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 Early 1970s (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53718 53718-13452724@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

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Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:39:06 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam, Situation VI—Pisces 4, ca. 1972, polypropylene painted multiform. Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund. Courtesy of Joseph Goddu Fine Arts, Inc., New York. © Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511268@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884067@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Ceal Floyer: Things (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63427 63427-15694118@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Visitors entering Floyer’s installation Things (2009) in the Irving Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery encounter a collection of identical plinths that would ordinarily be used to display art objects in the Museum, but these platforms are empty. In place of visible objects, each plinth is equipped with a speaker from which we hear the word “thing” sung—edited out of and isolated from a range of pop songs. The result is an amusing and thoughtful exploration of language, meaning, and the conventions of museum presentation and spectatorship.

The installation, like much of Berlin-based artist Ceal Floyer’s art, is characteristically austere, but its visual simplicity masks a more complicated message—often a wry cerebral twist the artist creates through language-based symbols and aesthetic devices. Floyer’s work is rooted in conceptual art, in which the idea, delivered through words or acts that undercut or supersede formal qualities, is the essence of the artwork.

Lead support  for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan College of Engineering and the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, Institute for the Humanities, CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, and School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

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Exhibition Thu, 18 Jul 2019 18:15:48 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Things%252C%25202009%252C%2520KW%252C%25202009%252C%2520photo%2520Uwe%2520Walter02.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769742@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 21, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611986@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Storytime at the Museum (September 21, 2019 11:15am) https://events.umich.edu/event/64138 64138-16171627@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:15am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. Join us as we travel around the world and look at art from different countries. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Shop.

Storytime is generously supported by the University of Michigan Credit Union Arts Adventures Program, UMMA's Lead Sponsor for Student and Family Engagement.

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Social / Informal Gathering Wed, 21 Aug 2019 18:16:13 -0400 2019-09-21T11:15:00-04:00 2019-09-21T12:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Social / Informal Gathering Museum of Art
Storytime at the Museum: Central Africa, Congo Region (September 21, 2019 11:15am) https://events.umich.edu/event/67473 67473-16860090@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:15am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. Join us as we travel around the world and look at art from different countries. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Shop.

Storytime is generously supported by the University of Michigan Credit Union Arts Adventures Program, UMMA's Lead Sponsor for Student and Family Engagement.

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Social / Informal Gathering Thu, 19 Sep 2019 18:17:47 -0400 2019-09-21T11:15:00-04:00 2019-09-21T12:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Social / Informal Gathering Museum of Art
Pan-African Pulp Installation (September 21, 2019 11:45am) https://events.umich.edu/event/65731 65731-16631990@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:45am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come watch artist Meleko Mokgosi work on his site-specific installation Pan-African Pulp! 

Mokgosi installed several parts of his commission project in late August. Now, for the final phase of the installation, he will paint a mural September 20–22 on and off during building hours. Stop by the Vertical Gallery to see the project evolve!

Mokgosi will also give a public talk at 7:30 p.m. on September 21 during UMMA After Hours, as part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series.

Lead support is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan African Studies Center.

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Other Wed, 11 Sep 2019 18:16:56 -0400 2019-09-21T11:45:00-04:00 2019-09-21T23:45:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
UMMA After Hours: Fall Opening (September 21, 2019 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64139 64139-16171628@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 7:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Join us to celebrate an exciting new season at UMMA! Enjoy live music, gallery talks, food, and more at this free community event.

Painter and printmaker Meleko Mokgosi’s newly commissioned work, Pan-African Pulp, transforms UMMA’s Vertical Gallery into a multimedia exploration of the history of global Pan-Africanism, a movement with significant history in Detroit. Mokgosi will give a talk at 7:30 p.m. in the Auditorium.

This fall, UMMA launches a new experimental space, ArtGym, with Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs. Cast your vote and be part of our crowdsourcing experiment to choose the 250 photographs UMMA will add to our permanent collection.

Copies and Invention in East Asia, in our Taubman Gallery, will challenge your understanding of originality and delight you with an exploration of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean art spanning ancient to contemporary times.

We look forward to seeing you there!  

UMMA events are generously sponsored by Fidelity Investments. The media sponsor for UMMA After Hours is the Ann Arbor Observer.

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Lecture / Discussion Sat, 21 Sep 2019 12:17:36 -0400 2019-09-21T19:00:00-04:00 2019-09-21T22:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Lecture / Discussion Museum of Art
Penny Stamps Speaker Series Special Event: ​Meleko Mokgosi, Pan-African Pulp (September 21, 2019 7:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64140 64140-16171629@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 21, 2019 7:30pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

For his UMMA commission, Botswana-born artist Meleko Mokgosi explores the history of Pan-Africanism, the global movement to unite ethnic groups of sub-Saharan African descent. Entitled Pan-African Pulp, the exhibition features large-scale panels inspired by African photo novels of the 1960s and ’70s, a mural examining the complexity of blackness, posters from Pan-African movements founded in Detroit and Africa in the 1960s, and stories from Setswana literature.

Meleko Mokgosi is an artist, and an associate professor in painting and printmaking at The Yale School of Art. By working across history painting, cinematic tropes, psychoanalysis, and post-colonial theory, Mokgosi creates large-scale project-based installations that interrogate narrative tropes and the fundamental models for the inscription and transmission of history. His artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Botswana National Gallery, The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Rochester Contemporary Art Center, The University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery, Williams College Museum of Art, The Fowler Museum at UCLA, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.  

Lead support is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan African Studies Center.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 11 Sep 2019 18:16:52 -0400 2019-09-21T19:30:00-04:00 2019-09-21T20:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Lecture / Discussion Museum of Art
Pan-African Pulp Installation (September 22, 2019 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/65732 65732-16631991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 8:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come watch artist Meleko Mokgosi work on his site-specific installation Pan-African Pulp! 

Mokgosi installed several parts of his commission project in late August. Now, for the final phase of the installation, he will paint a mural September 20–22 on and off during building hours. Stop by the Vertical Gallery to see the project evolve!

Mokgosi will also give a public talk at 7:30 p.m. on September 21 during UMMA After Hours, as part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series.

Lead support is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan African Studies Center.

