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Be Nimble and Pivot
By: Gina Thomas McGee, Associate Educator
That’s the lesson I learned at the Alliance of Artists Communities Conference. What does it mean? It means: be flexible, be open to change, seize opportunities as they come, change direction and forge new paths as you keep one foot firmly planted in your experience, knowledge, and abilities. Just pivot.
Knowing virtually nothing about artist in residency programs before attending the conference, I didn’t have any clear expectations about what I’d learn. The most striking thing about this group of arts leaders, administrators, funders and directors is how deeply they care for artists. They’re constantly asking themselves how they can foster and support artists. Why? Because they truly believe that what artists do is important. Imagine that. If you’re an artist who feels like you’re on the outside or that nobody is rooting for you, talk to anyone associated with the Alliance and you’ll know that is not true.
It was inspiring to meet so many people committed to artists and the artistic process. The love the messy stages. The in-between stages. The “I don’t know what it is yet” stages. As a museum educator, I’m used to seeing art after it is all shiny, polished, and installed in the galleries. This conference made me appreciate the ‘before’ as much as the ‘after’.
I attended so many interesting sessions. I learned about international artist exchange programs, trends in philanthropy, community engagement, evaluation, and collaboration. I was inspired by projects like this. Oh, and this. Also, this place? As Tina Fey would say, “I WANT TO GO TO THERE”.
Now I’m stuck with a brain full of ideas. (Did you know you can make bricks out of mushrooms?! Mind blown.) I can’t wait to keep learning and put some of this new knowledge to work in Akron.
Here I am rambling on about an art conference and haven’t shared any images? Unacceptable.
Here are some highlights:
I loved this sculpture on view as part of Zero1 Garage’s Patent Pending exhibition. You touch that fluff ball and the light bulb lights up. Love it.
The artists of Fallen Fruit. You NEED to check out their work. It is all kinds of awesome. www.fallenfruit.org
The Palo Alto Art Center. I want to take all of their classes.
Sunshine(!) at Café Strich, who kept us fed after hours of using our brains.
A real highlight of the conference was visiting the Montalvo Arts Center. Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, this place is strikingly beautiful. Our group was greeted with pizzas made by their culinary artist (when can I move in?) and then got a tour of the cottages, where their artists in residence live and work. Fantastic!
Thank you Alliance of Artists Communities for putting on a great conference. Thank you, Akron Art Museum for sending me. Big thanks to the Ohio Arts Council for making it possible.
See you next year in Charleston?
Find part one of my conference experience here: http://akronartmuseum.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/alliance-of-artists-communities-conference/
Read MoreArt 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 reopen on November 6. A few paintings will be put away for a while, but this means that visitors will have a chance to see other works from the collection, including John Baldassari’s Six Colorful Gags (Male) (1991), Seydou Keïta’s untitled portrait (around 1957–1960, printed later), and some other surprises.
Some favorite artworks, including Chuck Close’s Linda (1950) will be returned to their current spots—and we will be adding a Chuck Close screenprint, Alex/Reduction Print (1993).
Mickalene Thomas’s Girlfriends and Lovers (2008) is moving to a different gallery—come see what you think!
The museum collection includes over 5,000 works of art. Remember, even though we can’t display everything, the majority of the collection is available to view, explore, learn about, and discover on our website!
Read MoreAlliance of Artists Communities Conference
Thanks to a scholarship from the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) Associate Educator Gina Thomas McGee is currently attending the Alliance of Artists Communities Conference in San Jose, CA. Presenters and attendees are from across the country. Gina says her brain is full and squishy, but she’s excited about all the ideas she’ll be bringing back.
We’ll be updating this page with tidbits from her trip, but you can check out Instagram and Twitter for even more photos. If you’re in San Jose and see Gina be sure to say hi.
Thursday, October 24
Wednesday, October 23
From keynote: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, innovation and change.”
From the Trends in Philanthropy session- the idea that the very best situation your organization could be in is that money is the only thing you need.
Overall, it was great to explore the SoFA district and see how the arts are transforming the neighborhood. Galleries, a theatre, contemporary art center all in one block.
I met up with some fellow recipients of the Ohio Arts Council scholarship and we shared lots of ideas….and talked about the threat of snow at home.
Went to an event at the San Jose Museum of Art and got a chance to explore the galleries after hours.
Read MoreHere 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 and eerie streetscapes. This exhibition, while fantastical and peculiar, is suitable for children.
Included in Real/Surreal is the untitled work by Ralph Eugene Meatyard pictured above. Meatyard is best known for his photographs that examine the bizarre and mysterious realms that exist within our everyday world. His enigmatic images illustrate a realm of disturbing and unsettling intimacy, creating scenes of haunting ghostly figures and children wearing monstrous masks.
