Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (September 29, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207580@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

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Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-09-29T11:00:00-04:00 2020-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (September 29, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071443@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-09-29T11:00:00-04:00 2020-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (September 29, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879808@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-09-29T14:00:00-04:00 2020-09-29T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (September 29, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879831@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-09-29T14:00:00-04:00 2020-09-29T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (September 30, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207581@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

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Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-09-30T11:00:00-04:00 2020-09-30T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (September 30, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071444@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-09-30T11:00:00-04:00 2020-09-30T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 1, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909795@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 1, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

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Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-01T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-01T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 1, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207582@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 1, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 1, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071445@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 1, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 2, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909796@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 2, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-02T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-02T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 2, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207583@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 2, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 2, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071446@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 2, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 2, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879809@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 2, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-02T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-02T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 2, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879832@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 2, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-02T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-02T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 3, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909797@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 3, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

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Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-03T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-03T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 3, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207584@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 3, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

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Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 3, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071447@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 3, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 4, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909798@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 4, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-04T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-04T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 4, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207585@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 4, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-04T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 4, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071448@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 4, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-04T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 5, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909799@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 5, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-05T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-05T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 6, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909800@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-06T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-06T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 6, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207586@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-06T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 6, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071449@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-06T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 6, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879810@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-06T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-06T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 6, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879833@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-06T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-06T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 7, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909801@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-07T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-07T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 7, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207587@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-07T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-07T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 7, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071450@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-07T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-07T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 8, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909802@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 8, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-08T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-08T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 8, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207588@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 8, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 8, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071451@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 8, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 9, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909803@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 9, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-09T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-09T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 9, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207589@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 9, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 9, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071452@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 9, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 9, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879811@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 9, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-09T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-09T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 9, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879834@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 9, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-09T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-09T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 10, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909804@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 10, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-10T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-10T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 10, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207590@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 10, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 10, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071453@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 10, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 11, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909805@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 11, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-11T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-11T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 11, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207591@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 11, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-11T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 11, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071454@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 11, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-11T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 12, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909806@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 12, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-12T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-12T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 13, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909807@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-13T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-13T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 13, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207592@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-13T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 13, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071455@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-13T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 13, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879812@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-13T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-13T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 13, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879835@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-13T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-13T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 14, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909808@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-14T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-14T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 14, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207593@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-14T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-14T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 14, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071456@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-14T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-14T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 15, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909809@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 15, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-15T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-15T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 15, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168498@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 15, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-15T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-15T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 15, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207594@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 15, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 15, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071457@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 15, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 16, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909810@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-16T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 16, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168499@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-16T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 16, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207595@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 16, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071458@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 16, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879813@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-16T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 16, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879836@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 16, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-16T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-16T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 17, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909811@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 17, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-17T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-17T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 17, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168500@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 17, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-17T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-17T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 17, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207596@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 17, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 17, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071459@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 17, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 18, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909812@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 18, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-18T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-18T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 18, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168501@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 18, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-18T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 18, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207597@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 18, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-18T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 18, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071460@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 18, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-18T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 19, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909813@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 19, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-19T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-19T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 20, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909814@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-20T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-20T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 20, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207598@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

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Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-20T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-20T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 20, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071461@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-20T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-20T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 20, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879814@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-20T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-20T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 20, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879837@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-20T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-20T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 21, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909815@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

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Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-21T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-21T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 21, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207599@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-21T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 21, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071462@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-21T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 22, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909816@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 22, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-22T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-22T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 22, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168505@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 22, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

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Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-22T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-22T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 22, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207600@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 22, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-22T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 22, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071463@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 22, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-22T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 23, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77738 77738-19909817@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this 3-part installation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

At the U-M Museum of Art, massive, quilt-like panels cover 4,452 square feet of the exterior of the building, creating one of the spectacular architectural interventions Mahama is known for. A related installation at the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery can be viewed (and heard) from a sidewalk window. There will also be an installation inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Oct. 1-23: Large-Scale Public Art Installation, U-M Museum of Art, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor
Oct. 1-23: Sidewalk Gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)
Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery Installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:11:13 -0400 2020-10-23T00:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T23:59:00-04:00 Institute for the Humanities Exhibition "In-Between the World and Dreams" at UMMA
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 23, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168506@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-23T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 23, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207601@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-23T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 23, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071464@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-23T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 23, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879815@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-23T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 23, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879838@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 23, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-23T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-23T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 24, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168507@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 24, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-24T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-24T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 24, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207602@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 24, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-24T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 24, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071465@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 24, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-24T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 25, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168508@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 25, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-25T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-25T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the 60s and 70s: Kaleidoscope (October 25, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68986 68986-17207603@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 25, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The notion that abstraction was a purely formal and American art form, concerned only with timeless themes disconnected from the present, was met with increased skepticism in the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Kaleidoscope, UMMA’s third and final edition of this exhibition series, examines the constantly changing practices of local Detroit artists, women artists, and artists of color as they actively embraced abstraction’s possibilities. Their strategies dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in a shifting American political landscape.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, and the Robert and Janet Miller Fund