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Other Wed, 11 Sep 2019 18:16:57 -0400 2019-09-22T08:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T20:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/53718 53718-13452778@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

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Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:39:06 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam, Situation VI—Pisces 4, ca. 1972, polypropylene painted multiform. Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund. Courtesy of Joseph Goddu Fine Arts, Inc., New York. © Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511269@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884068@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Ceal Floyer: Things (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63427 63427-15694119@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Visitors entering Floyer’s installation Things (2009) in the Irving Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery encounter a collection of identical plinths that would ordinarily be used to display art objects in the Museum, but these platforms are empty. In place of visible objects, each plinth is equipped with a speaker from which we hear the word “thing” sung—edited out of and isolated from a range of pop songs. The result is an amusing and thoughtful exploration of language, meaning, and the conventions of museum presentation and spectatorship.

The installation, like much of Berlin-based artist Ceal Floyer’s art, is characteristically austere, but its visual simplicity masks a more complicated message—often a wry cerebral twist the artist creates through language-based symbols and aesthetic devices. Floyer’s work is rooted in conceptual art, in which the idea, delivered through words or acts that undercut or supersede formal qualities, is the essence of the artwork.

Lead support  for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan College of Engineering and the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, Institute for the Humanities, CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, and School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

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Exhibition Thu, 18 Jul 2019 18:15:48 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Things%252C%25202009%252C%2520KW%252C%25202009%252C%2520photo%2520Uwe%2520Walter02.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769743@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 22, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611987@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Film Screening: Kinngait: Riding Light Into the World (September 22, 2019 12:40pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64141 64141-16171630@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:40pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

A first hand account of how the isolated Inuit community of Kinngait became the internationally celebrated art capital of the North.

A portrait of the Kinngait Studios celebrating its 50th year of continuous successful operation; the film introduces the remarkable artists who overcame cultural barriers and the hardships of a harsh environment to give birth to a vivid new expression of Inuit life. It tells of how the tiny, isolated community of Kinngait (Cape Dorset), against all odds, turned the making of art into a multimillion dollar co-operative business run by the Inuit townsfolk. Richly illustrated with the work of successive generations of Kinngait artists expressing the immense changes experienced by Inuit to their way of life and environment over the past half-century.

Directed by Annette Mangaard 65 min | Canada (2010)



On the occasion of the UMMA exhibition The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​, UMMA invites you to enjoy a selection of documentary and fictional films about Inuit culture. Sundays, September 22 and October 27: Film screenings at 12:40 and 3:15 p.m; guided exhibition tours 2-3 p.m.

Sunday, September 22 12:40 Kinngait: Riding Light into the World​ (2010, 65 min) 2:00 Exhibition Tour, Special Exhibitions Gallery, 2nd floor 3:15 Maliglutit (Searchers) (2016, 94 min)

Sunday, October 27 12:40 Circus without Borders (2015, 69 min) 2:00 Exhibition Tour, Special Exhibitions Gallery, 2nd floor 3:15 Angry Inuk​ (2016, 85 min)

 

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Film Screening Thu, 27 Jun 2019 12:15:37 -0400 2019-09-22T12:40:00-04:00 2019-09-22T13:45:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Film Screening Museum of Art
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq (September 22, 2019 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64117 64117-16163567@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 2:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In celebration of UMMA’s new Power Family Program for Inuit Art, the Museum presents a special exhibition of two incredible, intertwining stories. One traces the development of contemporary Inuit art in the Canadian Arctic from the 1950s to the present. The other relates the fascinating story of the Power family’s important role in supporting and promoting Inuit art from the outset, bringing public attention to its artistic strength and cultural importance. The Power family’s collection is unusual in its strong representation of early contemporary carvings, incised drawings on ivory and antler, soapstone sculptures, and prints that evolved as Inuit artists developed their own artistic voices and responded creatively to their changing world. 

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Presentation Mon, 15 Jul 2019 18:15:43 -0400 2019-09-22T14:00:00-04:00 2019-09-22T15:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
Film Screening: Maliglutit (Searchers) (September 22, 2019 3:15pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64142 64142-16171631@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 22, 2019 3:15pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Inspired by John Ford’s, The Searchers, Maliglutit is a story about a man who embarks on a perilous mission across the tundra in search of his kidnapped wife and daughter. In telling this western classic from an indigenous perspective, directors Zacharias Kunuk and Natar Ungalaaq, craft a stirring epic that explores community, revenge, and the meaning of justice. This film includes a score by award-winning Inuit throat singer, Tanya Tagaq.

Directed by Zacharias Kunuk, Nata Ungalaaq (co-director) 94 min | Canada (2016)



On the occasion of the UMMA exhibition The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​, UMMA invites you to enjoy a selection of documentary and fictional films about Inuit culture. Sundays, September 22 and October 27: Film screenings at 12:40 and 3:15 p.m; guided exhibition tours 2-3 p.m.

Sunday, September 22 12:40 Kinngait: Riding Light into the World​ (2010, 65 min) 2:00 Exhibition Tour, Special Exhibitions Gallery, 2nd floor 3:15 Maliglutit (Searchers) (2016, 94 min)

Sunday, October 27 12:40 Circus without Borders (2015, 69 min) 2:00 Exhibition Tour, Special Exhibitions Gallery, 2nd floor 3:15 Angry Inuk​ (2016, 85 min)

 

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Film Screening Mon, 08 Jul 2019 18:15:33 -0400 2019-09-22T15:15:00-04:00 2019-09-22T16:50:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Film Screening Museum of Art
Value the Voice: A Storyteller's Lounge (September 24, 2019 6:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/66699 66699-16770225@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 6:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Department of Afroamerican and African Studies

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of educational entertainment known to mankind. From the West African tradition of the Griot to modern day Moth events, storytelling environments have served as a means to pass along history, shape culture, share helpful lessons, and establish a sense of belonging and community.

The U-M Comprehensive Studies Program and Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, along with the U-M Museum of Art and the Trotter Multicultural Center invite you to explore themes related to campus life, coming of age, and learning and growing, at this series of Moth Style Storyteller Lounge events. Storytellers include students, faculty and staff, and Voices of Wisdom (alums or community members).

There will be a post event reception in the Trotter Multicultural center.

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Performance Mon, 09 Sep 2019 15:27:38 -0400 2019-09-24T06:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T21:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art Department of Afroamerican and African Studies Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 24, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53718 53718-13452832@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

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Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:39:06 -0400 2019-09-24T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam, Situation VI—Pisces 4, ca. 1972, polypropylene painted multiform. Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund. Courtesy of Joseph Goddu Fine Arts, Inc., New York. © Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 24, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511270@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-24T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 24, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884069@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-24T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 24, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769744@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-24T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 24, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611988@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-24T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Value the Voice: "Mirror, Mirror" Finding you in new places and spaces. (September 24, 2019 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67474 67474-16860091@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 6:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of educational entertainment known to mankind. From the West African tradition of the Griot to modern day Moth events, storytelling environments have served as a means to pass along history, shape culture, share helpful lessons, and establish a sense of belonging and community.

