Former IU professor opens art show
By Maia Rabenold
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By Maia Rabenold
At downtown Bloomington’s By Hand Gallery, much of the photography, jewelry and glass on display comes from local and regional artists.
The walls were lined with photographs at Pictura Gallery. Each picture at Friday’s opening reception for the exhibition “What Does Bloomington Look Like to Me?” showed Bloomington from the perspectives of members of the homeless community.
The Indiana University Art Museum experienced a few big changes this year.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The unseen and supernatural have graced IU with their presence in a new exhibit at the Lilly Library.The exhibition, “Spiritualists, Sorcerers and Stage Magicians: Magic and the Supernatural at the Lilly Library,” opened June 2 and will be available to the public until Aug. 30.“The Lilly Library has never had an exhibition on magic and the supernatural before, so many of the items in this exhibition are on display for the first time,” Lilly Library Reference Associate Rebecca Baumann said in an email.The exhibit is displayed in the Main Gallery, and it offers a look into supernatural and magical history throughout the world.The showcase is a collaboration between Baumann, who is also the exhibition curator, and Anne Delgado, a visiting lecturer at IU.Various themes within the exhibit include witchcraft, demonology, ghost stories, stage magic, occultism and weird tales told throughout the world, as well as posters and texts on the famous stage magician Harry Houdini.Since the exhibition began, tour guides have noted the most popular case contains pieces by famous occultist Aleister Crowley.“He was a pretty dodgy character, and the letters we have in our collection to book collector Montgomery Evans are fascinating,” Baumann said. The stage magic case is another staff favorite.Items are dated from the Middle Ages through the 21st century. “We wanted to show that an interest in the supernatural and the paranormal has been a persistent part of print culture throughout history,” Baumann said. “This exhibition does not present a unified truth about the esoteric tradition. Rather, it seeks to present a series of fragments and stories that emerge from the Lilly Library’s rich collections.” The exhibit provides a glimpse into what other features the Lilly Library has to offer.“We want to highlight and showcase the Lilly’s extensive and diverse collections,” Baumann said. “Our exhibitions present other areas of collecting and give the public a chance to see material they may not have seen before.” Visitors of the Lilly Library might already be aware of collections such as the Gutenberg Bible, first printed works by Shakespeare and Audubon’s “Birds of America”. But this particular exhibition shines a light on the mysterious and unknown collections of the library, as nearly all of the items on display are part of the Lilly’s permanent collection.The library will have an opening reception at 6 to 8 p.m. June 21.It will feature a performance by magician Steve Bryant, whose specialty is card magic, as well as a talk by the exhibition’s curators.Public tours for the exhibition are 2 p.m. every Friday, or tours can be set up by emailing liblilly@indiana.edu.
The IU Libraries Moving Image Archive has digitized 116 World War II propaganda films that spans from 1940 to 1945. IU libraries launched the digital exhibition in honor of the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, according to an IU Newsroom press release.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Having once shocked the art realm in the early 20th century, Fauvism-styled artwork will make a comeback for the public to witness today at the IU Art Museum.The Fauvism gallery discussion is a part of the museum’s exhibitions from 3 to 4 p.m. that won’t be displayed in the museum’s galleries but instead will be laid out on tables in one of the museum’s special viewing rooms on the third floor.The one-hour exhibit was created and will be presented by Nannette Brewer, IU Art Museum’s Lucienne M. Glaubinger Curator of Works on Paper. Brewer selected the work that will be featured in the event and will be talking informally about the pieces to guests.“The one-hour exhibitions are something I have been doing for a couple years now as a way of giving an opportunity for students and general public to see things that are not on view,” Brewer said. “Most museums, ours included, only have 5-10 percent of their collection on view.”The gallery will feature a laid-out selection of prints and drawings by Fauvist artists such as Georges Rouault, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Georges Braque. Brewer will discuss the artists’ style, organization and use of color for each of the pieces at the event. “I decided to do Fauvism for the last gallery of the year because I wanted to honor Henri Matisse, who was an early leader of the Fauvism movement,” Brewer said. “We thought this would be a good way to address the topic of Fauvism with the various artwork the museum owns from other Fauvist artists.”According to Brewer, Fauvism is classified as a loose group of early 20th century modern artists who chose to push the envelope with their work opposing the representational or realistic values that was represented in the impressionism art movement. “Fauvism artwork is known for having an unnatural, strong color and shocking imagery with a sense of simplicity and abstraction,” Brewer said. “The artists of this genre were inspired by post-impressionism artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.” To view the exhibit, visitors must meet at the third-floor office to sign in. No pre-registration is required, but space is limited, so admission is organized in a first-come, first-served basis.