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 21 Nov 2019 18:16:43 -0500 2020-10-25T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Copy%2520of%2520Helen%2520Frankenthaler_Sunset%2520Corner.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 25, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071466@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 25, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-25T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 27, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071467@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-27T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 27, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879816@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-27T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-27T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 27, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879839@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-27T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-27T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 28, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071468@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-28T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 29, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168512@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 29, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-29T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-29T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (October 29, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071469@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-29T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 30, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168513@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 30, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-30T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-30T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (October 30, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071470@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 30, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-30T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-30T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (October 30, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879817@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 30, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-10-30T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-30T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (October 30, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879840@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 30, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-10-30T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-30T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (October 31, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168514@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 31, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-10-31T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-31T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (October 31, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071471@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 31, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-10-31T11:00:00-04:00 2020-10-31T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 1, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168515@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 1, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-01T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-01T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 1, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071472@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 1, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-01T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-01T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 2, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879818@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 2, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-02T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-02T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Collection Ensemble (November 3, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071473@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-03T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-03T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 3, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879841@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-03T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-03T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
Collection Ensemble (November 4, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071474@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-04T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-04T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 5, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168519@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 5, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-05T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-05T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 5, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071475@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 5, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-05T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-05T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 6, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168520@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 6, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-06T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-06T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 6, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071476@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 6, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-06T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-06T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 6, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879819@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 6, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-06T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-06T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 6, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879842@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 6, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-06T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-06T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 7, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168521@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 7, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-07T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-07T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 7, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071477@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 7, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-07T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-07T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 8, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168522@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 8, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-08T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-08T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 8, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071478@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 8, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-08T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-08T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 9, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241266@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 9, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-09T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-09T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 9, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879820@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 9, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-09T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-09T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 10, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241267@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-10T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Sacred Hands (November 10, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79334 79334-20272797@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 7:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: University Library

This fully illustrated exhibit describes a wide selection of manuscripts from our collections that contain texts of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It includes extraordinary jewels of a centuries-long textual and artistic tradition, such as a tenth-century manuscript of the Pentateuch, papyrus leaves with the earliest known copy of the Epistles of St. Paul, and a selection of exquisitely illuminated manuscripts of the Qur'an.

View the online exhibit here:
https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/sacred-hands

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:01:22 -0500 2020-11-10T07:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T23:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location University Library Exhibition Detail from the Qur'an, calligraphed by the Ottoman master Kayışzade Hafız Osman Nuri Efendi, illuminations by Hacı Ahmet, 1892-1895. Isl. Ms. 173.
Collection Ensemble (November 10, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071479@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-10T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 10, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879843@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-10T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 11, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241268@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 11, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-11T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-11T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (November 11, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071480@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 11, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-11T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-11T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 12, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241269@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-12T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-12T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 12, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168526@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 12, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-12T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-12T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 12, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071481@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 12, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-12T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-12T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 13, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241270@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 13, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-13T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-13T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 13, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168527@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 13, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-13T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-13T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 13, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071482@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 13, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-13T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-13T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 13, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879821@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 13, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-13T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-13T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 13, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879844@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 13, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-13T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-13T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 14, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241271@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 14, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-14T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-14T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 14, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168528@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 14, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-14T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-14T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 14, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071483@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 14, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-14T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-14T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 15, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241272@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 15, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-15T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-15T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 15, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168529@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 15, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-15T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-15T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 15, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071484@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 15, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-15T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-15T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 16, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241273@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-16T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-16T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 16, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879822@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 16, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-16T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-16T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 17, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241274@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-17T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-17T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (November 17, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071485@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-17T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-17T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 17, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879845@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-17T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-17T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 18, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241275@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-18T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-18T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (November 18, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071486@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-18T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-18T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 19, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241276@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 19, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-19T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-19T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 19, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168533@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 19, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-19T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-19T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 19, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071487@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 19, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-19T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-19T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 20, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241277@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 20, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-20T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-20T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 20, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168534@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 20, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-20T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-20T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 20, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071488@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 20, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-20T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-20T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 20, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879823@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 20, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-20T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-20T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 20, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879846@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 20, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-20T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-20T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 21, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241278@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 21, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-21T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-21T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 21, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168535@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 21, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-21T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-21T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 21, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071489@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 21, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-21T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-21T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 22, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241279@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 22, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-22T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-22T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 22, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168536@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 22, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-22T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-22T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 22, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071490@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 22, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-22T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-22T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 23, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241280@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 23, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-23T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-23T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (November 23, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879824@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 23, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-11-23T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-23T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 24, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241281@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-24T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-24T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (November 24, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071491@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-24T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-24T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (November 24, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879847@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

