Category: Artwork
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
Real/Surreal is Coming Soon
By: Janice Driesbach, Chief Curator It’s just over four weeks before Real/Surreal opens and Akron Art Museum curatorial, education and design staff have been planning the installation for months. Although the exhibition is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, we are personalizing it for our Akron visitors. Our efforts respond to input we received from our constituents in surveys and a focus group last fall. We learned our visitors are interested in knowing about the historic context in which the artists were working,
Gravity and Grace Travels to Brooklyn, NYC
By: Arnold Tunstall, Collections Manager We’ve begun the next phase of our El Anastui exhibition, Gravity and Grace – after its premiere here in Akron. Since the exhibit closed last October, the staff has been working nearly every day to prepare it for the national tour. Our preparators re-designed existing crates, new ones and developed packing methods. And I went to Brooklyn to assist with the installation. Watching Brooklyn Museum’s curatorial team re-imagine some of the works was very exciting. A few pieces were literally
A Week in Denver Part One: ART
By: Corey Jenkins, Communication Volunteer/Visitor Services In December, I completed my B.A. in Communication Studies at Kent State University, and I decided it was time to take a short break. Two of my close friends had relocated to Denver last year, so I chose the Mile High City as my destination. The Denver area has many geographic and cultural offerings, including everything from the Rocky Mountain foothills to Coors, the world’s largest single site brewery. One thing evident in the city is a strong commitment
2012 in Review
By: Bridgette Beard Klein, Communications Assistant 2012 has been an exhilarating year for the Akron Art Museum. We continued to launch our new visual look, celebrated 90 years in the community, exhibited monumental art and made major leadership changes. We really kicked off the year with our 90th anniversary celebration in February. The performance included abstract painter Al Bright in concert with the Jesse Dandy Band. In March, Ray Turner: Population opened featuring an ever-expanding series of portraits, including key Akronites from the University Park
Behind the Scenes: Installation of “New Artifacts”
By: Danielle Meeker, Curatorial Assistant Does looking at these photographs of the exhibition New Artifacts: Works by Brent Kee Young and Sungsoo Kim make you curious about the installation process? We started planning the installation of New Artifacts over the summer. At the time, several works in the show were still in progress, so we had to base our layout on the artists’ estimates for the works’ dimensions. We made several studio visits to check on the progress of the artwork and then came up
The Q Is Blue!
By Corey Jenkins, Communications Intern One of the first things visitors to the museum see is Claes Oldenburg’s bright pink sculpture Inverted Q. However if you are Vincent van Gogh, who one vision expert believes suffered from “protanopia,” the Q would appear to be blue. The Chromatic Vision Simulator app for iOS/Android was developed by Japanese vision expert, Kazunori Asad. After viewing some of Van Gogh’s pieces in an exhibition where the lighting and environment was designed to display pieces the way a colorblind person
An Awakening of our Creative Side (Part 1 of 2)
By Jennifer Stavrianou* After recently returning from a trip to New York City, where I got to meet the original art dealer for EL Anatsui’s artwork, I learned that the Akron Art Museum was working on an exhibition of his work. Aggressively, I began hunting for the staff member who could help me become a part of this grand event. My search lead me to Interim Chief Curator Ellen Rudolph who explained that this particular show did not follow the museum’s typical installation pattern because
#CindySale Tomorrow!
Tomorrow night Christie’s will auction Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #96 on behalf of the Akron Art Museum. You can learn more about the sale on our previous post, Akron Art Museum to Auction Contemporary Masterpiece. Several members of the staff and Board of Trustees will be in New York City at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. We will be tweeting using #CindySale to post about the auction, results and everything else related to the NYC trip. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or “Like”
Art: 21- Change
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFltJ1JtW9w&list=UU6Z_Gbfo7xwSMs6Ahkv-m3Q&feature=plcp] In one week (April 13) the sixth season of “Art in the Twenty-First Century” premieres with the episode “Change,” which features international artists El Anatsui, Ai Weiwei and Catherine Opie. This is perfect timing because for the museum’s 90th anniversary celebration, it is organizing the national tour of Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui in conjunction with the artist and his dealer, Jack Shainman. The exhibition will premiere in Akron June 17 – October 7, 2012 with the artist’s most recent work