The U-M Comprehensive Studies Program and Department of Afroamerican and African Studies invite you to explore themes related to campus life, coming of age, and learning and growing, at this series of Moth Style Storyteller Lounge events. Storytellers include students, faculty and staff, and Voices of Wisdom (alums or community members). 

There will be a post event reception in the Trotter Multicultural center.

]]>
Other Tue, 24 Sep 2019 18:17:35 -0400 2019-09-24T18:00:00-04:00 2019-09-24T19:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 25, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53719 53719-13452885@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:40:44 -0400 2019-09-25T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam Situation VI—Pisces 4 ca. 1972 Polypropylene painted multiform Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 25, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511271@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-25T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 25, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884070@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-25T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 25, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769745@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-25T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 25, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611989@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-25T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
National Voter Registration Week! Register to vote with the Ginsberg Center at UMMA (September 25, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67405 67405-16848986@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Are you registered to vote? The Michigan Primary is March 10 and Election 2020 is around the corner. Join the Ginsberg Center in the UMMA Forum for voter registration.

For more information about your options to register to vote, visit the Ginsberg Center's website.

To register to vote from home, visit TurboVote, which is a quick, customizable registration tool. 

Use TurboVote to:
Start the registration process in any of the 50 states Update existing voter registration Request an absentee ballot Receive election day reminders

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Presentation Fri, 20 Sep 2019 18:17:43 -0400 2019-09-25T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T14:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
Voter Registration Week! (September 25, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67423 67423-16849177@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 25, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Ginsberg Center

The Big Ten Voting Challenge team will get you registered to vote!

Visit any of our events across campus, September 23-27. We are nonpartisan, and can get you registered to vote in Michigan, and any other state.

You can also visit umich.turbovote.org to get the registration process started.

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Other Fri, 20 Sep 2019 13:00:07 -0400 2019-09-25T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-25T14:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art Ginsberg Center Other Voter Reg Week
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 26, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53719 53719-13452938@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:40:44 -0400 2019-09-26T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam Situation VI—Pisces 4 ca. 1972 Polypropylene painted multiform Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 26, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511272@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-26T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 26, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884071@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-26T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 26, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769746@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-26T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 26, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611990@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-26T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (September 26, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64143 64143-16171632@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 26, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m.  

]]>
Other Wed, 25 Sep 2019 12:17:43 -0400 2019-09-26T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-26T13:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 27, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53719 53719-13452991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:40:44 -0400 2019-09-27T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam Situation VI—Pisces 4 ca. 1972 Polypropylene painted multiform Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 27, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511273@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-27T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 27, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884072@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-27T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 27, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769747@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-27T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 27, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-27T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (September 27, 2019 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64144 64144-16171633@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 27, 2019 3:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m.  

]]>
Other Wed, 25 Sep 2019 12:17:43 -0400 2019-09-27T15:00:00-04:00 2019-09-27T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 28, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/53718 53718-13452725@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:39:06 -0400 2019-09-28T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam, Situation VI—Pisces 4, ca. 1972, polypropylene painted multiform. Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund. Courtesy of Joseph Goddu Fine Arts, Inc., New York. © Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 28, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511274@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-28T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 28, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884073@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-28T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 28, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769748@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-28T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 28, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611992@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-28T11:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
UMMA Pop Up: Nadim Azzam feat. Thor Sigurdson on Cello (September 28, 2019 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67305 67305-16833422@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 28, 2019 1:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Singer-songwriter/acoustic Hip-Hop artist Nadim Azzam performs original music and covers accompanied by Cellist Thor Sigurdson.

]]>
Performance Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:17:15 -0400 2019-09-28T13:00:00-04:00 2019-09-28T14:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 29, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/53718 53718-13452779@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

Lead support for "Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s" is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Additional generous support is provided by the Robert and Janet Miller Fund and the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

]]>
Exhibition Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:39:06 -0400 2019-09-29T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Sam Gilliam, Situation VI—Pisces 4, ca. 1972, polypropylene painted multiform. Williams College Museum of Art Museum purchase, Otis Family Acquisition Trust and Kathryn Hurd Fund. Courtesy of Joseph Goddu Fine Arts, Inc., New York. © Sam Gilliam
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (September 29, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511275@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-29T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (September 29, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884074@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-09-29T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 29, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769749@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-09-29T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (September 29, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611993@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-09-29T12:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (September 29, 2019 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64052 64052-16109196@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 29, 2019 2:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world. A museum docent will interpret the complex ways that Asian artists have produced multiple artworks through time.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Presentation Sun, 29 Sep 2019 18:17:39 -0400 2019-09-29T14:00:00-04:00 2019-09-29T15:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 1, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511276@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 1, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884075@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 1, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769750@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 1, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611994@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-01T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-01T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 2, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511277@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 2, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884076@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 2, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769751@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 2, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611995@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-02T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 3, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511278@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 3, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 3, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884077@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 3, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 3, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769752@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 3, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 3, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611996@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 3, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-03T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (October 3, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64146 64146-16171635@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 3, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m.  

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Other Tue, 01 Oct 2019 18:17:38 -0400 2019-10-03T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-03T13:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511279@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884078@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988385@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769753@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611997@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 4, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931434@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-04T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (October 4, 2019 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64147 64147-16171636@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 4, 2019 3:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m.  

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Other Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:17:53 -0400 2019-10-04T15:00:00-04:00 2019-10-04T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511280@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884079@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988386@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769754@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611998@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 5, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931435@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-05T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
Sister 2 Sister Presents: A Night at the [M]et (October 5, 2019 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67573 67573-16894379@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 5, 2019 6:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come one, come all to celebrate the 20th annual Black Homecoming Gala!  ​The annual Black Homecoming Gala at the University of Michigan is a cultural event that unites the campus community and showcases the achievements and diversity of its student body. Every year, Michigan students, faculty, staff, and alumni gather to celebrate each other’s accomplishments, show their school spirit, and appreciate one another in a festive and formal environment. This year, in partnership with UMMA, Black Homecoming seeks to provide even further cultural enrichment by bringing you A Night at the [M]et, a Michigan twist on the popular Met Gala held every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.