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Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-11-24T14:00:00-05:00 2020-11-24T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 25, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241282@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-25T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-25T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (November 25, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071492@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-25T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-25T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 26, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241283@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 26, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-26T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-26T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 26, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168540@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 26, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-26T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-26T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 26, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071493@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 26, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-26T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-26T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 27, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241284@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 27, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-27T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-27T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 27, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168541@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 27, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-27T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-27T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 27, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071494@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 27, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-27T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-27T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 28, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241285@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 28, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-28T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-28T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 28, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168542@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 28, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-28T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-28T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 28, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071495@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 28, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-28T11:00:00-05:00 2020-11-28T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 29, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241286@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 29, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-29T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-29T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
In-Between the World and Dreams (November 29, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168543@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 29, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-11-29T09:00:00-05:00 2020-11-29T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (November 29, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071496@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, November 29, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-11-29T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-29T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (November 30, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241287@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 30, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-11-30T00:00:00-05:00 2020-11-30T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (December 1, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241288@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-12-01T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-01T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
Collection Ensemble (December 1, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071497@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-12-01T11:00:00-05:00 2020-12-01T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women's Vote (December 1, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77531 77531-19879825@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Organized by AIGA in partnership with League of Women Voters

2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920. It was the first legislation for women’s voting rights. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of ALL women protected and enforced, and intimidation tactics progressively eliminated.  The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, organized by AIGA in partnership with the League of Women Voters, commemorates this milestone. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 65 non-partisan posters, to launch the initiative with their vision and voices. Through the posters, these women joined forces to collectively contribute to dialogue in design and society. This moment in history is an incredible opportunity to catalyze women in design, voting rights, citizenship, community, and diversity. The collection aspires to not only support present day voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for discourse and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality.  The poster initiative continues at aiga.org/vote, where AIGA members can contribute posters to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. Posters are available for free download online.

The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote exhibition at Stamps Gallery includes a selection of the 65 posters chosen by a committee of Stamps faculty, students, and staff including Nicholas Dowgwillo, Eloise Janssen, Keesa V. Johnson, Francis Nunoo-Quarcoo, Endi Poskovic, Destini Riley, and Stamps Gallery. The exhibition includes posters by Audrey Bennett, Johanna Björk, Karen Cheng, Emily Comfort, Jenny El-Shamy, Dinah Fried, Karin Fong, Anne M. Giangiulio, Annabelle Gould, Brockett Horne, Meena Khalili, nicole killian + shawné michaelain holloway, Karen Kurycki, Marty Maxwell Lane, Zuzana Licko, Ana Llorente, Beatriz Lozano, Kelly Salchow MacArthur, Rebeca Mendez, Lana Rigsby, Kaleena Sales, Renee Seward, Laurel Shoemaker, Nancy Sklolos,  Hannah Smotrich, Shanti Sparrow, Jennifer Sterling, Fearn de Vicq, Cymone Wilder, and Lynne Yun.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:52:24 -0400 2020-12-01T14:00:00-05:00 2020-12-01T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/2020_gotv_header-02.jpg
Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations by Heidi Kumao (December 1, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77532 77532-19879848@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

Stamps Gallery is pleased to present Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations, a solo exhibition of narrative fabric works and experimental animations by Stamps Professor Heidi Kumao.

Using fabric cutouts and machine and hand stitching on industrial felt, Kumao gives physical form to the intangible dynamics underlying ordinary conversations and relationships from a feminist perspective. Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible visual narrative. Recognizable objects such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights set the stage for the story to unfold. Events are captured midstream, suspended in time like a felt film still.

The exhibition is inspired, in part, by the courage, testimony, and experiences of women (like Christine Blasey Ford) who publicly report assault, harassment, or misconduct. The #MeToo movement gave voice to thousands of women to tell their personal stories, but also exposed a hostile backlash meant to silence them. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a deliberate contradiction; if one is true, the other must not be. In practice, however, both terms are used to reference a woman’s testimony and determine how it is publicly interpreted. Her account is accepted as truthful by many and simultaneously dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “her memory is wrong,” “she imagined it.”

