy has become information—information that has no form, meaningless masses of color. Milliseconds later the masses of color have
Transcript of Exhibition - "Embodied Dreams: The Later Work of Boris Sveshnikov"
museumVIEWSA quarterly newsletter for small and mid-sized art museums Spring 2011
By Stanton Thomas, Ph.D
In many ways, I am the last per-son in the world who should be writ-ing about how new technologies andparticularly social media have revolu-
tionized the museum world. After all, as acurator at the Memphis Brooks Museum ofArt, I don’t maintain our Facebook page orwork with our website. And in addition, I amnot particularly techno-savvy. I rely upon mywife to update my computer software, andupon my pre-teen nieces and nephews to showme how to work my iPhone. On the otherhand, like most people, I am always happy to use these most convenient and instantlygratifying amenities.
A bit of historyThe revolution started very quietly.
The first version of Facebook was created in 2003 by Harvard college student MarkZuckerburg—subject of the not-so-flatteringfilm The Social Network. He initially made itas an interactive directory of students on cam-pus. I am also told that its creation is—very
conveniently for my purposes—tied to art his-tory. As it turns out, with all the timeZuckerberg spent working on developingFacebook, he found himself, as many studentsdo, ill-prepared for his art history final. Twodays before the exam, he uploaded 500 imagesof ancient Roman art to Facebook and encour-aged his fellow studentsto use the commentfunction to share theirnotes. The result was avirtual study-group, andFacebook’s first exer-cise in connecting art to people.
On September 26,2006, Facebook—nowthe seemingly ubiqui-tous social networkservice and website—opened its membershipto anyone who was atleast 13 years old and who possessed a validemail address. Today, just five years later,Facebook has hundreds of millions of activeusers from all over the world, including me. It
gave me instant access to as many people as Iwanted to find and then, of course, to “friend”(a newly minted verb meaning to propose atwo-way digital relationship on Facebook).Accepting a “friend” invitation allowsFacebook users to peer through a little windowinto each other’s lives—to glimpse wedding or
vacation photos,to offer opinionsof food or filmor family, tohear about themusic weenjoyed, to envysunshine orsnow or,depending uponhow religiously weupdate our status, to knowwhat we are
doing from moment to moment—a wonderful-ly distant intimacy. Perhaps most deliciously, itallows us to comment upon all we see andread, and to share our com-
Top: Peruvian, Moche, Stirrup-spouted vessel in feline form (detail), c. 300-600 CE. Ceramic. In “Transported and Translated,” Mt. Holyoke Art Museum, MAAbove: Dorothea Lange, Tourists Take Over Main Street, 1953. Gelatin silver print. In “Three Mormon Towns,” BYU Museum of Art, UT
continued on page 4
THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION: Have you “friended” me yet?THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION: Have you “friended” me yet?continued on page 4
Revolution!!!Revolution!!!PTHE
MODERNISTREVOLUTION:Cézanne Preempts Science
Revolutions take many forms: a popula-tion rises against a dictator; a woman refuses to ride in the back of a bus; a composer writesatonal harmonies; an artist drips paint on a canvas; a teenager goes to a museum instead of basketball practice.
And then there was Cézanne, whose obsti-nacy and view of the world led to modernismin art. He was a neuroscientist. So says JonahLehrer in his book called Proust Was aNeuroscientist. Like Proust, who anticipatedthe forthcoming neuroscience on how memoryworks, Cézanne was accurate about the visualcortex.
Virginia Woolf wrote that “on or aboutDecember 1910 human nature changed.” Shewas referring to the first exhibition ofPostimpressionist paintings, in which Cézannewas the star. His pictures of humble subjectswere revolutionary. Roger Fry, in his introduc-tion to the exhibit, commented that Cézanne’sstyle, his abandonment of “the cliché of repre-
sentation” ended the insistence that “art aim ata pseudoscientific fidelity to appearance. Thisis the revolution that Cézanne has inaugurat-ed…. His paintings aim not at illusion orabstraction, but at reality.”
The public’s love affair with the academicstyle in art had scientific roots: the senses wereviewed as perfect reflections of the world. Theeye was a camera. Cézanne, true to his charac-ter, ignored the conventional thought and paint-ed images that reflected the subjectivity ofsight, the illusion of surfaces. “The eye is notenough,” he said. “One needs to think as well.”Unlike the Impressionists, he believed that lightwas only the beginning of seeing.
Modern science tells us that Cézanne wasright. Vision begins with photons. But the com-plicated process of seeing engages the brain inactions that transform those elemental photonsinto the world of form and space that we under-stand. The visual cortex constructs sight.“Reality is not out there waiting to be wit-nessed; reality is made by the mind,” saysLehrer. And this is how Cézanne’s art revealsthe process of seeing.
His paintings show us the world as it firstappears to the brain—patches and strokes ofcolor not necessarily separate from one anoth-er—before it has been processed by the brain.Yet, his patches and strokes are always recog-
nizable as the objects or scenes they portray.He supplies our brains with just enough infor-mation to decipher the picture. Thus, Cézannehas shown us the beginning and the end of oursight, all on one canvas. What begins as anabstract mosaic of color becomes a real thing.The painting has emerged from our brain.
Under the wing of his friend, ImpressionistCamille Pissaro (“Do not follow rules and prin-ciples, but paint what you see and feel. And donot be shy of nature.”), both isolated because oftheir rejection of the academic style, Cézannelearned the techniques that led to canvases similar to the new style. But his were different.Cézanne was constantly inventing his ownavant-garde because, contrary to Pisarro’stenets, he had stopped worshipping light.
The moment is more than its light, hebelieved. Impressionists may reduce the worldto surfaces of light, but he would interpret whathe saw. “His vision was centered much more in his brain than in his eye,” said one of hiscontemporaries.
It was true. Vision begins with light fallingon and altering the receptors in the retina. This triggers a chain reaction that ends with an electrical charge. The photon’s energy hasbecome information—information that has noform, meaningless masses of color.Milliseconds later the masses of color have
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museumVIEWS
My Million-DollarIdeaby Avis H. Anderson
As directors of non-profitorganizations, we often hurry
through our busy days of planning, budgeting,exhibition openings and events without feelingtheir real impact. We are also idea people—somany ideas and so little time and funding tocarry them out. Rather than the elusive milliondollar idea, we come up with a million $1ideas. I am most proud of my million dollaridea: a program that provides opportunities forup-and-coming artists at the MonmouthMuseum.From the moment in 2006 that I became the
new director, I was besieged by artists request-ing solo exhibitions of their work. Rather thandash the dreams of dozens of artists, we devel-oped an exhibition series that continues to pro-vide meaningful experiences for New Jerseyartists, our staff, and the visiting public. To fulfill part of our mission as a mid-sized,
multi-disciplinary museum without a perma-nent collection, we are always looking for newand exciting arts programming. Our maingallery is utilized to present exhibitions ofnational significance like Smithsonian travelingexhibitions and juried exhibitions with nation-wide calls for entry. To accomplish anotheraspect of our mission, we provide exhibitionopportunities for New Jersey’s talented artists.In 2007, we established the New JerseyEmerging Artists (NJEA) Series, which pres-ents six exhibitions each year, with accompany-ing Artist Talks, in the smaller of our two gal-leries. Now in its fifth year, this series hasmade significant impacts in the lives of morethan twenty New Jersey artists.
People of all agesDespite the traditional image of an emerg-
ing artist as young, talented, fresh from a col-lege or university studio program, our emergingartists represent people of all ages—a retiredphysician, a retired architect, a former Italianset designer, for example. These artists,embarking on a second career,have wisdom to share beyondtheir penetrating photographsand thought-provoking sculp-tures. Their talent, seasonedby their life experience, pro-duces a fascinating brew. Aformer judge took a series ofphotographs in an abandonedpenitentiary, allowing viewersto enter a lost world of crum-bling cell blocks and emptyguard towers. His experienceon the bench spurred his inter-est in the lives spent insideprison walls. An Italian born and current New Jersey resi-
dent, Riccardo Berlingeri, creates sculptureswith recycled NY Times newspapers, highlight-ing current world issues such as the loss ofnewspapers as sources of information and
threats to our global environment. Nervousbefore his Artist Talk, Riccardo felt that hismastery of English was not adequate to expresshis artistic vision. We mentored him and helpedhim develop a PowerPoint presentation for histalk, which opened with childhood photos ofhis native island of Capri. There were alsoimages of his basement studio space and hisworks in progress. His delightful and humorousapproach to his work was appreciated by theaudience; his talk received rave reviews and hehas developed a following of people who haveattended his subsequent exhibitions. At age 64,he is proof that an artist can emerge at any age.Young self-taught artists, not constrained by
or rebellious of traditional art practices, arerefreshing to work with. Mentoring youngartists at the beginning of their careers allowsus to share in their ongoing success stories.Recently one of our young Emerging Artistsreceived a fellowship from the NJ StateCouncil on the Arts. We cheered like proudparents when the announcement was made.Another young self-taught pastel artist paintssuch realistic fruit and vegetables with pastelson sand paper that they are often mistaken forphotographs. Visitors loved the work.Our Emerging Artists are also multi-cultural.
Shin Young An, a painter featured in our thirdyear, was born in Korea into a culture wherebeing both a woman and an artist was notfavored. Her solo exhibition enabled ShinYoung to express her creativity, her voice, andher personal value. She exhibited a diverseseries of amazing oil paintings over newspaperarticles that featured current world issues—photo-realistic images that displayed both artis-tic skill and social commentary. She stated onthe evening of her opening that she felt com-pelled, and in fact enabled, to stretch beyondher financial success as a portrait artist. Sheaimed to use her talent to create awareness andchange in this imperfect world. Her openingwas a wonderful event, featuring Korean foodand flowers supplied by her visiting friends andfamily.
Side benefits and encouragement
Our EmergingArtists have formed theirown subculture, formingrelationships and corre-sponding with each otherregularly. They are sup-portive of each other’scareers, attending exhibi-tions and workshopsafter the MonmouthMuseum experience.They share informationon upcoming exhibitions,discuss their current proj-ects, communicate on
Facebook, and a few have made lasting friend-ships. I feel this would not have been possibleif their museum experience had not been sopersonal and nurturing.And as encouragement for our efforts, in the
second yearof theNJEASeries, themuseumreceivedfundingfrom theveneratedGeraldineR. DodgeFoundation. The foundation has continued tosupport this series, increasing the level of fund-ing as the program expands. The distinction ofreceiving Dodge funding has elevated the repu-tation of the series and visitors now attend theopening receptions from all over the state.