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Presentation Mon, 30 Sep 2019 22:45:13 -0400 2019-10-05T18:00:00-04:00 2019-10-05T21:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation A Night at the [M]et
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511281@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884080@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988387@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769755@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15611999@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 6, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931436@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
UMMA Pop Up: Frankie (October 6, 2019 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67306 67306-16833423@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 1:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Frankie is a singer-songwriter from Ann Arbor, MI.  Some of her biggest influences are Norah Jones, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Nina Simone, making her style a unique blend of indie, folk, soul, and pop.  With honest lyrics and a soulful sound, her music is "powerful yet sentimental . . . you don't want to miss her" - The Michigan Daily

Find Frankie's music on bandcamp @frankietunes and on Instagram @francyypants

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Performance Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:17:15 -0400 2019-10-06T13:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T14:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s (October 6, 2019 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64118 64118-16163568@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 2:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Presentation Mon, 30 Sep 2019 12:17:31 -0400 2019-10-06T14:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T15:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
In Conversation: The Dialogues of Collection Ensemble (October 6, 2019 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64151 64151-16171640@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 3:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Collection Ensemble is the first major reinstallation of UMMA's historic entry space in over a decade. The reinstallation highlights the breadth and variety of the Museum’s collection and juxtaposes works of art from a diverse set of artists, periods, areas, and media—sometimes in startling ways. The works of art are grouped in scenes between and around the tall white columns of the entry, and the entire installation becomes a series of distinctive vignettes leaving open for the visitors a range of interpretations. Information on the printed labels is deliberately minimal. The goal is to share an expansive and mutable understanding of art, that forefronts art’s radiant properties and engages the audience in multi-layered dialogue.

Join Vera Grant, UMMA’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and curator of Collection Ensemble, for a discussion of how the vignettes may work in a variety of ways, and how art museums are rethinking their collection displays, in ways that demonstrate art’s powerful capacities and connections.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:17:54 -0400 2019-10-06T15:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Lecture / Discussion Museum of Art
Front Porch Presents: Our Place (October 6, 2019 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/65729 65729-16631988@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 6, 2019 5:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Front Porch is a mixed quartet that invites audiences to engage personally with the voices of their close friends, reimagining the classical concert experience with warmth and love at its foundation. Their uncommon instrumentation — violin, bassoon, piano, and percussion — makes them equally at home with composers, folk artists, opera singers, and everyone in between. With "Our Place," Front Porch celebrates incredible composers from the University of Michigan's composition program with four world premieres by Douglas Hertz, Nina Shekhar, Corey Dundee, and Jung Yoon Wie alongside additional works from their ever-expanding repertoire. 

This concert is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the University of Michigan's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

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Performance Sat, 31 Aug 2019 00:16:33 -0400 2019-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 2019-10-06T19:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511282@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884081@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988388@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769756@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612000@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931437@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 8, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563543@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-08T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-08T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Penny Stamps Speaker Series Special Event: Lucy Lippard & Faith Wilding: Then & Now (October 8, 2019 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/65211 65211-16549473@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 5:30pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Award-winning author, curator, feminist, and activist Lucy R. Lippard is one of the world’s leading voices on contemporary art. Hailed for “the breadth of her reading and the comprehensiveness with which she considers the things that define place” (New York Times), Lippard began her career as an art critic in 1962, when she began contributing to publications such as Art International and, later, Artforum. In the late 1970s, she became a founding member of the feminist journal Heresies. As a curator, she gave audience to minimal and conceptual artworks including texts, books, and posters. Lippard also sought to improve the lives of artists through the founding of the Art Workers’ Coalition,  an advocacy group for artists' rights.   

In this conversation with Faith Wilding — multidisciplinary artist; recognized authority on feminist art theory and cyber feminism; and founding member of the Feminist Art Program at CalArts — Lippard discusses her work and the current creative-political climate in the U.S.

This program is co-presented by the Penny W. Stamps Speaker Series, the Stamps Gallery, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 25 Sep 2019 18:17:49 -0400 2019-10-08T17:30:00-04:00 2019-10-08T19:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Lecture / Discussion Museum of Art
U-M Spectrum Center Presents: River Coello, National Coming Out Week Keynote Speaker (October 8, 2019 6:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67406 67406-16848987@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 6:30pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

The U-M Spectrum Center welcomes River Coello to campus as the keynote speaker for National Coming Out Week 2019 and LGBTQ History Month 2019.

River Coello is a queer and trans multidisciplinary artist from Guayaquil, Ecuador living in Chicago, Illinois. 

As an actor, River has appeared on various stage productions, having trained at Acting Studio Chicago, Second City Training Center, and the University of Michigan. As a writer, River's work explores various liminalities of the human condition through a focus on River's own identities and experiences, grounded in a deeply spiritual perspective. 

 

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Presentation Wed, 18 Sep 2019 12:17:54 -0400 2019-10-08T18:30:00-04:00 2019-10-08T19:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511283@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884082@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988389@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769757@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612001@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931438@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 9, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563544@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-09T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Unfashionable at UMMA (October 9, 2019 11:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68061 68061-16988235@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:30am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

How an art museum welcomes its 21st-century public is the subject of new works by students in the Stamps School of Art and Design's Unfashionable wearable art course. Unfashionable artworks consider the interconnections between UMMA's recent renovations—the reinstallation of the Apse with its groupings of art and "living room spaces" and the opening of the UMMA Café with its espresso drinks and baby kale salad—and what these spaces say about the art institution's valuation of distance and proximity, secularity and holiness, experiences of art in the digital age, and the consumption of culture. From 11:30am to 12:45pm on Wednesday, October 9, performers in wearable sculptures will further activate the newly altered spaces of the UMMA Café and Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Apse.

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Presentation Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:02 -0400 2019-10-09T11:30:00-04:00 2019-10-09T12:45:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
Indonesian Gamelan Festival (October 9, 2019 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67821 67821-16977562@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 6:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: PERMIAS (Indonesian Student Association)

As a part of commemorating the 70th year of Indonesia and USA formal diplomatic partnership (1949-2019), numbers of high school students from Indonesia will visiting top universities at five states around Midwest to promote Gamelan ensembles. Becoming the last destination of this culture tour, Permias Michigan collaborates with the Government of Indonesia, Sekolah Bogor Raya, University of Michigan (LSA, STMD, Ford School, and Ross School), and UM Indonesian Alumni will held Indonesian Gamelan Festival on October 9th 2019. 

This is free event, and we will provide dinner for the first 100 attendees.