In the Galleries
Lee Bontecou has always been deeply affected by social issues, war and politics. In the work below she expressed those attitudes through her choice of materials and an abstract visual language: the grid of entrapment, sharp edges that “mentally scrape the viewer” and ominous black openings.
Gallery admission is free every Thursday at the Akron Art Museum. We’d love to see you put on your costumes and prowl around the galleries. Take your picture in front of Claes Oldenburg’s Inverted Q in the lobby and tag it with #iQAAM. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more.
Trick or Treat on South High
Thursday, October 24 at 6:30-8:30 pm
Make sure you wear your costumes as you trick-or-treat for art supplies in the galleries from 6:30-8:30 pm. T here will be art-making activities in the lobby and guided tours of Real/Surreal. Advance registration required.
Arthouse Film: The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
Thursday, October 24 at 7 pm
Always wondering when that amazing indie film you see in the paper is going to make it to Akron? See the latest and greatest in new cinema before anyone else. This week you can whizz along with the intellectual film The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a film that covers the ideology behind the films we watch. Through psychoanalysis Slavoj Žižek explores “the mechanisms that shape what we believe and how we behave.”
Check AkronFilm.com for up-to-date film listings and tickets. Tickets are $5 members and students, $7 nonmembers.
Attack of the Freakishly Short Animation Fest
Thursday, October 31 at 7 pm
Comic, dark and beautiful shorts make up this sixth annual event—a perennial favorite. Join us for a one-night tour of the best of international animation festivals. This annual event tends to be extremely popular, so reserve your seat online at AkronFilm.com. Tickets are $5 members and students and $7 nonmembers. Recommended for ages 16+.
Read MoreFree Thursdays
We want to hear from you about Free Thursdays. To learn about all the spectacular programming on Free Thursdays visit our calendar.
Read MoreVenice Biennale, Part Three
Chief Curator Janice Driesbach recently travelled to Italy where she experienced the Venice Biennale 55th International Art Exhibition. This is the third post in a series of three. Read the first post here and the second post here.
Venice is awash with tourists, although we had a nice conversation with a native Venetian one day. Among visitors, Italian seems to be the predominant language, followed by German. British and Australians are numerous among English speakers.
An English couple we encountered directed us to the Richard Mosse installation at the Irish pavilion, about 15 feet from a vaporetto stop or, since swimming in the canals is discouraged, half a mile following passageways around the canals. A marvelous multi-screen video captured in outdated military infrared film, part of which we had seen when Mosse spoke in Cleveland last year (pictured below and here is a link to an interview of Mosse at the Biennale)
Iraq offered both food and food for thought…
…while Cyprus and Lithuania shared space in an arena/warehouse near the Arsenale:
At the Correr Museum was a very nice installation of Tony Caro sculpture, many pieces in spaces by themselves. That led to the Cuban pavilion in the adjacent archaeological museum, which featured a number of artists. An installation with birdcages with videos by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard was superlative.
And, back at the Arsenale, we discovered amazing digital animations in China’s display, including one by Zhang Xiaotao called Sakya (approx. 15-min video viewable online via this gallery site). Was incredibly complex and defies description (cosmic, perhaps?).
Unfortunately, it was impossible to take in all the collateral Biennale exhibitions. And certainly with the hour+ long line to see San Marco (hordes of people pour out of gigantic cruise ships each morning), we missed the usual tourist destinations. At the end of our final day in Venice, we could have easily spent another several days just taking in Biennale events.
Explore the official Venice Biennale 55th International Art Exhibition site here.
Read MoreVenice Biennale, Part Two
Chief Curator Janice Driesbach recently travelled to Italy where she experienced the Venice Biennale 55th International Art Exhibition. This is the second post in a series of three. Read the first post here.
After taking in the Arsenale and Giardini, we devoted the following days to visiting national pavilions and collateral events staged throughout the city. This entailed walking through several sectors of Venice, navigating dozens of bridges and multiple staircases. One of the delights of these exhibitions is that they offered access to palazzi that would not otherwise be available to us. Many of these ornate buildings are both extraordinarily elaborate and in need of significant repair.
Of the countless exhibitions and art events happening simultaneously to the Biennale, there were some definite must-sees as well as a few pleasant surprises.