Looking back in the futureIn November of 2011, we are presenting the
first NJEA Series retrospective entitled NewJersey Artists Emerged. We will have presentedthe works of 24 artists in the first four years ofthe series. Each of them will be asked to sub-mit a new work, created in 2011, to be includedin the retrospective. Thus, the public will havean opportunity to see their favorite artist’s newwork, the museum will maintain its relationshipwith the emerging artists, and the artists willhave an opportunity to reconnect to the muse-um and their NJEA friends. Instead of the usualArtist Talk, we will have a panel discussionwith as many of the prior exhibiting artists aspossible.Personally, as an arts administrator, the
NJEA Series has provided me with the satisfac-tion of mentoring, the pride in producing exhi-bitions of talented artists, and a first-handglimpse into the creative process. These aregifts I truly appreciate. �
[Avis H. Anderson is Executive Director,Monmouth Museum, NJ]
DIRECTOR’S CORNERBodhisattva of Wisdom(Tikshna-Manjushri), Ming dynasty,Yongle period.Gilt brass. In Pilgrimage andFaith,” Universityof RichmondMuseums, VA
Milton Avery, Still Life with Derby, 1944. Oil on canvas. In “Milton Avery and the End of Modernism,” Nassau County Museum of Art, NY
“Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling? Are you definitely convinced that you willbe on a higher plane when you walk up a staircase?”Such were the questions put by M.C. Escher in hissearch for the real world.
Maurits Cornelis Escher, born in Leeuwarden,Holland, remained a mediocre student through hisyears at university where he began studies in architec-ture but quickly changed to pursue the graphic arts. Histravels, after finishing his studies, took him throughsouthern Europe, spending a preponderance of time in
Italy, sketching theinspiring land-scapes he encoun-tered. Finally, hetransposed those sketches to paint-ings, jump startinga career as anartist.Printmaking
became his chosenmedium, thewoodcut hisfavored, though he
experimented withwood engravings,
lithographs, and mezzotints. His travel sketches served as the basis of more elaborate works for which he tookweeks, even months, to work out spatial and structuralrelationships.
Decorative patterns also had an impact on his oeu-vre: he became obsessed with tessellations, Majolicamosaics, and stucco patterns at the Alhambra inGranada, Spain, and the cathedral decorations in Ravello, Italy.
Not happy with the Fascist regime in Italy, Escherleft in 1937 for Brussels and later Baarn, Holland,where he settled permanently. But his precious tessellations were no longer there to be studiedand admired. He turned to concepts—relativity, infinity, and metamorphoses—producingmathematically and visually complex works, easily recognized and universally admired. He died in Larenin 1972. �
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The International Council of Museums:Another Membership?
The International Council of Museums:Another Membership?
Notes About An Artist
M.C. Escher, Relativity, 1953. Lithograph. In“M.C. Escher,” Akron Art Museum, OH
Notes About An Artist
by Annette B. Fromm
The International Councilof Museums (ICOM), amultinational, non-profit,
non-governmental organization founded in1946, is dedicated to the improvement andadvancement of the world's museums andthe museum profession as well as thepreservation of cultural heritage. About30,000 museums and museum profession-als across five continents are members ofICOM’s national and international commit-tees and affiliated and regional organiza-tions. The 171 national committees serveas administrative bodies to communicatebetween the international body and itsmembers. (The US National Committee ishoused with the American Association ofMuseums). The 31 international committees focus
on different disciplines within museology:education, security, history, ethnography,natural history, university museums, exhibi-tion exchange, to name only a few. Many ofthese committees hold annual meetings invenues around the world in the yearsbetween the ICOM triennials. These meet-ings often address topical subjects of importto the profession and provide opportunitiesfor exchange and exposure to a wide varietyof museums.
Triennial ConferenceICOM’s General Conference is held tri-
ennially at various venues around the world.The 2010 conference, ICOM’S 22nd, washeld for six days in November at the WorldExpo Centre in Shanghai, China. More than3,600 museum professionals from all cor-ners of the world, representing 122 coun-tries, regions and international organiza-tions, attended to exchange ideas on thetheme of “Museums for Social Harmony.”Keynote addresses were given by six
eminent scholars: Lourdes Arizpe, XiejunChen, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, OkwuiEnwezor, Jinshi Fan, and former presidentof the Republic of Mali Mali Alpha OumarKonaré. Konaré, a former ICOM president,emphasized substantial changes that aresweeping society across the continentstoday. He particularly stressed Africa’s rolein the world in terms of its unprecedentedpopulation growth, which will exceed 2 bil-
lion by 2050. He called on African muse-ums to meet the social harmony challenge.According to Konaré, the internationalmuseum network should also embrace thisissue, especially through their interactionwith the public and their role in promotingmulticulturalism.All six days were filled with discussions
in international committee meetings on sci-entific and academic topics related tomuseums and museum professions, andtwo open forums on museum-relatedtopics ranging from economic issues tothe role of volunteers in museums. Oneday was set aside for excursions tocities and museums in the Shanghaiarea. In addition, a Museum Trade Fairdisplayed the latest trends in the indus-try as well as information aboutChinese museums.The conference closed with a day-
long triennial ICOM GeneralAssembly, during which the new presi-dent and executive council were elected.Former president of France Jacques Chiracdelivered the closing words, recalling hislong-term commitment to museums and thepromotion of cultural diversity.
ICOM ActivitiesThe illegal trade of cultural goods ranks
third in the listing of criminal activitiesworldwide after drug and arms trafficking.The result is significant damage to tangibleheritage, especially in regions of the worldwhere the theft and looting are common. ICOM, therefore, has set a priority to
fight against continuing trade of stolen art-work and has worked to contribute the toolsdesigned to assist museums and lawenforcement in controlling the art market. Infact, ICOM is a leader in the fight. Throughtraining programs in developing nations anda series of publications, ICOM has forgedstrong partnerships with international agen-cies including UNESCO, UNIDROIT, andINTERPOL. Among the most used ICOMpublications is a collection titled OneHundred Missing Objects, which presents aselection of stolen works of art listed byregion of the world.
ICOM’s Red Lists inform interestedparties about the endangered or missingobjects and artworks in certain regions of
the world. They are distributed topolice and customs officials world-wide as well as to museum profes-sionals, auction houses, art dealers,and collectors. They also serve asworking tools for museums withthese categories of artwork in theircollections. ICOM’s Red Lists areavailable along with other publica-tions on the Web athttp://icom.museum/.
continued on page 11
Allen D. “Big Al” Carter, Shine on me Good Lord.Charcoal and watercolor on paper. In“Compassionate Witness,” Tweed Museum of Art, MN
New Courses OnlineNew Courses OnlineSotheby’s Institute of Art has announced the
launching of a series of newly designed onlinecourses for art-world professionals and other inter-ested parties. Beginning on March 28, the courses,ranging from two to eight weeks, were created bythe institute’s faculty of art market specialists andscholars from London and New York. They are available to students anywhere, any time:• Art as an Alternative Investment: Making intelligent, Data-Driven Decisions• But What’s it Worth? Understanding Trends in the Art Market• Art Across Borders: Understanding InternationalLaw in Art Business• Writing for the Art World: How to Make Your Voice Matter• How to Navigate New Works and New Markets:Intro to Contemporary Art• Inside the New York Art World: How Art Gets Made, Priced and Sold• Intro to Art History: The Movements that Mattered[For more information: Jan Rothschid,[email protected]; or Sotheby’s Institute of Art-New York, 212-517-3929]
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ments with anyone else who is a “friend.” So,with all this activity and spilled cyber-ink, allthis public voyeurism, and all these millionsof members, why wouldn’t museums find away to harness Facebook?
At the museumLike many personal Facebook accounts,
the Brooks’ gives its friends1 access to photos,information, a calendar, as well as links toother content—such as blogs or the museum’swebsite. It also offers the same superb interac-tive aspects, allowing members to post com-ments about events they’ve enjoyed, paintingsthey loved, exhibitions they’ve seen, or toreply to someone else’s thoughts and opin-ions. Many friends of the Brooks opt toreceive these updates as emails. They appearin your inbox, and, well, it’s like the museumis emailing you. Quite often the comments arequick, funny criticisms, but they often lead tolengthy dialogues about art or music or food.In addition, if you have a Twitter account, allthe comments will be sent as texts to yoursmartphone. It’s like the museum is textingyou.
Our institution has maintained a Facebookpage since 2008. The site is crucial to keepingour programs and events in the public eye. Asopposed to our website, which functions moreas a staid and static storehouse of information,Facebook is a more immediate, dynamic, andinteractive way of letting people know what’sgoing on at the museum. Once you’ve “liked”the Brooks (effectively becoming one of itsFacebook friends), you can drop by our pageany time to find out not only what is happen-ing, but perhaps more importantly, to find outwhat other people think about events andexhibitions—often moments after their experi-ences. Facebook is also very smartphonefriendly, thus putting reminders of what’s hap-pening—whether a family day activity or newmenus at our restaurant, the Brushmark—right in your hands.
The Brooks’ Facebook page also is moreeasily accessible than our website if you arealready on the run. Although I can barely pullup the latter on my iPhone (I am not good attwo-finger typing), Facebook has an icon, andit pops right open and quickly loads. Ofcourse, making information immediatelyavailable is essential to the success of muse-ums, especially in a society that offers contin-ual distractions and diversions.
Facebook is particularly great on getting
the word out about last-minute events. Forinstance, recently our Public Relations andPublic Programs Manager Andria Lisle wasable to book punk rockers Cheetah Chrome, aguitarist for the group Rocket from theTombs, and Sylvain Sylvain of the New YorkDolls for an eleventh-hour gallery talk in theexhibition “Who Shot Rock?” It was way toolate to add the program to our calendar ofevents; that had been printed and mailedweeks before. However, Andria—theMadame de Sévigné of the social mediaworld— posted the event on Facebook, andsold it out in a matter of hours. Thus a socialnetwork service was responsible for the suc-cess of a great, casual, and spontaneous event.And images of that gallery talk, and of otherlectures, receptions, openings, artist demon-strations, etc, are posted on the Facebookpage, fueling further interest and commentary.
Since the Brooks’ Facebook page wentonline in 2008, its membership has steadilygrown. Currently it has 4,100 friends, up morethan 3,000 just in the last twelve months. Andwhat fuels this growth? To a great degree it isa reaction to successful exhibitions andevents. Both “Who Shot Rock?” and “Venicein the Age of Canaletto” generated activityand added new friends on Facebook. After all,who isn’t a critic? Who doesn’t want to com-ment on things they love or loath, especially ifdoing so is easy, quick, and accessible?