“This is a drop-in opportunity done in a more flexible and simple matter to be more accessible for the general public,” Brewer said. “It is meant to be a slightly different event than a full-fledged gallery exhibition by having a viewing of the pieces on a table as opposed to being hung up behind glass at the galleries.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As hundreds of college students caravanned down to Florida, one group of Ivy Tech-Bloomington students boarded a plane to Guatemala this past spring break. It was there they learned about fair trade and worked to build new facilities for Guatemalan coffee farmers. Their journey was documented by Ivy Tech-Bloomington faculty member Chelsea Rood-Emmick, who took photographs of the students throughout the trip.These photos make up one of the four new exhibits opening Friday at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center, with an opening reception from 5-8 p.m. The exhibit shows 21 different photographs accompanied with quotes written by the students in journals while they were in Guatemala. The photos depict the international experiences of the students, the students’ construction of the buildings on the farms and the process of growing and selling coffee. The students also constructed a coffee storage building and repaired a farmer’s house, where about 25 people and 200 chickens were living, Crood-Emmick said. The photos in the exhibit offer the students and faculty a way to show off a great program from Ivy Tech, Crood-Emmick said. “Ours is a unique program because it’s scholarship-based,” she said. “This is a learning opportunity these students wouldn’t have otherwise. Most of them have never traveled or done service trips.” The second exhibit opening Friday is a showcase of 22 different artists who are part of Bloomington potter’s guild Local Clay. Guild member Susan Snyder is showing two different pieces.One piece is a tile-frame mirror, which is a project Snyder said she has never completed before. Creating the piece involved hand-painting 16 tiles to place around a two-foot mirror. Snyder uses a process called Maiolica, which she learned in Italy. The third exhibit also features international experiences through the work of two sisters, Deborah and Abby Gitlitz. The show is a dual exhibit focusing on food. Deborah is exhibiting her photographs of food from Mexico, India and the United States. “Those are cultures that have these outdoor markets where food is on display,” Abby said. “It’s a feast for the eyes and just something we don’t do here.” Abby is a glass blower who focused her work on food-related cake stands, fake food and other random objects. The glass is created with bright, vibrant colors that offer a sense of whimsy, Abby said. The sisters’ use of bright colors comes from the time they spent in Central America as young girls. “In Central America, more colors is a good thing,” Abby said. “That has definitely influenced my color pallet.” The food theme came from the enticing quality of food that has always attracted the artist, Abby said. “There’s something about food that is exciting,” Abby said. “It’s unlimited. It can be beautiful, it can be crazy, it can be disgusting, it can be everything in between.” The eight pieces of blown glass and the 15 photographs serve as the sisters’ first joint show together. “I hope that it brings people joy,” Abby said. “I want people to think about it and let their own imaginations run wild.” The fourth exhibit shows the recent works of artist Nakima Ollin. Each exhibit will remain open until May 31.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Giving Back to Africa Student Association will launch “Beta Histoire,” a month-long photo exhibit, from 6 to 8 p.m. today at the IU Art Museum.The exhibit will showcase photographs taken by children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and photographs taken by students in Monroe County. Fogarty and Friends jazz trio will play during the opening of the exhibit as well.“Even though the DRC is on the other side of the world, the exhibit shows similarities between youth in the U.S. and youth in the DRC,” GBASA president Sarah Baulac said. “It’s important to be educated on these likenesses to feel more connected to the development of youth leaders in the DRC.”GBASA educates IU students about political, social and economic issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she said.“We hold events to spread awareness about what Giving Back to Africa, the Bloomington-based nonprofit, is doing to further the education of the youth there and fundraise to support the non-profit’s mission,” Baulac said.Through project-based learning, Giving Back to Africa is dedicated to educating young people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to become agents of change in their communities, according to its website.The process of GBASA’s first art exhibit began in 2011, Baulac said. The organization sent disposable cameras to Giving Back to Africa’s partner school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.“Students at Centre Salisa took pictures of their lives,” Baulac said.Once the cameras were returned, the members developed the pictures and placed them in an exhibit at the museum, she said.“This year, we’ve expanded the exhibit by inviting students in Monroe County to submit pictures of their lives in response to the original pictures from DRC,” Baulac said. “We had over 20 photo submissions.”She said the photographs in the exhibit focus on what the children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo see in their daily lives.“Participants can expect to see an interesting juxtaposition between the two cultures,” she said.The photos were taken from the point of view of students in Monroe County and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though some of the photos may feature students.Giving Back to Africa is dedicated to making its vision a reality by working with other groups and people who share its philosophy of investing in human capabilities by pairing with the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to its website.