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Performance Thu, 03 Oct 2019 15:44:45 -0400 2019-10-09T18:00:00-04:00 2019-10-09T20:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art PERMIAS (Indonesian Student Association) Performance Indonesian Gamelan Festival
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511284@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884083@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988390@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769758@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612002@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931439@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 10, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563545@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-10T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (October 10, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64148 64148-16171637@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. --CANCELED Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED  

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Other Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:32 -0400 2019-10-10T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-10T13:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Penny Stamps Speaker Series: Mari Katayama: My Body as Material (October 10, 2019 5:10pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64152 64152-16171641@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 10, 2019 5:10pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, she has only two fingers on one hand and had both her legs amputated at the age of nine; she has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. Katayama treats her entire body, bodily parts, and prosthetics as “materials” to be arranged in photographs, read as soft sculptures, and decorated with lace, shells, and shiny objects. As the protagonist in intricately arranged narrative scenes, the artist invites the viewer to voyeuristically experience a private space developed from her imagination. Katayama’s work exposes anxieties that haunt many of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. One of the most exciting new artists emerging from contemporary Japan, Katayama’s work is featured this year’s Venice Biennale in Italy. Her exhibition at UMMA, Mari Katayama (on view October 12, 2019–January 26, 2020), will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S. The talk will be moderated by Natsu Oyobe, Curator of Asian Art at UMMA and the exhibition curator.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:44 -0400 2019-10-10T17:10:00-04:00 2019-10-10T18:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Lecture / Discussion Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511285@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884084@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988391@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769759@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

]]>
Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612003@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931440@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 11, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563546@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Open Office Hours with Director Christina Olsen (October 11, 2019 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64149 64149-16171638@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 3:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Back by popular demand! UMMA Director Christina Olsen wants to chat with you about the Museum. Come say hello, share your reactions to recent exhibitions and changes, and bring your ideas of what you’d like to see at UMMA. Meet Tina in the new, comfortable UMMA Living Rooms in Alumni Memorial Hall. Dates and times as follows:

Thursday, Sept. 12, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 3, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 3–4 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 12–1 p.m. --CANCELED Friday, Oct. 11, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED

Thursday, Oct. 17, 12–1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, 3–4 p.m. -- CANCELED  

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Other Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:32 -0400 2019-10-11T15:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
MOSCOW x DETROIT: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment (October 11, 2019 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63808 63808-15890344@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 5:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: History of Art

MOSCOW x DETROIT: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment

October 11th, 2019 @ UMMA

KEYNOTE: "Americanized Bolshevism and its
New New Worlds” - Jean Louis Cohen | Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

October 12, 2019 @ Rackham Amphitheatre

SPEAKERS:

9:00-11:00 Session I: SURVEYING

1. “’Improve the Roads’: Valerian Osinsky, the American Automobile, and the Campaign to Overcome Russian Roadlessness in the 1920s-30s,” Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University
2. “The Art of the Standard: Andrei Burov discovers America,” Richard Anderson, Edinburgh University
3. “Foreign Specialists in Soviet Industry in the 1920 and1930s: Forgotten History or Soviet Ideology? The case of Eastern Ukraine,” Oksana Chabanyuk, Kharkiv National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture
4. “A Monument to the First Five-Year Plan: Moscow’s Palace of Soviets and the Afterlife of Amerikanizm through the 1930s,” Katherine Zubovich, Ryerson University

11:30-1:00 Session II: EMBEDDING

4. “Rationalization, Typification, Unification: New Strategies in the Planning of the Socialist City’ during the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932,” Evgenia Konysheva, South Urals State University
5. “Citizen Kahn: Moritz and the Soviet Experience, 1929-39,” Claire Zimmerman, University of Michigan
6. “African-amerikanizm and Soviet Anti-Racism: Detroit Worker Robert Robinson in the USSR,” Christina Kiaer, Northwestern University

2:00 - 4:00 Session III: ADJUSTING

7. “People Making Things, Things Making People: Americanism in Soviet Genre Cinema, 1927,” Robert Bird, University of Chicago
8. “’The searchlight of exact and impartial investigation:’ Soviet memoirs of American technical consultants,” Christina Crawford, Emory University
9. “On the Line: Workers in the linear city,” Robert Fishman, University of Michigan
10. “’To Eradicate the Vestiges’: Ivan Nikolaev and the Reconstruction of Soviet Factories, 1933-1938,” Maria Taylor, University of Washington

Break 4:00-4:30

4:30 Closing discussion

Howard Brick, University of Michigan
Ron Suny, University of Michigan



Overview:
Between 1928 and 1932 several dozen American architects and engineers, most of them affiliated with Albert Kahn Associates, migrated from Detroit to Moscow to build the industrial campuses that modernized the Soviet Union. They set in motion over 500 construction projects, and trained over 300 Soviet designers, technicians, and draftsmen in American methods of design and implementation. During the very years in which architects from Detroit helped build Soviet factories, in notable cases with prefabricated components imported from the US, urban theories on linear city morphology as a fitting mode for industrialization blossomed in the USSR. English-language publications such as USSR in Construction featured compelling images of these monumental achievements, depicting Soviet progress in culture as well as technology. “Soviet Detroit,” as the industrial capital Nizhny-Novgorod would be called, was only one of many America-inspired cities developed during the first Five-Year Plan, which also included “Sibirsky Chicago” (Novosibirsk) and “Soviet Gary” (Magnitogorsk).

By the end of 1932, most of the American experts had returned, both to Detroit and to sites spread across the country. Over the four years of their stay, American journalists had celebrated their work on a regular basis. As the US economy recovered from the Great Depression and moved inexorably toward war, a small number of architects and engineers who participated in Soviet industrialization performed comparable tasks back in the United States. Linear urbanism grew up around American metropolises, particularly in the Midwest, in new communities such as Livonia, Michigan, strung alongside massive new factory complexes. The impact of Soviet urbanism on these communities remains to be assessed.

Moscow x Detroit: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment will bring together distinguished historians of art, architecture, urbanism, and social history, to consider a critical moment in twentieth-century history, one that ramifies outward from the late 1920s to ripple through the later industrialization of the US and the USSR, affecting culture and the built environment for decades after. Its focus will be transnational exchange in both directions (initially toward the USSR, but also back to the USA), infrastructure development, and the impact of built environments (factories, housing, green zones) on cities built to serve industry, but surviving long after its evacuation. Participants, including specialists in both the American and the Soviet situation, will consider specific spatial questions, as well as broader analyses of the hidden effects of the “second Industrial Revolution” on culture, social organization, and the built environment on two continents.