The success of our Facebook page reflectsour outreach to our members and visitors. Weactively work to engage people through socialmedia—the Facebook icon on our webpage,right next to its cousins Twitter and Youtube,helps us in that effort.
Revolution brings other changes
Our use of social media is just one facetof how changing technologies have affectedthe way we share information. During thenext few weeks, we will also launch a BrooksMuseum application for smartphones. Thisapp will make the museum’s website accessi-ble with just the touch of a finger. It will alsoturn personal phones into interactive galleryguides for the permanent collection and spe-cial exhibitions.
And other innovations are on the way; ournext technological advance could be a socialtagging project such as “Steve.”2 A collabora-tive effort of museum professionals and inter-ested members of the community, Steve
allows its users to interact with onlineimages by tagging or bookmarkingthem with their own keywords—“sub-lime,” “Asian,” “painted,” for example.It’s a form of collaborative tagging or,in tech-speak, “folksonomy.” The web-site stores this information and allowsother users to access it when they arelooking at objects or perhaps searchingwith keywords. Steve and other projectslike it hold the potential for profoundnew ways to describe and access online
museum col-lections, and toencourage visi-tor interaction.
Whoknows whatthe futureholds? But onething is clear—as social mediaevolves, so willthe Brooks andother muse-ums. And wewill find a wayto successfullyemploy technology’s chameleon-like changes,and use them to bring the museum even closerto the public. �
1One may well think that Facebook is largelyyouth-oriented, but most of Brooks’ friendsrange in age from 25-50. Young yes, but nothigh school or college students. Many are pro-fessionals and teachers, some are students. Allhowever, are busy people who want to stay inthe loop; they use Facebook as a convenientway to keep track of cultural events and hearreactions to them. 2Steve is accessible at www.stevemuseum.org.
[Stanton Thomas, Ph.D., is curator ofEuropean and Decorative Art at the MemphisBrooks Museum of Art, TN]
Facebook continued from page 1Facebook
James Tissot, The Youth of Jesus (detail),ca. 1886-1894. Opaque watercolor overgraphite on gray wove paper. In “JamesTissot,” Chrysler Museum of Art, VA
Riccardo Berlingeri: Paper Sculpture. Berlingeri is pictured with his paper sculpture Primary Colors, 2008. Newspaper and glue. In “Emerging Artists Series,” Monmouth Museum (NJ)
Cézanne continued from page 1Cézannebeen transformed into real objects. And so it iswith Cézanne’s canvases.
Late in the 1950s, neuroscientists DavidHubel and Torsten Weisel looked into the ques-tion of what kind of visual stimuli is responsiveto the cortex. They knew that light excites theretina, but the question remained: What kind ofvisual information excites the mind? Beforethis, scientists believed that the eye performedlike a camera, transmitting pixels of light in atwo-dimensional representation, which thebrain would then flesh out into a three-dimen-sional image. With their experiments, they dis-covered that our brain cells responded not todots—pixels—of light but by angles of lines,preferred contrast over brightness, edges overcurves. This, they said, is reality as it appearsto the early layers of the visual cortex, what theworld looks like before it has been processedby the mind, creating the sense of sight.
(In a footnote on the subject, Lehrerwrites: “The early parts of our visual cortex are stimulated by visual inputs that look verysimilar to a Piet Mondrian painting. Mondrian,a painter extremely influenced by Cézanne,spent his life searching for what he called ‘theconstant truths concerning forms.’ He eventual-ly settled on the straight line as the essence ofhis art.”)
So it is that Cézanne’s artistic instincts led him to utilize the strokes and lines of colorsensed by the visual cortex. And so it is thatCézanne began his revolution. �
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John Biggers, Going to Church, 1964. Conté crayon. In “African American Art,” Palmer Museum of Art, PA 5
AlabamaTennessee Valley Museum of Art,Tuscumbia � “Shoebox Sculpture”(May 6) The 10th InternationalShoebox Sculpture Exhibition fromthe University of Hawaii Art Gallery:how artists handle the space and scaleof a shoebox. � “National WatercolorSociety Exhibit” (May 15-July 8)Celebrating the 70th anniversary ofthe society in Alabama.
CaliforniaPomona College Museum of Art,Claremont � “At Pomona,” Part II of“It Happened at Pomona: Art atPomona College 1969-1973” (May13) A review of the arts faculty, stu-dents, and events that supported thegrowth of the museum.
Irivine Museum � “All ThingsBright & Beautiful: CaliforniaImpressionist Paintings from TheIrvine Museum” (June 11) Comehome after nearly two years of a tour to six museums.
Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’sCollege of California, Moraga � “Giftof the Gods: Exploring Maize, Cultureand Indigenous Art in the Americas”(June 19) Wall text, maps, photo-graphs, drawings, recipes, videos, andart all illustrate the sacred status ofmaize in the U.S. Southwest,Mesoamerica, and the NorthernAndes; see also Navajo rugs, HopiKachina figures; tortilla cloths, bas-kets, and traditional dress fromMexico and Guatemala; women’sbelts and harvest festival masks fromEcuador, and maize belts traced to anInca tradition from Peru.
Oakland Museum of California �Through May 29: “Splendors ofFaith/Scars of Conquest: Arts of theMissions of Northern NewSpain,1600-1821” First-time showingof the sacred and ceremonial artworksfrom Franciscan and Jesuit missionchurches in northern Mexico and theAmerican Southwest; “ContemporaryCoda” In a companion installation,works by contemporary artists addressissues of immigration, religion andcontemporary Chicano identity, andthe cultural survival of the Native peoples of California.
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento� “Gottfried Helnwein: Inferno of theInnocents” (Apr. 24) Portraits in pho-tography, paintings, and installations;
images of “The Child” prevail. �“John Buck: Iconography” (May 15)Survey includes prints, sculptures, andshadow box constructions. � “DanielDouke: Bytes of Reality” (July 7)Discarded boxes from consumer products into art.
San Jose Museum of Quilts &Textiles � Through May 1: “EarthlyParadise: Memory, Myth, Metaphor”and “Eden Re-imagined” Two collab-orating teams of contemporary fiberartists strut their stuff in two concur-rent exhibitions: “Earthly Paradise”features large scale quilted allegoricaltextiles inspired by medieval tapes-tries, and “Eden Re-imagined,” smallscale stitched embroideries; “BoyCode” Embroideries that focus on the power doodles that boys produceand teach one another in early adolescence; “Modern Maya” Mayan clothing and the weavers who produced them.
Cantor Center for Visual Arts,Stanford University, Stanford �Through May 29: “A RediscoveredMasterpiece: 12 Drawings fromDomenico Tiepolo’s New Testament”Son of the better known GiovanniBattista, Domenico’s retelling of theNew Testament in some 316 drawingswas his most ambitions work, and wasnearly lost; “Animals Observed”Images by Muybridge and Audubon.� Through May 1: “In a New YorkMinute: Photographs by Helen Levitt”The urban environment in stills and afilm; “Paths through the Global City:Photographs by Leo Rubinfien” Viewsof cities on five continents. �Through June 5: “Making the Cut:Woodblock Prints from the PermanentCollection” 20th-century works byFrench, German, and American artists;“Memory” An allegorical portrait of amid-17th-century emperor. �“Longing for Sea-Change: Felix inExile” (June 26) Video installation:last in a series by William Kentridgeabout a man living in exile in Pariswhile witnessing the ordeals of hisalter ego living in South Africa.
ColoradoCU Art Museum, University ofColorado, Boulder � Through June25: “Highlights of the Collection”From ancient to contemporary, fromthe Americas and around the world;“Highlights of the CU Art Museum’sAndy Warhol Photographic LegacyProgram Gift” The premier showing:portraits, landscapes, interior settings;“Highlights of the Collection: CharlesPartridge Adams Paintings” Twopaintings by Colorado landscapepainter, one never shown before.
ConnecticutBruce Museum, Greenwich �“Cindy Sherman: Works from Friendsof the Bruce Museum” (Apr. 23)B&W and color photos from severalmajor series: Untitled Film Stills,Centerfolds, Disasters and Fairy
Tales, History Portraits, Clowns,Women from California, and mostrecently, Rich Women. � “HumanConnections: Figural Art from theBruce Museum Collection” (June 5) Avariety of approaches to the humanfigure, from illusionist portraits andclassical nudes to abstractions, from a1st-century BC Roman marble to thePop Art portraits of Alex Katz. �“Arctic Sanctuary: Images of theArctic National Wildlife Refuge”(May 29) Celebrating the 50thanniversary of the A.N.W.R. with bothlarge-scale and intimate landscapeimages from a book prepared for theoccasion. � “Three Sisters & CornMaidens: Native American MaizeCultivation & Customs” (July 3) Acomparison between the role of cornin Northeast Native American culturewith that of the Southwest.
Florence Griswold Museum, OldLyme � “Inspiration and Impact: TheLegacy of the Hartford Steam BoilerCollection” (June 26) Marking the2001 gift of American paintings,prints, and sculpture, 18th to 20th cen-tury, paired with recent acquisitions.
District of ColumbiaKreeger Museum � “TomWesselmann Draws” (July 30) A half-century of drawings, many never seenbefore, by one of the key leaders inthe Pop Art movement along withWarhol, Lichtenstein Rosenquist, and Indiana.
FloridaBoca Raton Museum of Art �“Latin American Art from theMuseum’s Collection” (May 1)Figurative sculpture (Zúniga), modernism (Tamayo), contemporaryabstraction (Castro-Cid), poetic realism(Larraz), among other styles and artists.� “Romanticism to Modernism:Graphic Masterpieces from Piranesi toPicasso” (June 19) Fine prints by themasters, including Goya.
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg� “Familiar and Fantastic:Photographs from the Dandrew-Drapkin Donation” (June 12) First ina series of exhibitions bringing thismajor gift to the public; there aredaguerreotypes, a rare anbrotype byMatthew Brady, albumen portraits byNadar and Etienne Carjat, and muchmore. � “Romantics to Moderns:British Watercolors and Drawingsfrom the Collection of BNY Mellon”(May 1) Mid-1700s through 1935:Constable, Gainsborough, Palmer,Ruskin, Sickert, and J.M.W. Turner,among others.
Vero Beach Museum of Art �Through May 22: “AmericanMasterworks: 150 Years of Paintingfrom the Butler Institute of AmericanArt”; “Impressions: Selections fromthe Manoogian Collection” �“Celebrating 25 Years: Selections fromthe Permanent Collection” (May 8)
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, RollinsCollege, Winter Park � Through June21: “Sharaku Interpreted by Japan’sContemporary Artists” The results ofa trans-temporal exchange betweenSharaku, an 18th-century Japanesemaster printmaker, and some oftoday’s graphic artists; “Dalí”Selections from two series of prints:Aliyah, depicting moments in Jewishhistory, and Our Historical Heritage,portraying prominent characters andpassages from the Old Testament;“Kinjaro” A statue by Kinjaro andsundry materials related to propertyissues.