“It’s always a great feeling to work with people who are passionate about similar issues,” Baulac said. “We have a small group, but we’re all very connected and working hard toward bettering education in DRC.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Chemistry major Andjela Radmilovic spends most of her time in labs, but in between studying chemical bonds and formulas, she finds time to express herself through art. Hutton Honors College was host to HHART, which stands for Hutton Honors art. Its Hutton’s fourth annual Art Gala, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Students of several different majors had their art work displayed at the gallery. IU junior Andjela Radmilovic said she has been involved in the gala for three years and displayed one painting at the event. The painting was for her sister, she said, who moved into a new apartment in Chicago and had a blank wall to fill with a painting.Her sister planned to buy a piece somewhere until Radmilovic promised to make her the painting. The piece was based on a candid photo taken of the two on a boat, and she used last night’s event to surprise her sister, who came to visit and see the show. HHART’s main goal is to showcase student’s art, which usually doesn’t get as much attention as work from art majors, IU senior Nicole Silvernell, committee chair of the event, said.“It gives students a way to actually showcase their work and not be judged by it,” Silvernell said.“You don’t have to be an art major. We really just want to show that what you do in your spare time actually means something.” The English major has been involved with HHART since her freshman year and said she is really passionate about it. HHART began in 2010 and has since displayed a large variety of art forms including dance, singing, film, dress designs, paintings, drawing, poetry, screenplays and band performances. Biochemistry major Taylor Harmon has been involved for three years and plays at the gala with his blues band, “Lost Catfish.” His band started in 2011 after he met his other member, Jack Whittle, in Eigenmann Residence Hall his freshman year. After performing at HHART their freshman year, they’ve been asked back to perform every year since. “A lot of people who perform at the event aren’t even music or art majors,” Harmon said. “I think it’s great because it allows people who otherwise wouldn’t have a medium of expression for their art to showcase it.” Harmon was one of about 20 performance artists playing last night, and one of about 60 students participating overall. “I love HHART because it allows people to see how multitalented college students are,” Radmilovic said. “People have various interests and I love that this celebrates that.”Follow Alison Graham on Twitter @AlisonGraham218.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Grunwald Gallery of Art will present its MFA Group Show beginning Wednesday, with plans to hold a reception 6 p.m. to 8 Friday. The exhibit showcases the work of first and second year master’s students, who are still on the road to completing their degrees, Grunwald Director Betsy Stirratt said. One MFA student exhibiting on Wednesday is Bill Bass, who is set to graduate with an MFA in photography in 2016. Bass contributed three different prints to the show, each exploring the idea of representing physical and digital images. One print is a white piece of paper, which Bass photographed and then transferred into a digital language. He layered the three different representations on top of one another. “I got surprising results, because I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time,” Bass said. “They’re meant to more clearly represent digital and physical manifestations of the same thing.”Students create their art in studios and follow their work throughout the entire process of displaying it in a gallery. Each student thinks ahead about how they want their work to appear in the physical gallery, and decides on lighting, space and other considerations, Stirratt said. Bass decided to keep his installation simple and pin the three prints onto the walls without frames, he said. Linda Tien is a metalsmithing and jewelry MFA student set to graduate in 2016, and is exhibiting two pieces in the upcoming show. One piece is a multimedia work made of rubber, cardboard, foam and other materials that represents a build-up of emotions. The piece resembles a physical growth, similar to a mushroom, which Tien used as a way to describe her piece. Tien’s other piece is a video installation about how people emotionally prepare for their days. The video is not projected on the wall, but is instead displayed on an iPad in order to make the experience more intimate, Tien said. The projection is presented with two mouth pieces that hook onto each side of the mouth, pulling upward and creating a forced, creepy smile, similar to how people prepare their emotions for their everyday activities, Tien said. “It’s a personal experience when you are watching the video,” Tien said. “It is supposed to make you reflect.” Some students who are exhibiting their art in the show will receive awards based on their pieces, from several sponsors including the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Friends of Art and the Grunwald Gallery. These awards range from $500 to $750, and each sponsor has its own criteria. “We take a look at their work in the show and we decide whose work is the most accessible, among other things,” Stirratt said about Grunwald’s criteria. Whether or not students win awards, their participation in the event provides a chance to see other artists’ work.“It’s a nice opportunity to bring people together and see what each other are working on,” Tien said. “You get to see work in the setting that it was made for. That gives it an extra layer of meaningfulness.” Follow reporter Alison Graham on Twitter @AlisonGraham218.