Only recently has the complex of industrial developments that unfolded between Moscow and Detroit begun to receive notice in architectural and urbanistic scholarship. Groundbreaking research has focused new attention on the larger ramifications of this massive transfer of knowledge in both directions. Looking further into these developments, Moscow x Detroit is scheduled to coincide with the opening of an exhibition at The Canadian Centre for Architecture, Amerikanizm: Russian Architecture in Search of a New New World, that opens in Fall 2019 (curator: Jean-Louis Cohen).

Organizers:
Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan in coordination with The Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal

Claire Zimmerman, University of Michigan
Christina Crawford, Emory University
Jean-Louis Cohen, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 11 Sep 2019 08:52:51 -0400 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T19:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art History of Art Conference / Symposium Image of Republic Steel, Cleveland OH, HS #18716, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
U-M History of Art Symposium Keynote with Jean-Louis Cohen:  Moscow x Detroit: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment (October 11, 2019 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64153 64153-16171642@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 11, 2019 5:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Moscow x Detroit: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment will bring together distinguished historians of art, architecture, urbanism, and social history, to consider a critical moment in twentieth-century history, one that branches outward from the late 1920s to the later industrialization of the US and the USSR, affecting culture and the built environment for decades after. The symposium will focus on infrastructure development, and the impact of built environments (factories, housing, green zones) on cities built to serve industry. Participants, including specialists in both the American and the Soviet situation, will consider the hidden effects of the “second Industrial Revolution” on culture, social organization, and the built environment on two continents.Friday night's keynote at UMMA features Jean-Louis Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture at the NYU Institute of the Arts, who will be discussing his paper: Americanized Bolshevism and its New New Worlds.

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Other Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:16:42 -0400 2019-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 2019-10-11T19:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
U-M History of Art Symposium:  Moscow x Detroit: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment (October 12, 2019 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/64154 64154-16171643@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 9:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Moscow x Detroit: Transnational Modernity in the Built Environment will bring together distinguished historians of art, architecture, urbanism, and social history, to consider a critical moment in twentieth-century history, one that branches outward from the late 1920s to the later industrialization of the US and the USSR, affecting culture and the built environment for decades after. The symposium will focus on infrastructure development, and the impact of built environments (factories, housing, green zones) on cities built to serve industry. Participants, including specialists in both the American and the Soviet situation, will consider the hidden effects of the “second Industrial Revolution” on culture, social organization, and the built environment on two continents.

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Other Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:16:42 -0400 2019-10-12T09:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T18:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Other Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511286@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884085@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988392@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769760@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901121@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612004@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931441@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 12, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563547@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-12T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Storytime at the Museum: China (October 12, 2019 11:15am) https://events.umich.edu/event/65662 65662-16629871@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 12, 2019 11:15am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. Each month we'll travel to a new gallery to look at art from different parts of the world. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Shop.

Storytime is generously supported by the University of Michigan Credit Union Arts Adventures Program, UMMA's Lead Sponsor for Student and Family Engagement.

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Social / Informal Gathering Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:16:44 -0400 2019-10-12T11:15:00-04:00 2019-10-12T12:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Social / Informal Gathering Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511287@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884086@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988393@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769761@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901122@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612005@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931442@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 13, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563548@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-13T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 13, 2019 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64116 64116-16163566@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 2:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Join a docent on a journey through time and memory, as you explore over 1,000 found photographs together. Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Department of Film, Television, and Media, and Department of American Culture.

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Presentation Mon, 30 Sep 2019 12:17:30 -0400 2019-10-13T14:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T15:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Presentation Museum of Art
UMMA Pop Up: Davis & Brown: Banjo + Cello Duo (October 13, 2019 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68059 68059-16988233@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 13, 2019 3:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Zachary Brown is a cellist, hailing from Brentwood, NY.  Zachary began the cello age the age of thirteen. He completed a double degree in cello performance and jazz studies from Ithaca College in 2016 as well as a masters in cello performance from SUNY Purchase in 2019. He has appeared as a guest artist and has given instructional workshops on “chopping” and improvisation at the New Directions Cello festival as well in at the Ithaca Winter Strings Festival.    Matthew Davis is an up and coming banjoist in the world of new acoustic music, and elsewhere. His influences include artists like Béla Fleck, Donald Fagen, the Punch Brothers, Julian Lage, and many others. Growing up playing piano, it wasn’t until Matthew was 12 years old when he decided to pick up the banjo for the first time. Since then, he has continued to improve himself as a musician with a strong desire to find ways to take the banjo into new musical areas. Matthew’s list of achievements include the 2016 National Banjo Champion, 2016 & 2017 Acoustic Music Seminar Alumni, and the 2017 Rockygrass Banjo Champion. He currently studies jazz at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, MI.

For more about this dynamic duo, visit www.westboundsituation.com

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Performance Tue, 08 Oct 2019 12:17:33 -0400 2019-10-13T15:00:00-04:00 2019-10-13T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511288@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884087@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988394@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769762@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901123@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612006@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931443@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 15, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563549@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

]]>
Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-15T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-15T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511289@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884088@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988395@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

]]>
Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769763@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901124@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612007@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

]]>
Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931444@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 16, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563550@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-16T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-16T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511290@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884089@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988396@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769764@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901125@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612008@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931445@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 17, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563551@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-17T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
U-M Native American Studies Presents: Against Hungry Listening with Dylan Robinson (October 17, 2019 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68115 68115-17011955@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 4:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

How are settler colonial and Indigenous listening practices different? How can listening be extractive, a way to access and use Indigenous resources? What are alternative listening practices that connect listener and song-life rather than make a distinction between them? This presentation provides an overview of forms of extractive or “hungry” perception, and alternatives to these that emerge from Indigenous sensory engagement. 

Dylan Robinson is a xwélméxw artist and writer (Stó:lō Nation, Sqwa), and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University. His current work focuses on the re-connection of Indigenous songs with communities who were prohibited by law to sing them as part of Canada’s Indian Act from 1882-1951. Robinson’s previous publications include the edited volumes Music and Modernity Among Indigenous Peoples of North America (2018); Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2016); and Opera Indigene (2011). His monograph, Hungry Listening, is forthcoming with Minnesota University Press in early 2020. Additionally, Robinson is curator of the Ka’tarohkwi Festival of Indigenous Arts in Kingston, and along with Candice Hopkins, is curator of the internationally touring exhibition Soundings featuring “scores for decolonial action” by Indigenous artists.