Marc Quinn’s gigantic inflatable sculpture of Alison Lapper Pregnant is situated prominently in front of San Giorgio Maggiore as part of an exhibition at the Cini Foundation (and has caused some controversy). This inflatable was a prominent centerpiece of the 2012 Special Olympics, and is a replica of the life-size marble original Quinn modeled after the real Alison Lapper, who was born without arms. (As a side note: when a larger-than-life marble version of this sculpture was installed in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, in 2005, there was also significant controversy)
700 Snowballs by Not Vital (this is the artist’s given name, pronounced “No Vee-tal”) is installed nearby on Isola di San Giorgio (pictured below):
A visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, revealed outstanding works by Cubist artists, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy (featured in the Real/Surreal exhibition), as well as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Arshille Gorky paintings that Peggy exhibited at her Art of This Century gallery in NYC before she returned to Europe (Peggy Guggenheim was an important American promoter of European Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist painters).
One of the reasons I wanted to be in Venice by early September was to see Ai Wei Wei’s sculptures detailing his confinement in China, shown in the church of Sant’Antonin. Six large containers, each with two openings (on the sides or above) with incredibly detailed sculptures illustrating how his every action was surveilled during his captivity.
A central aspect of the Biennale is the array of national pavilions, each sponsored and curated by individual nations (in some rare cases, multiple countries collaborate). National pavilions such as Italy’s boasted some of the most interesting displays. Some highlights follow.
Azerbaijan: with its decorative theme (yes, sitting was allowed):
Korea: Wonderful Where Is Alice exhibition. The arms/hands forming wings were so much more visceral in person than in reproduction, but the photo gives an idea:
Check back on Friday, September 27 for the third and final blog post from Janice Driesbach’s trip to the Venice Biennale.
Read MoreVenice Biennale, Part One
Chief Curator Janice Driesbach recently traveled to Italy where she experienced the Venice Biennale 55th International Art Exhibition.
Our first afternoon we made our way via a short vaporetto ride and on foot to two of the collateral Biennale exhibitions—both in palazzi (palace-like buildings) along the Grand Canal. We saw a section of Glasstress: White Light/White Heat in elegant rooms, each adorned with amazing chandeliers (most of which were part of the original decor, it seemed). Rina Banjeree‘s multimedia installation (photo below) was a highlight there. I have admired her works on paper for some time, but her 3-D work was new to me.
Next we saw Rudolf Stingel’s extraordinary installation at the Palazzo Grassi. 38 rooms (I’m told, didn’t count) with floors and walls covered with inkjet-printed carpet each containing one of Stingel’s paintings. An amazing contemplative space.
On our second day we headed to the first of the two main exhibition sites—the Arnsenale, which formerly housed an armory and shipyards. We were greeted by Marino Aurito’s model that gave the name to this year’s event, The Encyclopedic Palace. Highlights included Camille Henrot’s single-channel video Grosse Fatigue, which earned a Silver Lion award (think Oscars for artists) and is featured on the cover of the current Artforum.
Drawings by the Turkish artist Yüksel Arslan using potash, honey, egg whites, oil, bone marrow, blood and urine were also quite wonderful. While there were few paintings represented at the Arsenal , three canvases by Daniel Hesidence (born in Akron, as it turns out) were quite fine.
A special section of the exhibition was curated with Cindy Sherman—and included photo albums Sherman has collected and used as inspiration for her work. Among the interesting artists featured there was Phyllis Galembo, featuring residents of Ghana dressed for masquerades that parody festivals Europeans introduced.
Beyond the main exhibition galleries were national pavilions, including wonderful representations from Argentina (videos and sculptures evoking Eva Peron), Turkey, and Indonesia. Wandering to the back of the Arsenale at the end of the day, we were serenaded by Ragnar Kjartanssson’s crew of seven musicians aboard the S.S. Hangover and delighted by a wall of drawings by Marco Tirelli in the Italian Pavilion.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8vfl2Zjrjo&w=560&h=315]
Our third day was spent at the second major Biennale site, the Giardini. One room featured a wonderful combination of Ron Nagle’s evocative ceramics, and Tantric paintings and textiles by Geta Bratescu. Another highlight was the performance Tino Sehgal orchestrated with two performers aligned in chanting, dancing, beatboxing (which won Sehgal a Golden Lion).
One example of Tino Seghal’s orchestration—the performers rotate frequently so that the dynamics of the performance change constantly:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knF5WY_d1KU&w=420&h=315]
As at the Arsenale, there were a number of national pavilions nearby, including Sarah Sze’s carefully calibrated installations in the United States pavilion (which also earned a Golden Lion). Anri Sala’s three-part (four screen) video Ravel Ravel Unravel was also exquisite and Jeremy Deller’s English Magic was Great Britain’s quite fine entry, even accompanied by tea served in a gallery overlooking a garden (much appreciated late in the afternoon on a gray day).
Ai Wei Wei (below) in Germany’s presentation was also riveting. Yes, I know he’s not German, and neither were any of the other three artists in this wide-ranging exhibition (hosted in France’s space no less—France and Germany having traded pavilions this year)!