IllinoisNIU Art Museum, Northern IllinoisUniversity, DeKalb � Through May14: “Wassily Kandinsky: Klänge” Thepages of Kandinsy’s tome Klänge—the exploration of sounds (klänge)through the word (poetry) and image(woodcuts) displayed to show bothsides of the pages; “Music to myEyes: Musical Instruments as VisualArt” Instrument ornamentation and its relation to its primary purpose—the sound.
Freeport Art Museum � “SonataCoda: An Exhibition of KeyboardInstruments” (Apr. 30) Pianos andkeyboard instruments from 1790 tothe present elucidate their history.
Krannert Art Museum, Universityof Illinois, Urbana-Champaign �Through May 1: “Building a ModernCollection: A Look Back” Worksacquired during the university’sContemporary American Painting andSculpture Exhibitions (1948-1974):Beckmann, Indiana, Pollock, Rothko,Sterne, Warhol, and many others;“The Kangarok Epic” Large-scaledrawings created during performanceswhen the artists create chalk drawingson the wall. � Through May 15:“Iona Rozeal Brown” Paintings thatexamine the ways in which Japanesesociety has appropriated AfricanAmerican hip-hop culture; “AstralConvertible Stage Set” A recalling ofthe 1989 dance piece by Trisha Brown(costumes by Robert Rauschenberg)in which interactive light and soundtowers responded to the motion of thedancers.
KansasDane G. Hansen Museum, Logan �“Red Desert, Green Prairie, Blue Sky:Photographing the West” (May 8)Images that document the culturallandscape of the central western U.S.
Salina Art Center � “AdamPendleton” (June 12) Interdisciplinaryart incorporates painting, sculpture,writing, publishing, and performance.
Mulvane Art Museum, WashburnUniversity, Topeka � Through May22: “David Hicks Overmyer: AKansas Original” Topeka native, anartist/illustrator/muralist, provides one
of the Kansas sesquicentennial events;“Surface & Form” Two ceramicistsand a fabric designer; “Words withDifferent Scenes: Four Artists fromChina” Paintings and patterned ricepaper meant to decode religious mys-teries.
Wichita Art Museum � “Wichita ArtMuseum: 75 Years of American Art”(July 24) One acquisition for each yearof the museum’s presence in Wichita.� “The Art of Adornment: ArtistsEmbellish the Body” (May 29)Jewelry, wigs, tattoos, and funeraryurns. � “Landmarks of Kansas” (May8) Sketches, prints and sculpture, partof the 150th anniversary of Kansasstatehood. � “Faces of America” (May15) The composite nature of Americanidentity.
LouisianaNewcomb Art Gallery, TulaneUniversity, New Orleans � “TheHistory of the Future” (June 29)Photographs of the southwest desertand the people who cross theMexico/U.S. border.
MainePortland Museum of Art � “The Layof the Land: A Celebration of ArtAcquired by the Friends of theCollection (1983-2010)” (May 8)Landscapes in various mediums bydiverse artists, many native to Maine.� “European Drawings at the PortlandMuseum of Art” (May 22) Part of“Where to Draw the Line: The MaineDrawing Project,” a statewide collabo-ration of 20 arts groups that will pres-ent exhibitions dedicated to drawingthroughout 2011: from18th centurycaricatures to architectural designs.
MarylandBaltimore Museum of Art � “SeeingNow: Photography Since 1960” (May15) Arbus, McCall, Sherman,Winogrand, and others.
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore �“Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relicsand Devotion in Medieval Europe”(May 15) First exhibition in the U.S. tofocus on the history of relics and reli-quaries, often objects of artistic inno-vation, expressions of identity, and thefocal point of ritual. � Relics and
Reliquaries: Reconsidered” (May 22)Contemporary reliquaries inspired byobjects in the “Treasures of Heaven”exhibition. � “Realistic Perfection:The Making of Oriental Ceramic Art”(June 4) Proofs from Oriental CeramicArt, a catalog of the William Walterscollection.
Washington County Museum ofFine Arts, Hagerstown � “BruceEtchison Memorial Exhibition” (Apr.24) Works by a former director of themuseum, educator, and restorer. �“American Watercolor Society” (May8) Artists submit work to be juried forthe society’s 143rd annual exhibition;winners’ works travel to venues in NC,OH, OR, WA, CA, and TX.
MassachusettsMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston �“Millet and Rural France” (May 30)Major pastels and drawings, watercol-ors, etchings, and a woodcut, all fromthe museum’s collection. �“Conversations: Photography from theBank of America Collection” (June 10)Visual dialogues among notable photo-graphs taken in the 19th and 20th cen-turies: paired and sequenced workswith a wide range of themes.
Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton �“Atelier Janiye and the Legacy ofMaster Jeweler Miyé Matsukata” (July25) Retrospective selection of Boston-based jewelry maker Miyé Matsukata’swork alongside selections by her col-leagues Michel, Watkins, andYamamoto.
List Visual Arts Center,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Cambridge � “Juan Downey: TheInvisible Architect” (May 6-July 10)Video artist’s technical, visual, andintertextual take on urbanism, post-colonialism, and locality utilizing visu-al metaphors, collage-like techniques,and non-linear narrative. � “BereniceAbbott: Portraits” (June 17) B&Wimages made in Paris.
Cahoon Museum of American Art,Cotuit � Through May 1:“Spontaneity and Memory: NewWorks by Taylor Fox” Cape Cod artistinfluenced by the Cape experience; “Journey from Dust to Dust & Ashesto Ashes” Works by Cape Cod potters.� “Phil Bean” (May 3-June 5)Landscapes and architecture. �“Christie Velesig” (June 7-July 17)Boats and seascapes. � “Lone Figureand the Landscape” (June 12)Exploring what the landscape tellsabout the solitary figure. � “MightyShips and Their Journeys Beyond”(July 24) Selections from the museum’s maritime collection.
Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis �“Twosomes: Photography by MarkChester” (July 10) Pairings of photo-graphs from a lifetime of travelingwith a camera.
Mount Holyoke College ArtMuseum � “Imported and Translated:Arts of the Ancient Americas” (June12) Excavated from the museum’s owncollection: the rich cultures of theMesoamerican and Andean regions ofSouth America from 600 BCE to theSpanish Conquest in the 16th century.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem �“Golden: Dutch and FlemishMasterworks from the Rose-Marie andEijk van Otterloo Collection” (June19) Rembrandt, Hals, van Ruisdael,Brueghel the Elder, Cuyp, and manyothers, and contemporary furniture anddecorative arts. � “FreePort [No. 002]:Marianne Mueller” (Spring)Installation combining museum objectswith the artist’s photographs creatingunexpected juxtapositions.
Davis Museum and Cultural Center,Wellesley College, Wellesley �Through June 5: “Francis Alÿs: TheMoment Where Sculpture Happens”Multimedia presentation, about life inthe congested colonial center ofMexico City; “Santos y Pecadores:Cinematic Drama in the MexicanPortfolios of Paul Strand and LeopoldoMéndez” Installation of photos(Strand), prints (Méndez), and filmexamines the juncture of arts and cine-ma in Mexican art, society, and poli-tics. � “El Anatsui: When I LastWrote to You about Africa” (June 26)Ghanaian artist’s first retrospective:sculpture, paintings, drawings, andlarge-scale wall hangings, many crafted from refuse.
MichiganUniversity of Michigan Museum ofArt, Ann Arbor � “Life in Ceramics:Five Contemporary Korean Artists”(June 26) Artists who have interpretedtheir heritage, one of the world’s greatceramics traditions, with a modernsensibility. � “Photoformance: AnEmpathetic Environment” (May 15)Works made in a collaborationbetween an architect, a photographer,and a dancer challenge the limitationsof each discipline creating a meldingof all three.
Flint Institute of Arts � “SomethingWaits Beneath It—Early Works byAndrew Wyeth, 1939-1969” (May 7)Seldom seen works by the youngWyeth.
Covenant Fine Arts Center, CalvinCollege, Grand Rapids � ThroughApr. 30: “Light on New Netherland”;“The Marginalia Archive: MollySpringfield” � “PermanentCollection” (May 21) A selection fea-turing a Grand Rapids artist, Dutchlandscapes, and the Prodigal Son.
Fredericks Sculpture Museum,Saginaw Valley State University,University Center � “Art inArchitecture: The Collaborative Spiritof the Interwar Period in Detroit”(May 28) Objects and documents fromregional collections that show off the
city’s surviving examples of Art Decoand classical revival architecture: tilework, stained glass, mosaics, andsculpture executed during the 1920sand 30s by collaborations betweenarchitects, artists, and craftsmen.
MinnesotaTweed Museum of Art, University ofMinnesota, Duluth � “The Book ofRevelation: A Graphic Interpretation”(July 31) Drawings that depict scenesand messages in the Book accompa-nied by explanations of the applicablebiblical verses. � “CompassionateWitness: Drawings by Big Al Carter”(July 17) In defiance of stylistic andcommercial trends: “I paint the hungry,the homeless, war veterans, children,the powerful and the powerless…pain,joy, contradictions, hope, and despair.”
Goldstein Museum of Design, SaintPaul � “Smart House, LivableCommunity, Your Future” (May 22) A look at the home-related needs ofaging baby boomers who want to continue living independently.
MississippiLauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel � “SAQA: 12 Voices” (June 23) Quilts.
MissouriSpringfield Art Museum � “TheGraphic Works of Philip Pearlstein,1995-2011” (June 5) Sharp-focus realist who helped revive figure painting in the early 1960s.
New JerseyAmerican Labor Museum, Haledon� “The Line That Divides: NAFTATrade Corridor” (Apr. 23) Photos, collages, and videos focus on thetransportation of consumer goodsmade in Mexico over the truck routefrom Laredo to Kansas City andbeyond with the purpose of exposingthe loss of American jobs to out-sourcing, environmental consequences[bigger ports and highways], and theworsening of air quality with increased truck traffic.
Monmouth Museum, Lincroft �“Give Peace a Chance: John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Bed-in for Peace” (May 8) Large format images from an 8-day event in 1969 when the couple promoted peace from a bed in Suite 1742 at the Queen ElizabethHotel in Montreal. � “The Everglades,Vanishing Splendor—An Awakening”(May 15-July 3) Photographs that celebrate this unique and fragileecosystem in Florida. � EmergingArtist Series: “Lauren Rosenthal: CutPaper Art” (Apr. 25) Works depictingrivers and how they mark the land-scape; “Gary Dates: Photographs”(Apr, 29-May 29) Cityscapes and suburbia digitally manipulated; “AmyPuccio: Sculpture” (June 3-July 3)Relief sculpture from recycled wood.