This program is organized by the U-M Department of Native American Studies and co-sponsored by the Department of American Culture, History of Art, the Humanities Collaboratory, Multi Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA), and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

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Performance Thu, 10 Oct 2019 12:17:28 -0400 2019-10-17T16:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T17:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
CM Burroughs Poetry Reading & Book Signing (October 17, 2019 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64366 64366-16332365@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 5:30pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Zell Visiting Writers Series

CM Burroughs’ book of poems, The Vital System (Tupelo Press), illuminates what she calls "the protective capability of violence.” In the words of renowned French feminist scholar Hélène Cixous: “Burroughs delves into the ultra-sensitive roots of being; where sufferings and desires take shape, she gathers each breath as yet unheard and leads it to speech.”

Burroughs is an Associate Professor of Poetry at Columbia College Chicago. She has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Cave Canem Foundation. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations.

Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, VOLT, and Best American Experimental Writing 2015. Her second book, Master Suffering, will be published by Tupelo Press in 2020.

This event is free and open to the public. Onsite book sales will be provided by Literati Bookstore.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. UMMA is pleased to be the site for most of these events. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email asbates@umich.edu-- we are eager to help ensure that this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women's staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women's restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services are available upon request; please email asbates@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event.

U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor). There is limited metered street parking on State Street and South University Avenue. The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor) is five blocks away, and the parking rate is $1.20 per hour. All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.

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Presentation Wed, 31 Jul 2019 11:17:47 -0400 2019-10-17T17:30:00-04:00 2019-10-17T19:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art Zell Visiting Writers Series Presentation CM.Burroughs.headshot
U-M Chamber Choir: Everything is Made of Light (October 17, 2019 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64322 64322-16316268@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 17, 2019 7:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Conceived in connection with Collection Ensemble, the recent re-installation of UMMA's historic Apse, this program of sacred and spiritual music weaves together radiant sonorities and shimmering timbres that play on the installation's celebration and critique of community, faith, and the spaces that hold us. Led by SMTD Director of Choirs, Professor Eugene Rogers, the U-M Chamber Choir presents a concert with works from around the globe, including a world premiere by Brehm Prize winner, SMTD composition graduate student Ari Sussman.  Vera Grant, UMMA Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and curator of Collection Ensemble, will join Rogers to further illuminate the threads of connection between art and music.

This program is supported by the Katherine Tuck Enrichment Fund and the Greg Hodes and Heidi Hertel Hodes—Partners in the Arts Endowment Fund.

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Performance Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:17:56 -0400 2019-10-17T19:00:00-04:00 2019-10-17T21:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511291@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884090@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988397@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769765@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Mari Katayama (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901126@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612009@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931446@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 18, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563552@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 18, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-18T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-18T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511292@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg
Abstraction, Color, and Politics: (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63803 63803-15884091@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

In the midst of the political and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s, artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. During these decades, 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. Women artists and artists of color began to actively and assertively explore abstraction’s possibilities. The artworks in Abstraction, Color, and Politics: The 1960s and 1970s demonstrate both radical and disarming changes in how artists worked and what they thought their art was about. Their new formal and intellectual strategies—seen here across large-scale and miniature work—dramatically transformed the practice of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s in a politically shifting American landscape.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:15:31 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/pindell_image.jpg
Collection Ensemble (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68063 68063-16988398@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

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.

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:07 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition Museum of Art
Copies and Invention in East Asia (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63517 63517-15769766@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Far from being frowned upon as uncreative, in China, Korea, and Japan, copying has long been considered a valuable practice. Through works of art spanning ancient to contemporary times, Copies and Invention in East Asia challenges our understanding of originality, and presents copying as an act of imaginative interpretation. The exhibition includes burial goods that conjure a world for the deceased; Buddhist sculptures produced in multiples to amplify religious experience and meaning; paintings in which a master’s brushstrokes are faithfully duplicated as a way of shaping the self; and contemporary works that address multiplicity and duplication in the modern world.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

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Exhibition Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:15:49 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/1970_2_156.jpg
Family Art Studio: One and Many (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/64158 64158-16171647@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Families with children ages six and up are invited to look, learn, and create together in this hands-on workshop inspired by the UMMA exhibition Copies and Invention in East Asia.  Visit the exhibition—which looks at the practice of copying in art making and includes works from China, Korea, and Japan, spanning ancient to contemporary times—and create an original art work with the potential to become many. Led by local artist and long-time UMMA docent Susan Clinthorne.

Parents must accompany children. We cannot guarantee your spot if you arrive more than 15 minutes late.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

Family Art Studio is generously supported by the University of Michigan Credit Union Arts Adventures Program, UMMA's Lead Sponsor for Student and Family Engagement.  

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 01 Oct 2019 18:17:40 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T13:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Workshop / Seminar Museum of Art
Mari Katayama (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63837 63837-15901127@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Japanese artist Mari Katayama (born 1987) features her own body in a provocative series of works combining photography, sculpture, and textile. Born with a developmental condition, the artist had both her legs amputated at the age of nine and has worn prosthetics ever since. In order to fill a deep gap between her own understanding of self and physicality, and contemporary society’s simplistic categorizations, Katayama began to explore her identity by objectifying her body in her art. In photographs she assumes different personas, dressed in revealing lingerie in private, domestic spaces or in dramatic waterscapes. The unflinching display of the vulnerabilities and limits of Katayama’s body opens up a broader conversation about anxieties and wounds for all of us—disabled or nondisabled—living in an age obsessed with body image. UMMA’s installation will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Center for Japanese Studies, the Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation, the Japan Cultural Development, and Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment. Additional generous support is provided by the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund, the University of Michigan CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Women's Studies Department. 

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Exhibition Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:17:51 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/onthewayhome001_1800x1200_2.jpg
New at UMMA: Walter Oltmann (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63283 63283-15612010@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Infant Skull II, a woven “tapestry” made out of very fine aluminum wire, only reveals its shape when seen from afar. Drawing inspiration from his country’s basketry traditions, the South African artist Walter Oltmann (b. 1960) alternates densely layered sections with open spaces, allowing the underlying surface of the work to show through. The skull that emerges is, in a South African context, evocative of the Cradle of Humankind—a series of caves outside Johannesburg, where some of the oldest hominin fossils in the world have been found.

The work complements UMMA’s renowned and growing collection of historical and contemporary African art and reminds us of the central role of Africa in the history of humankind. The purchase was made possible thanks to the generosity of UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee.

This acquisition was made possible by the generosity of the UMMA Director's Acquisition Committee, 2016.