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The walls of the IU Art Museum surround students with famous works by artists like Monet and Picasso, each with its own history. Discovering these histories is the job of Jenny McComas, the IU Art Museum’s curator of Western art after 1800 and head researcher for the art museum’s Provenance Project. Researchers for the Provenance Project track down the whereabouts of IU’s current art pieces from the time of their creation to the time that they entered the museum’s collection. McComas and graduate students from the department of art history work together to research and contact museums and galleries throughout the world to piece together the history of each piece of art in the gallery.“Provenance provides important information about a work’s history, and having a complete provenance can help prove a work’s authenticity,” McComas said. However, some pieces have a higher priority than others. The project is largely focused on dating paintings that could have been in Europe during the Nazi-era. “We want to ensure that we do not have works in the collection that might have been looted during World War II,” McComas said. According to the project’s website, the museum is working along with the American Association of Museums’ “Standards Regarding the Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi-Era.” These guidelines include many rules for how a museum handles research and claims of ownership. If an artwork was illegally obtained in the past, a conscious effort must be made to return the object to the rightful owner, according to the association’s website. Finding the history of these paintings can be a long and intensive process, McComas said. First, researchers examine the works themselves to see if there are any inscriptions or labels that could lead to important information. Past galleries are contacted and other archival research is conducted. “Sometimes we have a great deal of information which makes it relatively easy,” McComas said. “Other times it is nearly impossible.” For example, “The Studio” by Pablo Picasso took McComas more than five years to complete research for. “Although I was not continuously researching the painting during that time, it took a long time for all the elements of the painting’s history to fall into place,” McComas said. McComas corresponded with a museum in England that exhibited the painting during the 1930s, visited two archives and examined various publications in her research. Many successes have been made, she said, but the museum still has a long way to go. Eight hundred pieces have been marked for research and about 20 percent of the projects have been completed. “In addition to learning about former owners of works in our collection, we might find out more information about the scene depicted in a painting or learn something about how the work fit into the particular artist’s oeuvre,” McComas said. “All of this helps us to better interpret works for our visitors.” Follow reporter Alison Graham on Twitter @AlisonGraham218.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Human-animal hybrid figures and female body parts with floral details are only a few of the works now on display at the Kinsey Institute.The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction opened two art exhibits Friday. One of the galleries, called “Flora,” displays works from the Kinsey Institute’s permanent art collection that have a common theme of plants and nature. “We have collected art since the 1940s when Kinsey first started doing his research,” Kinsey Institutes’ Curator of Art Catherine Johnson-Roehr said. “Shows like this are a great way to show the breadth of our permanent collection.”The exhibit includes photography, sketches, sculpture and paintings, all of which have been inspired by nature. The Kinsey Institute also tries to include objects from the large library of resources it houses on its fourth floor, Johnson-Roehr said. One piece is a series of books by Tee Corinne and Betty Dodson that was part of a feminist movement in the 1970s. The books show a variety of female body parts with floral details. “Feminist artists were trying to help women become more comfortable with their bodies,” Johnson-Roehr said. “The idea that a woman would find herself beautiful was a strange idea then.”Artist Ian Hornak is the focus of the Kinsey Institute’s second exhibit, called “Beauty and the Beast.” The exhibit displays solely Hornak’s work from a specific period of time in his career. “What I think is really interesting about this period of work where he was focusing on the human body is his interest in these human-animal hybrid figures,” Johnson-Roehr said. “I think it’s really intriguing how he was playing with really realistic figures and really imaginative ones.” Hornak was a hyperrealist artist who lived and worked in New York with other artists such as Andy Warhol, Willian de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. The Kinsey Institute’s collection focuses on the years 1967 through 1968 when Hornak was interested in depicting the human figure before he switched to landscapes, which is what he is more widely known for. “It’s certainly pretty surreal but at the same time a lot of it is focused on artistic basics like the human body shape, and just combining that with animal imagery,” Kinsey Institute Intern Joseph Kenshur said. The art featured in the exhibit is almost entirely from the Kinsey Institute’s permanent collection, but it is borrowing a few pieces from the Ian Hornak Foundation in Michigan. “There’s so much to look at in the drawings, all this detail and these really interesting figures,” Johnson-Roehr said. After the exhibits close, the pieces will return to storage and might not be seen again for years. The exhibits will remain on display through April 4 at the Kinsey Institute, located in Morrison Hall.“It’s a nice opportunity to get a sense of what this particular artist was doing,” Johnson-Roehr said. “He was doing really inventive artwork.”