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John Sloan, Hill, Main Street, Gloucester, c. 1916.Oil on canvas. In “American Landscapes,”Westmoreland Museum of American Art, PA
Zimmerli Art Museum, RutgersUniversity, New Brunswick �“Dancing with the Dark: Joan SnyderPrints 1963-2010” (May 29) Printsmade by combining different graphictechniques enhanced by color: under-tone prints, hand-colored monoprints,and editioned prints with workingprints. � “Animal Fair: Birds, Beasts,and Bugs in Children’s BookIllustrations” (June 5) A range ofmedia and techniques animate crea-tures of all sorts. � “Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: An American Printmakerin an Age of Progress” (July 31)Modern geometric imagery of industri-al scenes, machinery, technology.
New YorkHessel Museum of Art, Bard College,Annandale-on-Hudson � “CLAP”(May 22) Works from the MarieluiseHessel Collection; an exploration ofhow artworks resonate with eachother—clash, clang, jar, or even harmonize.
Hofstra University Museum,Hempstead � “Body Mapping” (July29) Marking the human body: imagesthat draw on cultural issues of bodyimage. � “1930s: Art in America”(May 27) Celebrating the university’s75th anniversary, a snap-shot of visualarts in the 30s featuring work byWPA/FAP artists, works that illustratethe shift from rural to urban society,new artistic techniques, the influenceof European artist émigrés.
Americas Society, New York City �“Arturo Herrera: Les Noces (TheWedding)” (Apr. 30)
The Drawing Center, New York City� Through June 24: “Drawing and itsDouble: Selections from the InstitutoNazionale per la Grafica” Metal platesengraved by Italian masters from the16th century to the present, presentedthrough a collaboration between thetwo institutions; “Sean Scully: Changeand Horizontals” Early drawings andnotebook entries completed in a year intransition from London to New YorkCity.
Grey Art Gallery, New YorkUniversity, New York City � “JohnStorrs: Machine-Age Modernist” (July9) Most of his known sculptures, paint-ings, and drawings from 1917-1930s,with emphasis on the sculptures of hisiconic skyscrapers. � “Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the TriangleShirtwaist Factory Fire” (July 9) OnMarch 25, 1911, the largest workplacedisaster before 9/11, took place result-ing in the deaths of 146 young femalegarment workers from Jewish andItalian immigrant families. The exhibi-tion explores a century of efforts toremember their lives and to expiate thetragedy through social, political, andeconomic reforms.
Guggenheim Museum, New YorkCity � “The Deutsche Bank Series atthe Guggenheim: Found inTranslation” (May 1) Works by artiststhat look to translation as both a modeland a metaphor to comment on bothpast and present. � “The GreatUpheaval: Modern Art from theGuggenheim Collection, 1910-1918”(June 1) The fertile period before WWIthat witnessed the evolution of cubism,abstraction, and the avant-garde inartistic circles. � “Intervals:Futurefarmers” (May 4-13) On theground floor of the rotunda, a site-spe-cific installation by San Francisco-based collective that recalls the studioof a shoemaker in 5th century Athenswhere Socrates discussed philosophywith Simon the shoemaker: the nucleusof events around the city that addressthe sole/soul relationship.
International Center ofPhotography, New York City �Through May 8: “Wang Qingsong”First U.S. solo show for this Beijingartist: large-scale color photos stagedto reference classic Chinese art as wellas the burgeoning consumer culture;“Jasper, Texas: The CommunityPhotographs of Alonzo Jordan”Pictures taken in a quiet east Texastown years before one of the most bru-tal race crimes in U.S. history tookplace there; “Take Me to the Water:River Baptism Photographs” The visu-al record of the public affirmations offaith that flourished in the South andMidwest, 1880-1930; (extended) “TheMexican Suitcase” The most famousgroup of recovered negatives of the20th century: 4,500 negative docu-menting the Spanish Civil War byRobert Capa, Chim, and Gerda Taro.
Jewish Museum, New York City �“The Art of Matrimony: ThirtySplendid Marriage Contracts from theJewish Theological Seminary Library”(June 26) Decorated marriage contracts(ketubbot), one from the 12th century,others quite recent. � “Maira Kalman:Various Illuminations (of a CrazyWorld)” (July 31) Whimsical paintings,drawings, and sketches done to illus-trate books and magazines (includingcovers for The New Yorker magazine)and other media illuminate contempo-rary life.
Museum at FIT, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City � “His and Hers” May 10)
Museum of Modern Art, New YorkCity � “Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914”(June 6) Cardboard and sheet-metalguitar sculptures, collages, construc-tions, drawings, paintings, and photo-graphs; Picasso’s first guitar (1912),cobbled together from cardboard,paper, string, and wire, resembled nosculpture that had ever been seenbefore. � “Looking at Music 3.0”(June 6) The influence of music oncontemporary art practices in the 1980sand 90s in New York, the birth of“remix culture.” � “Projects 94:
Henrik Olesen” (May 23) First soloshowing in a U.S. museum: an installa-tion combining words (collages) andobjects (electronics and found-objectsculptures mounted on plexiglass)reflects the artist’s view of the state ofthe body in today’s technological, capi-talist societies. � “Cindy Sherman”(June 11) Retrospective: works from1970s to the present. � “GermanExpressionism: The Graphic Impulse”(July 11) Prints, drawings, posters,illustrated books, and periodicals creat-ed during a renaissance of printmakingin the early 20th century: Beckmann,Dix, Grosz, Kokoschka, Nolde,Scheile, and many others.
New Museum, New York City �“George Condo: Mental States” (May8) A first career survey: paintings andsculptures (1985-present) inspired byVelázquez, Picasso, and Gorky, thatpresent American popular culture withold master painting techniques.
Hudson Valley Center forContemporary Art, Peekskill �“After the Fall: Emerging Artists fromEast and Central Europe” (July 24)Work by post-Communist artists fromCroatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary,Latvia, Romania, and Slovenia.
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,Poughkeepsie � “ThomasRowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England” (June 11)Watercolors and prints provide ahumorous insight into the times.
George Eastman House, Rochester �Through June 12: “Between the States:Photographs of the American Civil Warfrom the George Eastman HouseCollection” Iconic, never-before-seenhistorical images of sites, circum-stances, and people; “Still Here:Contemporary Artists and the CivilWar” Photographs that deal with thelegacy of the war: re-enactments andwar sites presented in ways that werenot possible in the 1860s; “ReelHistories: The Civil War in MotionPictures”; “Larry Merrill: Looking at Trees.”
Nassau County Museum of Art,Roslyn Harbor � Through May 8:“Milton Avery and the End ofModernism” Saturated color fields,simplification of form, figures thatpoint up the flatness of canvas surface;“Donald Baechler” Large-scale instal-lation and collages: depictions ofeveryday objects and simple figures.
Staten Island Museum � “AndreaPhillips: Pieces of Spirit” (June 5)Collages inspired by textiles, Persianminiatures, and urban New York life.
North CarolinaMint Museum of Art, Charlotte �“The Art of Affluence: Haute Coutureand Luxury Fashions 1947-2007”(May 22) Gorgeous apparel compli-mented by high-fashion accessories.� “VantagePoint IX Janet Biggs:
Going toExtremes” (May 29) Videos and videoinstallations that examine the themesof speed, precision, personal discipline,gender roles, spectatorship, and calculated risk—the athleticism of performance juxtaposed with danger.
Nasher Museum of Art, DukeUniversity, Durham � “The Heart ofTrees” (spring) Installation—6 livetrees in the arms of 6 life-sized bronzefigures—on the front lawn of the museum.
Green Hill Center for NorthCarolina Art, Greensboro � “AndréLeon Gray, Shaun Richards” (May 29)Two one-person shows, each focusingon Southern themes, esthetics, andsocial constructs.
OhioAkron Art Museum � “M.C.Escher:Impossible Realities” (May 29) Onloan from Athens, Greece, visual puzzles that challenge our perceptionof reality.
Miami Art Museum, Oxford �Through July 23: “Looking Beyond theSurface: Understanding Identitythrough Art” The concept of identity as seen through the eyes of painters,sculptors, and photographers; “GlobalPerspectives/Art History at a Glance”Works that highlight various cultures,artistic periods, and media, selected toserve the needs of university courses.
Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth� “Against the Grain: Modernism inthe Midwest” (May 11) Works thattrace the development of the region’sbrand of modernism from 1893 and the Chicago World’s Fair to the end of WWII.
OklahomaFred Jones Jr. Museum of Art,Norman � Through May 15: “StareStare Stereo” Student-curated exhibi-tion in which two images from the collection are mounted together, invit-ing analysis, comparison, and contrast;“Mediterranean: American Art from the Graham D. Williford Collection”The major cultures and monuments ofthe region through the works of 19th-and 20th-century American artists;“Tea & Immortality: ContemporaryChinese Yixing Teapots from the JamesT. Bialac Collection” Utilitarianobjects from the stoneware (purplesand) clays of Yixing, produced sincethe 14th century, morphed into decora-
ThomasRowlandson,Smoking for a Tobacco Box.Blackish-brown inkwith watercolor. In “ThomasRowlandson,”Loeb ArtCenter, NY
7Gaston Lachaise, Walking Man (Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein), 1934. Bronze with brown patina. In “Human Connections” Bruce Museum, CT
tive teapots by the 17th and whimsical ones in the 20th.
OregonJordan Schnitzer Museum of Art,Eugene � “Excessive Obsession”(June 30) Works by artists influencedby abstract and minimal expressionsfrom the 1940s-60s. � “Diaspora,Identity, and Race: Cuba Today” (June26) Investigating the intermingling ofAfrica, Europe, and Asia in Cuban artand culture.
Museum of Contemporary Craft,Portland � “Era Messages: Selectionsby Garth Johnson” (June 4) Worksfrom the 1960s to 80s that exemplifymoments in the history of craft that are“timely rather than timeless, that evoketheir era….” � “Laurie Herrick:Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomor-row” (July 30) Retrospective: rever-sible wall hangings, landscape- and OpArt-inspired works, open warp pieces,loom-controlled garments, and more.
PennsylvaniaTrout Gallery, Dickinson College,Carlisle � “Bawdy Brits & West EndWit: Satirical Prints of the GeorgianEra” (Apr. 16) Ancestors of modernpolitical cartoons, these prints providea view into the golden age of Britishsatire.