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Exhibition Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/AP_151005_054%2520%25281%2529.jpg
Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/63842 63842-15931447@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Come help build our collection of “ordinary” American 20th-century photographs.

Take Your Pick invites you—the Museum’s visitors—to select photographs for our permanent collection. What belongs in a permanent collection, and why? Who and what should be represented, and how should we decide? This exhibition considers these questions in regard to 1,000 amateur photographs on loan from the private collection of Peter J. Cohen, who has gathered more than 60,000 snapshots while exploring flea markets in the United States and Europe over two decades. The images he has collected depict all aspects of daily life and reveal the dynamic histories of amateur photography. Such pictures have particular significance in the current digital age, when it is much less common to make physical copies of personal photographs. They constitute important artifacts of twentieth-century visual culture and precedents for the photographs we still make today. You are invited to make your voice heard in the selection process by voting for the photographs that resonate most with you!  

Vote for your favorite pictures: Saturday, September 21, 2019 – Sunday, January 12, 2020 Final selections on view: Tuesday, January 14 – Sunday, February 23, 2020

Support for this exhibition is provided by Cecilia and Mark Vonderheide and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Department of Film, Television, and Media.
 

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Exhibition Fri, 04 Oct 2019 18:18:03 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/for%2520the%2520web%25201.jpg
The Power Family Program for Inuit Art: Tillirnanngittuq​ (October 19, 2019 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/58826 58826-14563553@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional gift of 20th-century Inuit art to the Museum by the Power family

Two fascinating stories converge in one very special exhibition: One tracks the development and subsequent worldwide acclaim of contemporary Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. The other traces the Power family’s seminal role in supporting Inuit art and introducing it to a U.S. audience. Seventy years ago, neither the Inuit artists nor the Power family could have foreseen the tremendous popularity that this work would come to enjoy. Taking its title from the Inuktitut word for “unexpected,” this stirring exhibition showcases 58 works from the collection of Philip and Kathy Power, most from the very early contemporary period of the 1950s and 60s. Included are exquisite sculptures of ivory, bone, and stone, as well as stonecut and stencil prints, some from the first annual Inuit print collection in 1959. Among the renowned Inuit artists featured in this historic survey are Kenojuak Ashevak, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Niviaksiak, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Johnny Inukpuk.

The exhibition also serves as a promising launch pad for future groundbreaking research, exhibitions, and programming related to Inuit art and culture at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of the Power family.

This exhibition inaugurates the Power Family Program for Inuit Art, established in 2018 through the generosity of Philip and Kathy Power.

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Exhibition Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:17:39 -0400 2019-10-19T11:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/LTL2018_5_7%2520%25281%2529.jpg
​UMMA Pop Up: Jazz with Aidan Cafferty and Max Bowen (October 19, 2019 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/67307 67307-16833424@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 1:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Max Bowen is an Ann Arbor born jazz guitarist. An alumnus of Community High School's jazz program, he recently completed a Masters of Music at University of Michigan. His influences include Grant Green, Barney Kessel, and Pat Martino. At Michigan he studied guitar privately with Miles Okazaki and performed with the Jazz Ensemble under the direction of professor Ellen Rowe. Max has performed in venues around the Midwest, including Cliff Bell's in Detroit, Andy's in Chicago, and Milwaukee's Jazz Estate. He recently toured with the hip-hop collective Ruby Yacht, opening for Future Islands. 

Aidan Cafferty is an accomplished bassist whose passion for jazz and improvised music started in middle school.

Aidan pursued his love for jazz at Michigan State Univeristy's School of Music, where he spent four years studying under Rodney Whitaker. Aidan received his bachelor’s degree jazz performance in 2016. In 2017, Aidan enrolled in the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater and Dance, where he studied jazz improvisation under Robert Hurst. Aidan was awarded the degree of Master of Music (Improvisation) in 2019.

Aidan continues to perform with numerous groups in recording sessions and concerts throughout the Midwest. Aidan is actively touring as the bassist with Talking Ear, a five-piece progressive music ensemble committed to providing a unique experience for listeners through composition, collaboration, and improvisation and Estar Cohen. Aidan also tours with Travis Swanson and performed on all tracks on his album When it's time to say goodbye (2017). Aidan was previously the bassist for Malena Quartet, both in concert and on all tracks of the album Behind the Eyes (2016).

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Performance Fri, 11 Oct 2019 00:17:45 -0400 2019-10-19T13:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T14:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Performance Museum of Art
Family Art Studio: One and Many (October 19, 2019 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/64159 64159-16171648@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, October 19, 2019 2:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Families with children ages six and up are invited to look, learn, and create together in this hands-on workshop inspired by the UMMA exhibition Copies and Invention in East Asia.  Visit the exhibition—which looks at the practice of copying in art making and includes works from China, Korea, and Japan, spanning ancient to contemporary times—and create an original art work with the potential to become many. Led by local artist and long-time UMMA docent Susan Clinthorne.

Parents must accompany children. We cannot guarantee your spot if you arrive more than 15 minutes late.

Lead support is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Nam Center for Korean Studies, School of Information, and College of Engineering. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Fabrication Studio at the Duderstadt Center, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and SeeMeCNC 3D Printers.

Family Art Studio is generously supported by the University of Michigan Credit Union Arts Adventures Program, UMMA's Lead Sponsor for Student and Family Engagement.  

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Workshop / Seminar Fri, 11 Oct 2019 00:17:41 -0400 2019-10-19T14:00:00-04:00 2019-10-19T16:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Workshop / Seminar Museum of Art
Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s (October 20, 2019 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/58562 58562-14511293@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 20, 2019 12:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Can abstract art be about politics? In the early 1970s, that question was hotly debated as artists, critics, and the public grappled with the relationship between art, politics, race, and feminism. Many of those debates centered on bringing to light the roles that gender and race played in how “great modern art” was defined and assessed, and on employing art to advance civil rights. Within this discourse, abstraction had an especially fraught role. To many, the decision by women artists and artists of color  to make abstract art seemed to represent a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale work by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s.

UMMA gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of this exhibition:

Lead Exhibition Sponsors: University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Michigan Medicine, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Exhibition Endowment Donors:  Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Robert and Janet Miller Fund

University of Michigan Funding Partners: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Social Work, Department of Political Science, and Department of Women's Studies

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Exhibition Fri, 10 May 2019 12:15:34 -0400 2019-10-20T12:00:00-04:00 2019-10-20T17:00:00-04:00 Museum of Art University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) Exhibition https://umma.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Gilliam-04.jpg