The Grunwald Gallery of Art will open a show based on a variety of work by William S. Burroughs on Jan. 24.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Venue artist and curator Gabe Colman said he does not usually accept photography in his exhibitions, but Friday’s Juried 2014 Emerging Artist Exhibit and Sale was an exception.“I must say I was completely taken aback by all the student photos that were entered,” he said.The Venue, Fine Art & Gifts staged an opening exhibition for promising students from Bloomington North and South High Schools as part of its local art competition.The reception included a variety of media such as ceramics, computer graphics, wood chips and stained glass.According to its website, thevenuebloomington.com, the Venue’s exhibition was titled and themed as the second annual exhibition of the sort.“This is my first gallery opening of the new year, and it is a pleasure to support the Bloomington high schools’ art programs,” Colman said. “A lot of the hand-drawn pieces these students drew exhibit a great deal of emotion.”Each of the hand-selected compositional pieces included subjects of life such as human figures, architecture, symbols and nature. “All the artists a part of this exhibition range from freshmen to seniors,” Colman said. The exhibited pieces will be judged by Colman on Jan. 31, with a winner selected from each section of the gallery. The winners will be rewarded with a cash prize sponsored by the Venue, Bloomington Water Color Society, Sorosis Club and the Bloomington North Rotary Club.“Some of the pieces students chose to put on sale for anyone to purchase,” Colman said. “However, we are still waiting for a couple students to send in their price figures.”The exhibit will be open for two weeks.“These high school students certainly have a gift in the arts,” gallery viewer and Bloomington resident Gwendolyn Jenkins said. “I can certainly tell why they chose to display their work, with how adorning and thought-provoking the student artist appears to be.”Follow reporter Anthony Broderick on Twitter @aebrodakirck.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Artist Martin Beach’s sculpture, “Grazing Arch,” was made of granite and limestone, some of which he actually found on the side of the road.He said he saw the block of granite and simply picked it up to take with him. 100 hours of work later, his sculpture was complete, and the $1,000 Chapter Career Award was his. “I take these stones ... and infuse life in them,” he said. “I work pretty quickly when I get in the zone.” Beach’s piece was one of 12 that received awards from the National Society of Arts and Letters Visual Arts Competition this weekend.The Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center, where the competition took place at 2 p.m. Saturday, is now home to 25 pieces of art that made it to the final round. Twelve pieces received prizes in the form of NSAL donations and gift cards supplied by Pygmalion’s Art Supplies. IU students and alumni between the ages of 18 and 29 were invited to submit their artwork to the competition.Though most of the contestants are from IU, several come from colleges across the state.The competition has been hosted by the Bloomington chapter of the NSAL since 1966, and event coordinator Catherine Johnson-Roehr said the competition has become increasingly intense. “With each year, we’ve been getting more submissions,” Johnson-Roehr said. “It’s a very mixed media.” Even with the growing number of submissions, it is important for more artists to get involved, she said. This is why they are continually trying to make people aware of the competition through email and word of mouth.Reaching young people still in school is far easier than reaching those that have graduated, judge Robert Kingsley said. Professors often help to spread the word to their students.Kingsley said it is really to the benefit of the young artists to submit their work to this competition because it allows them to showcase their talents to not only a different panel of judges every year, but also to an art-appreciating crowd that could help to advance their careers.Johnson-Roehr said that about 50 applications came in this year, but only 25 entries were selected to proceed to the gallery to be judged. According to Kingsley, this decision was made several months ago. Johnson-Reohr said the compeition is a nice opportunity for NSAL members to get involved and help people.“The idea of the NSAL is to support young artists,” she said.Kingsley agreed, stressing the importance of helping the artists grow and learn how they want to present their work to the public. “It’s a step towards professionalism,” he said.The awards were also meant to support the artist’s development. A total of $5,450 was divided among twelve awards, to help artists purchase art supplies and travel abroad, seeking inspiration. “Artists need support,” judge Dale Enochs said. “This kind of venue allows artists to get their feet wet in a non-threatening environment.” With no entry fee, the competition is accessible to artists of all backgrounds.However, judges agreed that determining the winners was no easy task, but that it was definitely an exciting one. What the judges are looking for is very concrete and easily identifiable, Kingsley