Berman Museum of Art, UrsinusCollege, Collegeville � “The UrbanLandscape: Ancient to Contemporaryfrom the Permanent Collection” (June1) Pennell, the Martinos, Adolphe,Kingman, Leger, and many others.
Michener Art Museum, Doylestown� “Facing Out, Facing In: FigurativeWorks from the Michener Art MuseumCollection” (May 1) Paintings andphotographs. � “Ali and Elvis:American Icons” (May 15) Twoexhibits in one: “Elvis at 21:Photographs by Al Wertheimer” Elvison the brink of superstardom, and“Muhammad Ali: The Making of anIcon” Images by Leibovitz, Parks,Shay, and others, many of which arerarely seen moments in the icon’s personal life. � “Add Sugar and Stir:Cookbooks and the Lives of Women”(June 26) Text and illustrations fromcookbooks are the basis for complexpaint-layered works of art; the focus ison the WWII era.
Williams Center for the Arts,Lafayette College, Easton � “TheVase Project: Landscape in Blue”(May 12) Installation of porcelainvases painted by qing hua (blue andwhite) artisans in Jingdezhen, China,where ceramics have been producedfor more than 1,800 years.
Westmoreland Museum ofAmerican Art, Greensburg �Through Apr. 24: “AmericanLandscapes: Treasures from theParrish Art Museum” 19th- and 20th-century works; “At the River’s Edge:
Paintings by Patrick Ruane” Worksinspired by a life lived near theAllegheny River.
Print Center, Philadelphia � ThroughMay 21: “Sweet Meat: Jesse Burkeand Nils Ericson” Photographers pres-ent contemporary masculinity and ath-leticism; “Party Pictures: WilliamEarle Williams” Photographs of everysort of party from drag balls to societygalas. � “85th Annual InternationalCompetition: Printmaking” (June 4-July 30) New works displayed at thisoldest juried exhibition for printmak-ing and photography in the U.S.
Everhart Museum, Scranton �Through July 17: “With bullets singingall around me: Regional Stories of theCivil War” (July 17) Multi-disciplinaryexhibition explores individual talesfrom the battlefield and the homefront; “Medics in Action: Caring forthe Wounded” The medic experienceboth at home and abroad, starting withWorld War II and continuing to thepresent day.
Palmer Museum of Art,Pennsylvania State University,University Park � “Prints and Politicsin Weimar Germany” (May 1) Worksby members of Germany’s avant-gardewho abandoned Expressionism duringthe years of the Weimar Republic:Grosz, Kollwitz, Grundig, Heartfield,and others. � “John Rogers: AmericanStories” (May 15) Prolific and popularsculptor who bucked the contemporaryidealized, mythological trend in sculp-ture to make plasters that drew inspira-tion from everyday life. � “AfricanAmerican Art from the PermanentCollection” (June 5) Van Der Zee,Parks, Biggers, Ringgold, Bearden,Gilliam, Ligon, and many others.
South CarolinaGibbes Museum of Art, Charleston� Through July 10 (to coincide withthe 150th anniversary of the start ofthe Civil War): “Stephen Marc:Passage on the Underground Railroad”Photographs of historic sites and digi-tal montages that explore the history offreedom seekers and depict Charlestonduring the war; “A Soldiers View ofCivil War Charleston” The batteriesand forts around Charleston Harbor inpaintings made during the Civil Warby Confederate soldier Conrad WiseChapman.
TennesseeKnoxville Museum of Art �“Xiaoze Xie: Amplified Moments”(May 15) Chinese expatriate’s elabo-rate works that incorporate symbolicimagery derived from books, newspa-pers, and media images of currentevents.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art �“Deep Impressions: Willie Cole Workson Paper” (May 8) Prints, drawings,and photos of everyday objects usedrepetitively creating intricate designsand provocative statements.
TexasMcNay Art Museum, San Antonio� Through May 8: “New ImageSculpture” Works by emerging andmid-career artists who transformavailable or found objects into fan-ciful versions of ordinary things;“Sandy Koglund: The CocktailParty” Surreal installation of CheezDoodle-covered figures interactingat a suburban cocktail party. �Through May 29: “Texas Watercolorsin the McNay Collection” Landscapes,portraits, and still lifes by theWatercolor Gang; “San AntonioDraws: A Survey of ContemporaryDrawing” � “Curtain Up on theAvant-garde: Art, Literature, andMusic on Stage” (June 12) How the-ater artists break with the past andtransform the stage.
UtahBYU Museum of Art, BrighamYoung University, Provo � “DorotheaLange’s Three Mormon Towns” (Apr.30) Series of photos taken inToquerville, Gunlock, and St. Georgeand published in the 9/6/54 issue ofLife magazine
Utah Museum of Fine Arts,University of Utah, Salt Lake City �“Helen Levitt Photographs” (June 12)Candid images of urban street life. �“Collecting Knowledge: RenaissanceCabinets of Curiosity” (May 15)Etchings, engravings, objects, andmore that document wunderkammern,the precursor of the modern museum.� “The Smithson Effect” (July 3)Smithson’s influence extended far be-yond the well known Spiral Jetty; hereare samples of his work in other medi-ums: painting, drawing, collage, sculp-ture, photography, film, and writing.
VirginiaDanville Museum of Fine Arts &History � “A Sense of Place:Landscapes by American LandscapePainter David Grafton” (May 8)
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk �Through June 5: “James Tissot: TheLife of Christ” The watercolors creat-ed in preparation for a 3-volume publi-cation in 1896 of the NewTestament—“the Tissot Bible”;“Tiffany Lamps: Articles of Utility,Objects of Art” Objects from theNeustadt Collection of Tiffany Glassin New York and the Chrysler’s largeglass collection.
University of Richmond Museums �At the Robins Gallery of Designfrom Nature: “Aesthetic Ambitions:Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s FaienceManufacturing Company” (June 19)Ornamental ceramics produced late19th century with the Chinese,Islamic, and Japanese influences typi-cal of the Aesthetic movement. � At the Harnett Museum of Art:“Pilgrimage Faith: Buddhism,Christianity, Islam” (May 20) Objectsfrom the 12th century to the presentthat show the convergence of practicesin the pilgrimage experience
WashingtonMuseum of Northwest Art, LaConner � Through June 12: “Act 2:The Next Track” Group show featureskiln-glass work by artists who attend-ed Pilchuck Glass School and came toworking with glass later in life—theirAct 2; “James B. Thompson: TheVanishing Landscape” The transforma-tion of rural western America on can-vas and in prints.
Frye Art Museum, Seattle �“Degenerate Art Ensemble” (June 19)An interdisciplinary, event-basedextravaganza incorporating music,sculpture, props, costumes, musicalinstruments, animated films, photo and video documentation, and videoprojections.
Henry Art Gallery, University ofWashington, Seattle � Through May8: “Shadows of a Fleeting World:Pictorial Photography and the SeattleCamera Club” Begun in 1924 byJapanese immigrants to the PacificNorthwest, the club flourishedbetween the World Wars, as did othersin the region, providing a glimpse intothe artistic milieu in the area in theearly decades of the 20th century;“Uta Barth” Photographs that attemptto shift attention from the subject mat-ter in the picture to the picture itselfand the pleasures of seeing. �Through June 26: “Lucy Pullen: CloudChamber, Spark Chamber” Sculpturesthat act as detectors of cosmic rays;“Inspiring Vision” Selection of photo-graphs that corresponds to a curricu-lum guide for K-12 teachers.
Jundt Art Museum, GonzagaUniversity, Spokane � “The BolkerCollection: Fritz Eichenberg” (July 30)Prints from Ten Wood Engravings for the Old Testament, and In Praiseof Folly.
WisconsinVilla Terrace Art Museum,Milwaukee � “Formed: KarenGunderman and Linda Vitamvas”(May 15) Ceramic artists evokeanatomical and biological forms.
Woodson Art Museum, Wausau �“Almost Alice: New Illustrations ofWonderland by Maggie Taylor” (June19) Digital images bring fresh insightinto Lewis Carroll’s story. �
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Kiel Johnson, Point and Shoot, 2008. Chipboard,tape, glue, and acrylic sealer. In “New ImageSculpture,” McNay Art Museum, TX
autumnVIEWSautumnVIEWS continued
U. S. Art Critics Association (AICA-USA)announces award winnersAt the beginning of the year, the US section
of the International Association of ArtCritics/AICA-USA announced its annualawards to honor artists, curators, museums, gal-leries and other cultural institutions in recogni-tion of excellence in the conception and real-ization of exhibitions. The winning projectswere nominated and voted on by the 400 activemembers to honor outstanding exhibitions ofthe previous season (June 2009-June 2010).Twenty-six winners of first and second placesin twelve categories were selected from overone hundred finalists.
