Exhibition:Here and There
2017-04-28 09:00 - 17:00 (America/Detroit) | 202 S. Thayer - Institute for the Humanities Gallery
"Here and There" looks at the problems of extreme poverty, and includes artist Tracey Snelling's signature piece "One Thousand Shacks." New works--created on campus during her three-week residency--will examine these issues in the US, how they relate to location and, at times, the disenfranchisement of large groups of people for the sake of big business, political clout, and power.

Curator's Statement:

To meet artist Tracey Snelling evokes the sensation of a strong willed breeze determined to open a backyard door.

As an artist and person, she is down to earth, direct, contemporary, and moving through it all with volition.

Snelling’s artistic practice originally focused on photography as a medium, but soon evolved to include her construction of sculptures based upon cities and towns, strip malls and urban housing.

She refers to her three dimensional work as sculptural rather than diorama or model making because she isn’t particularly interested in the exact rendering of location, or the contextualization of place. Instead, she taps into the energy of community and its humanness—restless, frenetic, din, a choir, extending beyond the confines of walls.

Snelling’s representations are neither judgmental nor opportunistic. They unaffectedly and objectively offer a multidimensional sketch of a place in time, how we occupy space.

Her signature piece "One Thousand Shacks" (included in this exhibition along with new work created during her her residency here) pushes up against the challenges of economic inequalities, racial biases, and imposed class divisions that often limit the options available to so many people. Concurrently, the installation embraces our everyday existence expressed through Snelling’s exuberant palette, bold graphics, video and neon.

Conceptually, Snelling’s stacking method first creates an exalted “big picture” with a myriad of colors, image, text, sound and light. The counterpoint in scale soon immerses the viewer into each small world. With this shift, the onlooker becomes the active participant, the occupant in situ, adding the trappings of their own experiences to each tableau. It is this shift that forces the viewer into a new way of seeing from varying perspectives.

On the one hand, the artist’s sculptures allude to our desire for refuge, a private domain that allows us to be ourselves. On the other, the overall composition reaffirms it is imperative that we co-exist with one another respectfully, forge relationships, understanding our marked differences. It is diversity—the unique and often disparate combination of things, the cacophony of it all, that activates communities and public space.

Snelling’s constructions literally build a way out, one on top of another, charged with the undercurrent of the way we live. They emphasize our universal longing to find a place called home, and be accepted, built on the foundation of one and of many.
–Amanda Krugliak, Arts Curator, Institute for the Humanities

About Tracey Snelling:
Through the use of sculpture, photography, video, and large-scale installation, Tracey Snelling gives her impression of a place, its people and their experience. Often, the cinematic image stands in for real life as it plays out behind windows in the buildings, sometimes creating a sense of mystery, other times stressing the mundane. Snelling’s work derives from voyeurism, film noir, and geographical and architectural location. Within this idea of location, themes develop that transport observation into the realm of storytelling, with reality and sociological study being the focus. Snelling had exhibited in international galleries, museums and institutions, including the The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Kunstmuseen Krefeld Germany; El Museo de Arte de Banco de la Republica, Bogota; the Stenersen Museet, Oslo, and the Sundance Film Festival. Her short films have screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Circuito Off in Venice, Italy, and the Arquiteturas Film Festival Lisboa in Portugal. She also received a 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant. Snelling lives and works in Oakland, California and Berlin, Germany.

Other:History Honors Symposium
2017-04-28 09:00 - 12:00 | Hatcher Graduate Library - Room 100
Graduating seniors present their thesis projects before family and their professors and classmates.

Reception / Open House:Women's Studies Graduation Reception
2017-04-28 09:30 - 11:30 | Michigan Union - Rogel Ballroom
Doors open at 9:00am
Ceremony begins at 9:30am

Reception following ceremony

This event is by department invitation only for undergraduate Women's Studies and Gender and Health majors.

Exhibition:Clements Library: A Century of Collecting, 1903 - 2016
2017-04-28 10:00 - 16:00 | William Clements Library - Avenir Foundation Room
The William L Clements Library is one of the world’s finest early American history collections. The books, maps, manuscripts, prints, photographs, and other original treasures in the Library’s holdings form a remarkable collection of primary sources on America from Columbus through the nineteenth century.

Visit the newly renovated William L Clements Library to see the unique treasures that reflect the broad range of our collections. This exhibit highlights the collecting philosophy and practices of Mr. Clements and the Library’s four Directors.

For more information about the Library and using it for research, please visit our website at clements.umich.edu.

Social / Informal Gathering:LSA Honors Program Senior Open House
2017-04-28 10:00 - 13:00 | Mason Hall - Perlman Honors Commons (G421)
The LSA Honors Program Senior Open House, in the Perlman Honors Commons, allows students to say goodbye to their Academic Advisors and to pick up graduation regalia, if they were unable to attend the ceremony at Crisler. A continental breakfast is available throughout the morning.

Exhibition:Mapping in the Enlightenment: Science, Innovation, and the Public Sphere
2017-04-28 10:00 - 16:00 | William Clements Library - Avenir Foundation Room
This exhibit uses examples from the Clements Library collection to tell the story of creating, distributing, and using maps during the long 18th century. Enlightenment thinking stimulated the effort to make more accurate maps, encouraged the growth of map collecting and map use by men and women in all social classes, and expanded the role of maps in administration and decision-making throughout Europe and her overseas colonies.

Ceremony / Service:Psychology Commencement Ceremony
2017-04-28 10:00 - 12:00 | Crisler Arena
Graduates from Fall-16, Winter-17, and Spr/Su-17 are invited to participate in our ceremony and invite your family and friends to celebrate! No tickets required, no limit on guests. Students RSVP here: https://goo.gl/forms/3W3QLvp05PCyHZaD3

Exhibition:RC Senior Invitational Art Show
2017-04-28 10:00 - 18:00 | East Quadrangle - RC Art Gallery
Art by RC Seniors

Ceremony / Service:History of Art Graduation Ceremony & Reception
2017-04-28 10:30 - 13:00 | Angell Hall - Auditorium A
Join us as we honor and celebrate the Class of 2017! History of Art majors, minors, and Museum Studies minors and families are all welcome.

10:30am-11:30am: Ceremony at Angell Auditorium A (435 S. State St.)
11:30am-12:30pm: Reception at UMMA Forum (525 S. State St.)

Instructions for students graduating: http://bit.ly/2o39Iqo

Exhibition:Constructing Gender
2017-04-28 11:00 - 17:00 | Museum of Art
Ask U-M students, alumni, or fans what symbolizes the University of Michigan, and you’ll likely hear the Big House, the Diag, along with the Michigan Union and the Michigan League. Since they officially opened in 1919 and 1929, respectively, the Union and League have been destinations for generations of Wolverines yet few know the rich history of the buildings’ origins or about the architects who brought them both to life: brothers and U-M alums Irving K. and Allen Pond.

The exhibition, organized in celebration of the University of Michigan’s bicentennial in 2017, illuminates the architecture and bustling student life of these iconic buildings using original drawings, renderings, photographs, color studies, and even dance cards from the Bentley Historical Library, which serves as the University of Michigan archives. These fascinating documents reveal how the buildings were conceived, constructed, and first occupied by students and alumni. Guest curated by Nancy Bartlett of the Bentley Historical Library, the exhibition reveals how the Ponds meticulously conceived and constructed the two clubs—one for men, one for women—by weaving ideas about gender and society into the very fabric of the buildings themselves.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment.