said. It’s not one individual item or concept, though.Kingsley said each judge will look for the intention of the artist and then decide how well they felt the artist reached that goal. With three judges working together and comparing their thoughts, Kingsley and Enochs both said they had fun and were able to consider a variety of perspectives because of their varying backgrounds in art. “I was really excited just to be in the show,” alumna Megan Posas, who has a BFA from IU, said.Her two entries, “A Dazzling Manipulation” and “Portrait of a Pin Cushion,” were oil paintings inspired by traditional feminine crafts such as sewing and knitting. Standing next to a painting that took her a month to complete, she said she loves to paint from still life. Posas draws inspiration from these images as well as colors that reflect off each other to create different hues. On April 13 in the Ivy Tech Waldron Auditorium, winners from this competition, as well as from a variety of performance arts, will receive their prize money and once again be able to showcase their artwork.“Having it here at the Waldron is a huge benefit,” Johnson-Roehr said. “It’s really an amazing thing.” Follow reporter Amanda Marino on Twitter @amandanmarin.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Venue Fine Art & Gifts is presenting a week-long exhibit featuring the work of mixed-media and printmaking artist Marvin Lowe.Lowe’s works have appeared in more than 200 exhibitions around the world and are part of permanent collections at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution and the New York Public Library.“Marvin is one of the best known and most collected artists to ever be a part of the faculty,” said Dave Colman of the Venue.Lowe was the recipient of several awards, including a Ford Foundation grant and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Lowe, who was also a jazz saxophonist, studied musical composition at the Juilliard School and English literature at Brooklyn College before receiving his MFA in printmaking from the University of Iowa, where he worked with legendary printmaker Mauricio Lasansky. Lowe came to IU in 1967 and helped create the IU Printmaking Workshop with artist Rudy Pozzatti. He worked in the Hope School of Fine Arts until his retirement in 1991. “He was instrumental in establishing what became the leading print-making departments in the country,” Colman said. After Lowe’s death in 2010, Pozzatti said of their colleague, “His most important contributions are the least tangible. His exciting intellect, his energy, his tenacity, his generosity and his great sense of humor have given those of us fortunate enough to have worked with him a presence that will remain as an inspiration to us all.”Seven of Lowe’s large mixed media paintings are on display and available for sale at the Venue. The works, which will be sold on a “best offer” basis, are available until Friday.— Rachel Osman
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Mathers Museum of World Cultures was selected as one of three American museums to collaborate with three Chinese museums, organized by the American Folklore Society and China Folklore Society, as well as develop resources to share information about both countries’ folklore studies scholarship.Through the collaboration, the two societies hope to create a display of both China’s and America’s “intangible heritage,” said Judy Kirk, assistant director at Mathers. The initiative is being funded through a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Kirk said the Luce Foundation gave the grant to the American Folklore Society, which then selected the six institutions to participate in the collaboration. Kirk said she hopes the collaboration will promote conversation about “how museums and other arts and cultural agencies can work together across boarders to promote the preservation of intangible cultural heritage like stories, crafts and cultural beliefs.”As a first step toward collaboration, which will be finalized in 2016, Mathers’ Director Jason Jackson traveled to China to meet with directors from partnering museums.Jackson and the other museum directors engaged in a series of conferences to discuss necessary steps toward completing the initiative. Jackson also visited museums around the Yunnan Province in China to learn about different Chinese groups and traditions.“Those will be the first face-to-face meetings, and then there will be other exchanges of staff over the next three years,” Kirk said. Chinese institutions selected for collaboration include the Yunnan Nationalities Museum, where Jackson and his fellow directors will be staying, the Guizhou Cultural Palace of Nationalities Museum and the Guangxi Museum of Nationalities. Aside from Mathers, American institutions include Michigan State University Museum and the Museum of International Folk Art in Sante Fe, N.M.The first exhibit the museums hope to organize will be a display of American and Chinese quilts. Kirk said the exhibit would travel amongst the various institutions with a focus on American quilts in the Chinese museums and on Chinese quilts in the U.S. museums. “I believe someone mentioned that the Chinese partners had inquired about quilts,” Kirk said. “They’re very interested in American quilts.”Kirk said she and the other museum directors believe the quilts will capture the sense of “intangible heritage” that the collaboration seeks to achieve through their ability to tell historical narratives.