1. BEST PROJECT IN A PUBLIC SPACE First Place:“Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms”Organized by the Fabric Workshop andMuseum and Philadelphia Museum of Art,Philadelphia, PA (Curated by Marion BoultonStroud, Carlos Basualdo, and Adelina Vlas)Second Places:“Duke Riley: Those About to Die SaluteYou”Organized by the Queens Museum of Art,Queens, NY (Curated by Hitomi Iwasaki)“Antony Gormley: Event Horizon“Organized by Madison Square ParkConservancy, New York, NY (Curated byDebbie Landau)
2. BEST SHOW IN A NON-PROFITGALLERY OR SPACE First Place:“Leon Golub: Live & Die like a Lion?”Organized by The Drawing Center, New York,NY (Curated by Brett Littman)Second Place:“Ree Morton: At the Still Point of theTurning World”Organized by the Drawing Center, New York,NY (Curated by João Ribas)
3. BEST SHOW IN A UNIVERSITYGALLERYFirst Place:“Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings ofCharles Burchfield”Organized by the Hammer Museum of Art,UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (Curated by RobertGober)Second Place:“Tania Bruguera: On the PoliticalImaginary”Organized by Neuberger Museum of Art,Purchase College, State University of NewYork, Purchase, NY (Curated by HelainePosner)
4. BEST ARCHITECTURE OR DESIGNSHOWFirst Place:“Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops forModernity”Organized by the Museum of Modern Art, NewYork, NY (Curated by Barry Bergdoll and LeahDickerman)Second Places:“Dead or Alive: Nature Becomes Art”Organized by the Museum of Arts and Design,
New York, NY (Curated by David RevereMcFadden and Lowery Stokes Sims)” ...OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project (byKrzysztof Wodiczko)“Organized by the Institute of ContemporaryArt, Boston, MA (Curated by Randi Hopkins)
5. BEST SHOW INVOLVING DIGITALMEDIA, VIDEO, FILM OR PERFORMANCEFirst Place:“Tino Sehgal“Organized by the Solomon R. GuggenheimMuseum, New York, NY (Curated by NancySpector)Second Place:“William Kentridge, I Am Not Me, the Horse isNot Mine“Organized by Performa, as part of Performa 09,Cedar Lake, NY (Curated by RoseLeeGoldberg)
6. BEST SHOW IN A COMMERCIALGALLERY IN NEW YORKFirst Place:“Claude Monet“Organized by Gagosian Gallery (Curated byPaul Hayes Tucker)Second Place:“Primary Atmospheres: Works for California1960-1970“Organized by David Zwirner (Curated by TimNye and Kristine Bell)
7. BEST SHOW IN A COMMERCIALGALLERY NATIONALLYFirst Place:“Lines, Shapes and Shadows: Robert Ryman,Fred Sandback,Richard Tuttle and SolLeWitt“Organized by BarbaraKrakow Gallery,Boston, MA (Curatedby Barbara Krakowand Andrew Witkin)Second Place:“Noriko Ambe: ArtistBooks, Linear-ActionsCutting Project“Organized by LoraReynolds Gallery,Austin, TX (Curatedby Glenn Fuhrman
8. BEST MONO-GRAPHIC MUSEUMSHOW IN NEWYORKFirst Place:“Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present” Organized by the Museum of Modern Art(Curated by Klaus Biesenbach)Second Place:“Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention“Organized by The Jewish Museum (Curated byMason Klein)
9. BEST MONOGRAPHIC MUSEUMSHOW NATIONALLYFirst Place:“Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917”Organized by the Art Institute of Chicago,Chicago, IL and the Museum of Modern Art,New York, NY (Curated by Stephanie
D'Alessandro and John Elderfield)Second Place:“Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective”Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art,Philadelphia, PA (Curated by Michael Taylor)
10. BEST THEMATIC MUSEUM SHOW INNEW YORKFirst Place:“In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels inConceptual Art, 1960–1976”Organized by the Museum of Modern Art(Curated by Christophe Cherix)Second Place:“100 Years (version #2, ps1, nov 2009)”Organized by MoMA PS1, Long Island City,NY and Performa (Curated by KlausBiesenbach and RoseLee Goldberg)
11. BEST THEMATIC MUSEUM SHOWNATIONALLYFirst Place:“Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists,1958-1968”Organized by Rosenwald-Wolf, Hamilton Hall& Borowsky Galleries, University of the Arts,Philadelphia, PA (Curated by Sid Sachs)Second Place:“Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in Southand North America, 1920s-1950s”Organized by Newark Museum, Newark, NJ (Curated by Mary Kate O'Hare)
12. BEST HISTORICAL MUSEUM SHOWNATIONALLYFirst Place:“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers”
Organized by the Hirshhorn Museumand Sculpture Garden, WashingtonD.C. and the Walker Art Center,Minneapolis, MN (Curated by KerryBrougher and Philippe Vergne)Second Place:“Otto Dix”Organized by Neue Galerie, New York,NY (Curated by Olaf Peters)
Google Unveils ArtProjectMuseums in the US, Europe, and
Russia have collaborated with Googleon the “Art Project,” a website
(www.googleartproject.com) that enablesusers to discover and view more than1,000 artworks online in high definition
and close-up detail. In addition, it includes360-degree tours of individual galleries usingStreet View “indoor” technology.Among the 17 museums that collaborated in
the project, each selected one artwork to bephotographed in minute detail using super highresolution (“gigapixel“) photography, whichenables viewers to study details of the brush-work and patina beyond what is possible withthe naked eye. In addition, museums providedimages for a selection totaling more than 1,000works for reproduction. The high resolution ofthe images, combined with a zoom viewer,allows viewers to discover minute aspects ofpaintings.In the U.S., participating museums were
The Freer Gallery of Art,continued on next page
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George Condo, Portrait of a Woman, 2002.Oil on canvas. In “George Condo,” New Museum, NY
NEWSbriefs
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Smithsonian, the Frick Collection, theMetropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum ofModern Art (NY). The breadth of the projectcan be seen in the numbers: 11 cities, 9 coun-tries; 17 museums; 17 “gigapixel” pictures;385 gallery rooms; 486 artists; 1,061 high res-olution artwork images; more than 6,000“Street View” panoramas.
Blue Star Program ThrivesThe Blue Star Museums program, a part-
nership between the National Endowment forthe Arts, Blue Star Families, and more than900 museums across the country, offers freeadmission to museums for all active duty mil-itary personnel and their families. The pro-gram goes from Memorial Day, May 30,through Labor Day, September 5. The muse-ums in all 50 states and the District ofColumbia include children's museums, fine artmuseums, history, and science museums. The free admission program is available to
any bearer of a Geneva Convention commonaccess card (CAC), a DD Form 1173 ID card,or a DD Form 1173-1 ID card, which includesactive duty military (Army, Navy, Air Force,Marines, Coast Guard), National Guard andReserve members, and up to five immediatefamily members. The Blue Star Museums website has a full
list of participating museums. Go towww.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums
Charitable Giving Statistics“Blackbaud’s Index of Charitable Giving
carries some fascinating news. In short, allsizes of nonprofits are now emerging from therecession, but smaller organizations are recov-ering faster,” says Roger Craver, editor inchief of The Agitator, and founder ofDonorTrendsThe Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving
reports that overall giving among its clientsremained relatively flat with a small increaseof .3% for the three months ending November2010, as compared to the same period in2009. This trend is based on $2.2 billion in 12months’ charitable revenue from 1,468 non-profit organizations.Blackbaud also releases additional data and
analysis that reports on organizations by size.The Index found that three-month overall giv-ing for small organizations—1,198 organiza-tions with combined annual giving of $394.8million—(prior year revenue of $1 million)increased 18.2% in November, while overallgiving at medium organizations (prior yearrevenue of $1-10 million) decreased 10.1%,and overall giving at large organizations (prioryear revenue $10 million) decreased 0.3%.
In another announcement, Blackbaudunveiled “Altru,” a computer technology thatcentralizes all information collected by a gen-eral admissions arts and cultural organizationso that staff members can access a single viewof their organization, data, supporters, andaudiences. Altru helps staff members do theirjobs more efficiently—planning and executingactivities, engaging and cultivating audiences
and supporters, and reducing their organiza-tion’s IT costs.The three associations that have partnered
with Blackbaud to make information moreaccessible for members—AmericanAssociation of Museums (AAM), Associationof Children’s Museums (ACM), andAmerican Public Gardens Association(APGA)—will offer discounts to their members for use of the Altru solution.
NEA Endorses an IdeaThe notion of an American Writers Museum
has been hoisted up the flagpole to see whetheror not it will fly. Where will it be located? Who will it attract and engage? Is there a needfor a “museum dedicated to literature, poetry,drama and the influence of American writerson history and culture”?According to Jim Leach, chairman of the
National Endowment for the Humanities,“There is a void in the American museumworld. We collect in central points the artifactsof civilization and honor politicians and sol-diers, athletes and artists, inventors and entre-preneurs, but we neglect our writers. In a coun-try established as an idea explicated in writtendocuments and embellished by generations ofpoets, novelists, and critics, the case for com-memorating the written word is self-evident.After all, what is written describes a peopleand what is celebrated defines their values.” [For more information:www.americanwritersmuseum.org]
Censored Video on ViewThe video A Fire in My Belly, censored by
Smithsonian Institution’s National PortraitGallery (DC) after protests from the CatholicLeague and from members of Congress whofound the content offensive, is on view in several art museums across the country. Thepiece, a four-minute work by DavidWojnarowicz, is a look at the artist’s brokenworld following the death of his partner andhis own diagnosis of AIDS. He died in 1992.The withdrawal of the video from the exhi-
bition titled “Hide/Seek: Difference andDesire in American Portraiture” sparkedwidespread controversy over multiple issuesaccording to an Association of Art MuseumDirectors (AAMD) statement: the “unwarrant-ed and uninformed censorship from politi-cians and other public figures”; freedom ofexpression; the “rights and opportunities of anart museum to present works of art thatexpress different points of view.” In his position as Director of George
Eastman House (NY), one of the museumsnow showing the forbidden video, Dr.Anthony Bannon said, “The resulting publicity [about the censored video] raisesissues communicated through the media ranging from our constitutional liberties to the meaning of the significance of art.”
Allis Is in WonderlandThe Charles Allis Art Museum (WI)
celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Anhistoric and cultural landmark in Milwaukee’s
east side, the museum plans a year-long com-memoration, with exhibitions, presentations,and special events, all under the title, “Allis in Wonderland.”
Dispute Stymies Loans from RussiaIn February, it was reported that several
blockbuster exhibitions at the Met, the NationalGallery, and others had been truncated becauseof the decision by Russian authorities to ceaseloans to U.S. museums in the wake of a contro-versy over the Schneerson Library, a collectionof 12,000 books and 50,000 religious docu-ments held by Russia. The collection wasassembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidicmovement over two centuries prior to WorldWar II. It was appropriated by the Nazis duringthe war, and subsequently seized by theRussians to be warehoused in museum andlibrary basements. For years, the Chabad organi-zation tried to regain possession, saying that thecollection was illegally held by the Sovietauthorities after the war. Russian authorities nowclaim that the collection should be preserved inRussia for Russian Jews and scholars.An American court, petitioned by Chabad,
ordered all Schneerson documents to be turnedover to Chabad. Russian government officialsclaimed interference by a foreign governmentand a violation of international law. Russian cultural officials reacted by warning all state-controlled museums that any artworks lent toAmerican museums were at risk of seizure byAmerican authorities as a way to force Russia toabide by the court decision.American officials tried to convince the
Russian government that under American law,art from Russian museums on loan in this coun-try is immune from seizure. But Russian offi-cials remained unconvinced. Yet, a spokesmanfor the United States Embassy in Moscow, hav-ing reassured the Russians that the United Stateshas for 45 years granted immunity from judicialprocess for works on loan from foreign coun-tries, reported that an arrangement could beworked out to allow for the art exchanges.
