Category: Akron Art Museum
Community Conversations: Art and Entrepreneurship
By Mark Masuoka, Executive Director and CEO Art and Entrepreneurship are typically two subjects that occupy polar opposite positions in society. What is the role of innovation in the non-profit sector? Art (creative process) and business (entrepreneurial spirit) are forever linked by the fact that there is no innovation without creativity. Both industries thrive when the focus is on fulfilling a mission, not the bottomline. Employees want to be inspired, customers want to know that their investment is making a difference and as a result,
Community Conversations: Shifiting the Cultural Landscape
By Mark Masuoka, Executive Director and CEO What happens when a message doesn’t matter? When all your marketing, promotions and campaigns just don’t work. When the only thing that really matters is to take action, set things in motion, create chaos and watch what happens.This is what artists experience, encounter and explore everyday. The creative process brings together our intentions and initiative in order to make change happen. It’s not about what you talk about; it’s not even what you think about; it’s only about
Community Conversations: Shifting the Cultural Landscape
By Mark Masuoka, Executive Director and CEO But I’m not creative.I don’t have a creative bone in my body.I can’t even draw a straight line.These statements are commonly overheard the moment we propose an art (creative) activity. Whether it be signing up for an art class or just sitting in a meeting and being asking to think “outside of the box”, these apprehensive statements reflect a larger social context beyond the “fear of the unknown”. It points to how people perceive the truth about what is
Community Conversations: Shifting the Cultural Landscape
By Mark Masuoka, Executive Director and CEO What happens when an art museum opens its doors and invites everyone to take part in a community-wide conversation to influence the direction of the museum’s public programs and community initiatives? This is exactly what the Akron Art Museum is undertaking in a series of open forums to initiate meaning discussions about the inner life of a city. Community Conversations is a way to bring together amazing thinkers and doers to engage with the museum and to move
A Look Back into the Archives: The Akron Art Club
By: Alexandra Lynch, Kent State University Practicum Student Founded in 1915, the Akron Art Club had a membership of 20 people and was organized by Herbert Atkins and Kenneth Nunemaker. The club met once a week and allocated one afternoon a month to outdoor sketching. In 1915 the Akron Art Club started holding exhibitions in various locations around the city, which soon lead way to the idea for an art center. On October 19, 1920, 24 Akron citizens met to explore the possibilities of bringing
T-shirt+Selfie=Discount
Everyone likes a good deal.So do we. So here’s a chance for us to give you one.Do you have an Instagram account on your smartphone? If the answer is yes, then you’re about halfway there. If not, download it… It’s a fun, simple and visual way to share what’s going on in your world.Next, purchase an Akron Art Museum shirt. They’re awesome, extremely comfortable and have our logo in a metallic silver (the colors and sizes are listed below).Here comes the deal part. Use your
New York City Galleries – A Weekend Tour
By: Jan Driesbach, Chief CuratorI started my first day in New York at George Adams Gallery , talking about Lesley Dill, whose lithograph I See Visions will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Akron Art Museum called Language in Art (opening in April).Also at the gallery were new works by Enrique Chagoya and amazing cut-outs by Kako Ueda. I made my way down West 25th and West 24th Streets, with highlights including impressive new ceramics by Lynda Benglis at Cheim and Reid .
Chili Cook Off
A frigid and overcast Monday provided a perfect atmosphere for staff members looking to warm up with a bowl of chili at the Akron Art Museum’s Chili Cook Off fundraiser on December 9. Seven employees entered their favorite chili recipes in a battle judged by the museum’s Executive Director & CEO Mark Masuoka. First, second and third place winners were chosen based on consistency, flavor and variety of ingredients.Two entries tied for third place – one made by Sheri Stallsmith which was a traditional chunky
Art Shuffle
By: Elizabeth Carney, Curatorial Assistant This week, the artworks are being removed from three galleries—but don’t worry, the walls won’t be empty for long (and there will still be plenty of art to see during these changes!) The floors won’t be bare, either. Diana Al-Hadid’s monumental sculpture Nolli’s Orders will all but fill the space of the first room in the Sandra L. and Dennis B. Haslinger Family Foundation Galleries when this special exhibition opens the evening of November 22. The other 2 galleries will
Here Comes Halloween
Halloween is coming a little early to the Akron Art Museum. Check out our Halloween-y art all week long and join us for Halloween inspired events on Thursday, October 24 and Thursday, October 31. Real/Surreal Real/Surreal is the perfect artist treat to visit during Halloween. Come down to the galleries and experience how American realist and surrealist artists used details and imagination to create compositions with disconcerting undertones of seemingly ordinary scenes. Included in the exhibition are hooded figures, anatomical paintings, photographs of masked people