The works in “Real and Imagined: Fabric Works and Video Animations” make difficult conversations and relationships tangible by stripping them down to their essentials.

Wordless physical gestures highlight the psychological and emotional forces at play behind even the smallest of interactions.

Biography
Heidi Kumao has created award-winning experimental films, video installations, cinema machines, electronic clothing, and kinetic sculptures. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including shows at Art Science Museum Singapore, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and Museu da Imagem e do Som (São Paulo). She has received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Fall 2020 Hours and Policies
Beginning September 15, 2020, Stamps Gallery will be open to University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-7 pm.
All visitors must have a valid M-Card to enter Stamps Gallery. We are unable to welcome the general public to this space at this time.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:15:10 -0400 2020-12-01T14:00:00-05:00 2020-12-01T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Exhibition https://stamps.umich.edu/images/uploads/exhibitions/HK-Real-and-Imagined-email-header-01.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (December 2, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241289@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-12-02T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-02T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
IPD Online Trade Show: Reduce Isolation, Enhance Social Engagement in Pandemic (December 2, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79668 79668-20444312@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Tauber Institute for Global Operations

Cast your vote December 1-8 for the top products that enable meaningful increases in social engagement while maintaining health and safety.

Take part in this nationally renowned course by reviewing the products developed by 6 teams of students from the University of Michigan's STAMPS School of Art & Design, Ross School of Business, College of Engineering, and School of Information.

Catch the competitive buzz!

View the products online. Then cast your vote!

VOTE ONLINE:
http://myumi.ch/0W2N4

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:24:30 -0500 2020-12-02T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-02T23:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Tauber Institute for Global Operations Exhibition IPD ONLINE TRADE SHOW
Collection Ensemble (December 2, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071498@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-12-02T11:00:00-05:00 2020-12-02T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (December 3, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241290@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 3, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-12-03T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-03T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
IPD Online Trade Show: Reduce Isolation, Enhance Social Engagement in Pandemic (December 3, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79668 79668-20444313@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 3, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Tauber Institute for Global Operations

Cast your vote December 1-8 for the top products that enable meaningful increases in social engagement while maintaining health and safety.

Take part in this nationally renowned course by reviewing the products developed by 6 teams of students from the University of Michigan's STAMPS School of Art & Design, Ross School of Business, College of Engineering, and School of Information.

Catch the competitive buzz!

View the products online. Then cast your vote!

VOTE ONLINE:
http://myumi.ch/0W2N4

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:24:30 -0500 2020-12-03T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-03T23:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Tauber Institute for Global Operations Exhibition IPD ONLINE TRADE SHOW
In-Between the World and Dreams (December 3, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168547@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 3, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-12-03T09:00:00-05:00 2020-12-03T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams
Collection Ensemble (December 3, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/61790 61790-17071499@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 3, 2020 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS, STARTLING WORKS OF ART, PUT IN DIALOG FOR YOU TO DISCOVER 

Collection Ensemble presents the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade. It exchanges Alumni Memorial Hall's previous focus on European and American painting for a broad mix of American, European, African, and Asian art from across media, sampling the Museum's remarkable, disparate holdings. The installation is organized into thematic and formal vignettes that respond to the concepts and ideas resonating from an extraordinary large-scale photograph of a vacant cathedral by contemporary German artist Candida Höfer. Featuring works of art by numerous famous and not-so-famous artists, many of them artists of color and women—including Charles Alston, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, and others, Collection Ensemble reimagines the collection not as a fixed entity with one set of meanings to be unearthed, but instead as an active, creative, sometimes startling source of material and ideas, open for debate and interpretation.

Read the exhibition press release here.

JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING AT UMMA AFTER HOURS Tuesday, April 2 7–10 p.m.

Gallery talks, live music, and more! This is a free event, and all are welcome.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:17:06 -0500 2020-12-03T11:00:00-05:00 2020-12-03T17:00:00-05:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/cube_2019_03_07_v01_wht_bg.jpg
"Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self" (December 4, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79248 79248-20241291@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 4, 2020 12:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In *Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self*, Detroit artist Sydney G. James brings to the forefront and celebrates the work of Black women. The USPS worker, the artist, the event-planning Zoom mom—the paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value. Each portrait honors the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen.

With the Gallery closed to the public due to COVID, *Watch Me Work* will be completely visible from the street. Artwork will be hung in the Washington and Thayer-street first floor windows of the Institute for the Humanities, with two additional pieces visible through the gallery window on Thayer in a public celebration of these meaningful human relationships and connections.