Museums Join Bank ProgramThe Bank of America’s “Museums on Us®”
program provides its own and Merrill Lynchcardholders free general admission to 150 ofthe country’s arts, cultural, and educationalinstitutions during the first full weekend ofevery month. To partake of the program, card-holders simply present their credit or debitcards and a photo ID, and by doing so gainfree general admission to any participatinginstitution. �
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Gottfried Helnwein, The Murmer of the Innocents 3, 2009. Mixed media (oil and acrylic) on canvas. In “Gottfried Helnwein,” Crocker Art Museum, CA
11
REACHING OUTREACHING OUT
by Allison Leigh-Perlman
–“The ideal in art isthe ability to scream silently, andnot merely to imitate a scream.”–
A quotation of the nonconformist artistVladimir Yankilevsky, who suffered underthe cruelty of the Soviet regime, opened asymposium “Embodied Memories: The Workof Trauma in Art” that was held in Februaryat Rutgers University’s Zimmerli ArtMuseum. Establishing the difficulty of theday’s project—to explore the relationshipbetween traumatic memory and art produc-tion—Yankilevsky’s quote also underscoredthe inherent mutual silence of trauma andworks of art, both visual and textual. Thissilence was broken by bringing together lead-ing scholars from a variety of disciplines,each of whom gave voice to the investigationof how art provides a vital link between thepast and present for individuals whose liveswere affected by trauma. The symposium was planned in conjunc-
tion with the Zimmerli’s exhibition“Embodied Dreams: The Later Work of BorisSveshnikov,” which focused on the drawingsand paintings produced by the Soviet artistafter his false imprisonment in Stalin’s Gulaglabor camps. Each speaker contributed a dif-ferent aspect of trauma as a field of study andprovided various approaches to such themesas memory (collective and personal), history(written and oral), archive, nostalgia, time,heritage, narrative, and legacy. The day’s first speaker, Kristine Stiles,
France Family Professor of Art, Art History &Visual Studies and affiliated faculty in theDepartments of German Studies, Women'sStudies, Theater Studies, and the Program inLiterature at Duke University, presented on“The State of Trauma Studies in Art History.”Dr. Stiles provided an overview of the variousstages of engagement with trauma studies in
art history over the past several decades.Exploring the longstanding uneasy relation-ship between clinical psychology and the vari-ety of psychoanalytic approaches by academ-ics associated with deconstruction, Stiles high-lighted the many studies on trauma related toindividual artists ranging from LynnHershman and Mike Kelley to Gillian Wearingand Khvay Samnang. She also provided a sur-vey of the seminal texts, which have been theframework for trauma study from a multitudeof disciplines, including psychology, art histo-ry, and German Studies. She cited two factorsfor the delayed appearance of trauma studiesin art history: the methodological shift awayfrom biography toward gender, race, class andsimilar issues, and a general neglect of per-formance art and the body as a source of criti-cal study until the 1990s. After art historians adapted trauma studies,
its wide proliferation led to a dearth of newcategories, such as “wound art,” “victim art,”and “trauma culture,” terms that were accom-panied by an exponential increase in art byartists associated with trauma and a generalexhaustion with the subject expressed bymany scholars. Stiles also suggested that trau-ma scholarship today is trifurcated among tra-ditional approaches that mix psychoanalysisand literary criticism; scholarship based inclinical psychology that also includes politicaladvocacy; and a third path in which the lan-guage of trauma has been replaced with suchtropes as memory, melancholy, and nostalgia. Jochen Hellbeck, Associate Professor in
the Department of History at RutgersUniversity, spoke next on “The Language ofSoviet Experience and its Meanings.” DmitryStreletsky, whose family was persecuted underthe Soviet regime and exiled to a special set-tlement in the Urals, provided a test case forDr. Hellbeck to explore the particularities anddistortions often found in the archiving oftraumatic experience and the more general
continued on back page
EMBODIED MEMORIES: The Work of Trauma in Art EMBODIED MEMORIES: The Work of Trauma in Art
Why join?Why invest in yet another professional
organization membership? 1) If you travel, anICOM membership card provides free orreduced membership in many museumsaround the world. 2) Members receive anumber of ICOM publications and discountson materials produced by a number of pub-lishers. 3) Membership is necessary to attendthe ICOM triennial. 4) Some InternationalCommittees also require ICOM membershipfor participation. 5) Several special events atthe AAM Annual meeting are offered only toAmerican ICOM members.
Personally,I’ve belonged to this organization for
many years. As a folklorist working in muse-ums, I chose to become active in the ethnog-raphy committee, although I’ve participatedin meetings of several other committees.Participation in the various ICOM meetings
has allowed me to expand my own profes-sional practices, to see many museums bothas a visitor and from behind the scenes, andto build lifelong relationships with profes-sionals worldwide.Therefore, I encourage everyone to
consider becoming either an individualmember of ICOM or enrolling the museumas an institutional member. Then, becomeactive in the appropriate international com-mittee. Mark your calendar for 2013, whenthe next ICOM triennial will be organizedby the Brazil National Committee ofICOM in Rio de Janeiro. And learn moreabout ICOM on the Web. �
[Annette B. Fromm is assistant professorand coordinator of Museum Studies atFlorida International University; she waselected to her second term as president ofthe International Committee of Museumsof Ethnography in Shanghai.]
International Council of MuseumsInternational Council of Museums continued from page 3
Student Artists Design T-ShirtsThe American Labor Museum/Botto House
National Landmark, (NJ), invites students grades3-12 to design t-shirts. The museum and the PassaicCounty Education Associations (PCEA), workingtogether, provide selected Passaic County studentswith an opportunity to display their projects at themuseum.Registered students choose a significant person(s)
or event in labor history and create a t-shirt designthat reflects the historical importance of the chosenperson(s) or event. Members of the museum’sSpeakers’ Bureau are available to visit classrooms to present talks on labor history as a means of inspiration for the students. Selected t-shirt designsare featured in an exhibit at the museum precedingits May Day Festival. Selected students receive a free t-shirt imprinted with their design.
AMM Reports SPARK!Woodson Art Museum, (WI) Curator of
Education/Writer Erin Narloch reported for the Association of Midwestern Museums that five of itsmembers have developed SPARK!, a program forvisitors affected by memory loss: Racine ArtMuseum; Milwaukee Public Museum; Museum ofWisconsin Art, West Bend; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; and the Leigh YawkeyWoodson Art Museum, Wausau.SPARK! Enables people with memory loss and
their families and care partners to be active museumgoers. Each museum tailors its program to the needsof the institution and community, but some thingshold true for all—artworks, objects, art making, andconversations act like sparks for participants.
[For information: Erin Narloch, Woodson ArtMuseum, [email protected], or 715-845-7010]
Outreach Symposium Focuses on EyesThe James A. Michener Art Museum (PA)
hosted its 7th annual Creative Spirit Symposium for Artists with Visual Disabilities, which bringstogether artists with visual impairments to share their experiences of living and creating art. It wasdesigned as an educational outreach effort toincrease awareness and museum accessibility forartists working with physical disabilities.
The discussion panel, moderated by retinalsurgeon and artist Dr. Richard Goldberg, includedCarol Saylor, a painter turned sculptor due to yearsof progressive deafness and blindness; AshbySaunders, a legally blind sculptor; and Sara Steele,
an artist and activist whoexplored the intersec-tions of color, rhythm,and form through water-color. National DocentSymposium DirectorFern Denney demon-strated her specialty:description tours for theblind and visuallyimpaired. And finally, avisually impaired pho-tographer discussed thecreative process involvedin his viewing and creat-ing photographs. �
Gessica Genderson, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 2006.Graphic novel. In “Art/Memory/Place,” Grey Art Gallery, NY
museumVIEWSmuseumVIEWS Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage
PAIDPermit No. 9513New York, NY
2 Peter Cooper Road, New York, NY 10010
Right: Gordon Parks,Muhammad Ali.
Both in “Ali and Elvis:American Icons,”
Michener Art Museum,PA
Left: Al Wertheimer,Going Home: Elvis onthe Southern Railroadbetween Chattanoogaand Memphis, Tenn.
formation of oral history. He spoke of the kindof pain and desire to belong that is central tothe collective Soviet identity, now evidenced inmemoirs and interviews, and the attempts ofscholars to work with this material historically.
Hellbeck showed how Streletsky and othersurvivors of Stalinist terror make a point ofcasting themselves as active subjects of history,rather than passive victims of the Stalinistregime. By contrast, historians engaging withthese autobiographical sources often misreadthis “Soviet desire” in a liberal key, thus pro-jecting their own values back on the lives andexperiences of their subjects. Dr. Hellbeck'sexploration of the inherent problematics ofscholarly engagement with historically specificforms of pain and loss proved particularly illu-minating in conjunction with Dr. Stiles’ surveyof this scholarship.
The symposium’s final speaker, MarianneHirsch, is the William Peterfield Trent Professorof English and Comparative Literature atColumbia University. Her talk, entitled“Postmemory, Art and Archive,” furtherexplored the difficulties associated with traumastudies. Examining how shifts in media affectthe formation of an archive, Dr. Hirsch dis-cussed the gains and losses resulting from tech-nological advances in archiving such as digitalphotography, web collections, and virtual participation.
Like Dr. Hellbeck, Hirsch highlighted theimportance of collecting and building lost histo-ries, while also investigating the problemsraised by interpretation and loss of context. Shespoke on the particular kind of connective andreparative rather than comparative memorywork being done in Web- and book-based proj-ects. She focused on two projects centering onthe preservation of memory. The first, a virtualexhibit and accompanying book called “And Istill see their faces” was authored by GoldaTencer and includes hundreds of digital photo-graphic submissions. The second,akaKURDISTAN, also a virtual exhibit withbook to accompany, provides the opportunityfor users to submit images and stories to build acollective memory with a people who have nonational archive.
Focusing on themes of inheritance, culturalexchange, and circulation that fosters the com-ing together of disparate groups, Dr. Hirschasked diffi-cult ques-tions aboutthe possibili-ty of tellinghistorythrough pho-tos, and whatresults fromthe loss of
the physical objects when pictures of picturesmake an archive several steps away from tradi-tional primary materials. Similar to Drs. Stilesand Hellbeck, Hirsch underlined the importanceof bearing witness to acts of memory andexchange.
Ultimately, all the speakers at the sympo-sium emphasized the value of testimony; therefusal by scholars and many survivors alike tobe silent even when confronted with what trau-ma makes unsayable. Each gave meaning to thesymposium’s title, exploring the work of traumain art from the variety provided by their respec-tive disciplines. By this study, they embody thememories of their particular subjects, be itthrough art and performance, the constructionof oral history, or the collection and catalogingthat forms an archive. And as each speakerexemplified how memories become transformedas they are embodied, they gave the audiencehope that even the painful experiences of the
past could be transformed into art. �
[Allison Leigh-Perlman is Dodge-Lawrence Fellow, Department of Russianand Soviet Nonconformist Art, and organ-izer of the symposium as well as a Ph.D.candidate in Rutgers University’sDepartment of Art History.]
Helen Levitt, NY (Four girls running in street), c.1935-45. Gelatin silver print. In “Helen Levitt Photographs,” Utah Museum of Fine Arts, UT
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