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Downtown Bloomington’s art studio gallery406 will unveil on Friday its holiday show, which consists of more than 26 photographs from Bloomington’s Photography Club.The gallery opening was originally scheduled for last weekend, but due to weather, it was rescheduled for this weekend.Every photo selected had to be original and couldn’t have been previously featured in an exhibit or show.“Me and three of my other co-workers were presented with over 80 different submitted framed photographs that we needed to select to be in the show,” gallery worker and photographer Kendall Reeves said.“Selecting and narrowing down the best out of the hurtle of pictures was difficult, but we managed to finalize 26 photographs from 22 artists for the gallery.”The Bloomington Photography Club is an organization that explores many different forms of imagery, ideas and knowledge to promote interest in photography throughout the community, exhibitions and events.According to the website, bloomingtonphotoclub.org, the club’s main goal is to explore the correlation between the eye, camera and spirit with the encouragement of artistic and technical growth.Every photo on display represents different topics, such as architectural buildings, forestry scenery, contemporary public places and old miscellaneous items. The exhibit contains photographs from well-known photographers from Bloomington such as Jeff Schemmer, Bobbie Walker, James Haverstock and Carol Koetke.The photos are framed and cropped by the photographers themselves and being sold to anyone interested. Pieces range from $100 to $350.The local club is the largest of its kind in Indiana, and most members have spent all year trying to capture different photographs from all over the world.“The range of subjects and photographic styles is sure to capture the eye of any viewer and please their heart,” Reeves said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Experts gathered for a panel at IU on Tuesday to explore the state and future of anthropology museums. The panel, titled, “A Discussion on the Future of Museum Ethnography,” took place at the DeVault Gallery and classroom in the Mathers Museum of World Cultures and was coordinated by Jason Jackson, director of the Mathers Museum.The panel included three speakers: Smithsonian Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology Director Candace Greene, SIMA Program Assistant and IU doctoral candidate Suzanne Godby Ingalsbe and University of Colorado Cultural Anthropology Curator Jen Shannon.“Well, it’s an exciting time,” Jackson said before the event. “There’s a number of factors which have changed the landscape of museum anthropology. Globalization, new information technologies, those kinds of forces which cause us to intensify our contact with one another around the world, inevitably change the way that museums that focus on cultural diversity do their work.”This is Jackson’s first year as director of the Mathers Museum and the 50th year since the museum’s opening. “We’re spending a year thinking hard about how we will do our work at the beginning of our next 50 years,” he said.The discussion, led by Jackson, was conversational, and the about 30 people in the audience were invited to contribute. Topics such as the role of technology, recognition of the field among other academics and funding for museum research were discussed. “If you look at the literature on museums, they’re considered one of the most trusted sources of information by people,” Shannon said. “What we represent in museums is really important because there’s a lot of power in the authority of museums to the public.”Shannon said collaboration among museums, and also between museums and the people they represent, is an important way of understanding and advancing knowledge of material culture and life experiences. Shannon works closely with the Native American communities on documenting and researching collections, as well as identifying objects which are sacred and inappropriate for museum displays.“If you’re going to represent a people, you need to collaborate with them,” Shannon said. Several IU students who had participated in the Smithsonian Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology were in attendance. SIMA, a research training program, accepts 12 students every year from across the country. Seven IU students have participated in the program over the six years it has existed. “We’re a teaching museum,” Shannon said of UC’s Museum of Natural History. “And that allows us some leeway to experiment, to support student-generated ideas and to bring contemporary ongoing anthropological research to our displays.”Jim Seaver, a doctoral candidate in history, said learning can happen on campus as well.“For people who are interested in working with objects and seeing what kind of relevance they have for our lives, there’s no better place than the Mathers Museum at IU to do that,” Seaver said. “You roll up your sleeves, and they put you to work on projects that you’re interested in.”