This exhibition was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:17:13 -0500 2020-12-04T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-04T23:59:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Exhibition Watch Me Work
IPD Online Trade Show: Reduce Isolation, Enhance Social Engagement in Pandemic (December 4, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79668 79668-20444314@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 4, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Tauber Institute for Global Operations

Cast your vote December 1-8 for the top products that enable meaningful increases in social engagement while maintaining health and safety.

Take part in this nationally renowned course by reviewing the products developed by 6 teams of students from the University of Michigan's STAMPS School of Art & Design, Ross School of Business, College of Engineering, and School of Information.

Catch the competitive buzz!

View the products online. Then cast your vote!

VOTE ONLINE:
http://myumi.ch/0W2N4

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Exhibition Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:24:30 -0500 2020-12-04T00:00:00-05:00 2020-12-04T23:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Tauber Institute for Global Operations Exhibition IPD ONLINE TRADE SHOW
In-Between the World and Dreams (December 4, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78990 78990-20168548@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 4, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

In this multi-venue project led by the Institute for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the U-M Museum of Art, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama explores global exchange, commerce and the troubling histories of colonialism and slavery in the Western world.

Mahama's artistic practice illustrates, as he explains, how art education, art and cultural opportunities "allow for people to find new ways to acquire knowledge, not only of themselves, but their histories and the places and spaces in which they find themselves."

Enveloping the contours of a museum building or wall, the blankets of jute fibers are meant to contrast with the monumentality of the institutional buildings and spaces they cover, becoming remnants and traces that reference the hands of laborers, the imprints of colonialism and the interference of Britain and the U.S. in Ghanaian history.

The project marks the first outdoor exhibition of Mahama's work in the United States. It is responsive to the present moment, offering students and the broader community the opportunity to engage with the arts in a public space at a time when gatherings inside buildings and museums are limited.

Curator's Statement:

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s installations are cumulative moments of reckoning, mending, and recycling. Things fall apart, come undone. His constructions defy any notions of permanence and longevity. They are monuments to the in-between and the upending, begging the question, “What can we do?”

Mahama incorporates jute sacks—synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works—as a raw material. He works collaboratively with his community to complete the extensive sewing of the sacks required in preparation for his projects. For the U-M installations, he incorporates materials from his previous seminal works over the last decade as a retrospective.

The markings, stitching, and signs of wear on the jute remind us of the many changing hands and endless labor behind international trade—the human toll of capitalism, commodification, and globalization. The fabric itself acts as metaphor for Ghana’s complicated history defined by Dutch colonialism and the Gold Coast slave trade, British rule till 1957, and a future de-railed by military coups post-independence.

Rather than grand gestures, Mahama’s installations are humble acts of endurance. They are covert art take-overs, subverting architecture and disrupting the pristine fascia of our institutional buildings. They hold us accountable for past trespasses.

Mahama is committed to offering his own country the same cultural opportunities and experiences available to those in the West. Most recently he designed and opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in his hometown of Tamale Ghana, contributing towards the expansion of his country’s contemporary art scene. An extension of his art practice, the centre brings Mahama’s many visionary sketches to life, creating classrooms in old airplanes, a swimming pool for children’s play, and public spaces for gatherings and the exchange of ideas.

In this pivotal year defined by Covid-19, worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter, climate change, and our U.S. Presidential election in the balance, Ibrahim Mahama’s work acknowledges failures and false promises, but also the opportunities that can reveal themselves in times of crisis.

Perhaps generations emerging from crisis can learn from the ghosts of the past and generate entirely new systems, not motivated by profit or self-interest, but by a deep commitment to the hard work ahead, our willingness to do it, and to the mutual space for dreams.

–Amanda Krugliak, arts curator, Institute for the Humanities and curator of In Between the World and Dreams

In-Between the World and Dreams is a multi-venue project led by the U-M Institute for the Humanities Gallery, in partnership with UMMA and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit.

In-Between the World and Dreams is made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further the Institute for the Humanities Gallery’s longtime mission in support of art as social practice.

Oct. 1-23; large-scale public art installation, U-M Museum of Art building facade, 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor

Oct. 1-23: sidewalk gallery, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, 202 S. Thayer St., Ann Arbor (viewing from the gallery window only)

Oct. 12-Dec. 5: Community Gallery installation, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit

Penny Stamps Speaker Series with Ibrahim Mahama

Oct. 23, 8pm, webcast at http://pennystampsevents.org/

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Exhibition Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:17:27 -0400 2020-12-04T09:00:00-05:00 2020-12-04T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Institute for the Humanities Exhibition In-Between the World and Dreams