Visit the Akron Art Museum for FREE on Thursdays starting October 3
Beginning on Thursday, October 3 gallery admission is free EVERY Thursday.
“As we re-vision the museum’s role in the community, we acknowledged that everyone deserves an exciting and enriching art experience,” said museum Executive Director and CEO Mark Masuoka, “This generous gift from Smucker’s provides the museum staff valuable resources to enhance visitors’ engagement and their connection to the creative process. Free Thursday programs will make art relevant to audiences of all ages.”
Annual Meeting
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
5:30 pm
With nearly 100 years and internationally recognized exhibitions under its belt, the Akron Art Museum is doing anything but resting on its laurels. Hear first-hand about how the museum is transforming itself into a contemporary organization by redefining both the museum and its role in the community. Join the Board of Trustees and the new Executive Director and CEO Mark Masuoka for an evening of inspired visions and transformative conversations. Continue reading for the specifics of the meeting.
Not a member? Join now to attend the Annual Meeting.
Reservations recommended at https://akronartmuseum.wpengine.com/eventregistration/232.
To be Discussed on September 24, 2013
Board of Directors Elections
For election to a four-year term as Board Directors, the Governance Committee recommends the following:
- Myriam Altieri Haslinger
- Fred Bidwell
- Jeff Bruno
- Gordon Ewers
- Richard Harris
- Skip Radwany
Notice of Proposed Amendment of the Akron Art Museum Constitution and By-Laws by the Adoption of a New Code of Regulations
TO ALL AAM MEMBERS:
Notice is hereby given that the attached Code of Regulations (the “Code”) will be submitted to the AAM Membership for discussion and adoption at the Akron Art Museum Annual Meeting to be held on September 24, 2013, commencing at 5:30 pm. The Meeting will be held in the AAM Auditorium, One South High Street, Akron, Ohio 44308.
The adoption of the new Code will require the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the AAM Membership present at the Meeting. All Members present will be qualified to vote on the new Code.
The new Code reflects the work of a Task Force appointed by the Governance Committee to amend the existing AAM Constitution and By-Laws in order to bring AAM’s governing framework more in conformity with the updated Ohio Nonprofit Corporation Law (Chapter 1702 of the Ohio Revised Code) and to eliminate some inconsistencies between the Constitution and By-Laws. If adopted, the new Code will constitute AAM’s basic governance document, together with operating procedures of the AAM Board of Directors.
The new Code has been extensively reviewed, discussed and unanimously approved by the AAM Governance Committee, which recommends its approval by AAM membership.
In addition to the Code, a copy of the existing Constitution and By-laws is attached for review and comparison. At the Annual Meeting, AAM Officers and Governance Committee Representatives will summarize provisions of the new Code and be prepared to answer any questions about the Code and its amendment and supercession of the Constitution and By-Laws. However, the Governance Committee would draw Members’ particular attention to the following Code provisions:
1. Article III, Membership provides for membership classifications based on a dues structure and authorizes the Board to designate voting and general membership. It is contemplated that the Board may grant voting privileges to Director’s Circle-Level Members.
2. Pursuant to the Code, both the giving of notices and attendance at Meetings can be accomplished by the use of ‘authorized communication equipment’ as contemplated and defined in the Ohio Nonprofit Corporation Law. This authorizes the provision of email or telephonic notices and the participation in meetings by conference call, video or other electronic means. At the same time, provision is also made for sending notices by mail, courier or physical delivery if so requested by recipients. See Article IV, Section 6.
3. Article IX, Section 3 authorizes the appointment of an Audit Committee (which does not currently exist) and also provides that the Executive Committee could perform the audit function itself or delegate it to a subcommittee of the Finance Committee.
4. The Code provides that all Directors must be Voting Members and that Committee Chairs are to be recommended by the President and approved by the Board and must also be Directors, unless the Board determines otherwise.
5. Both the By-Laws and the Constitution contain a provision requiring that only the income from endowment funds can be used for AAM purposes. The Code does not contain a similar provision because, typically, such a restriction is more appropriately a Board policy rather than a Code requirement. In fact, current Board policy as to the use of endowment funds is even more restrictive than the By-Law/Constitution provisions.
If, in advance of the Annual Meeting, any Member has any questions or comments about the new Code, feel free to direct them in writing to the AAM Secretary or by email to cAlexander@AkronArtMuseum.org. Any Member may also request receipt of a mailed copy of the Code.
We urge Members to carefully review the attached documents and to attend the Annual Meeting at which the new Code will be discussed and adopted.
Sincerely,
Dianne Newman
Akron Art Museum President
Elizabeth Brumbaugh Hackett
Akron Art Museum Secretary
Akron Art Museum Code of Regulations
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