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STAN L E Y M US EU M .U IOWA.EDU
Stanley museum ofart
temporary offices
OLD MUSEUM OF ART BUILDING 150 N. Riverside Drive OMA 100 Iowa City, IA 52242 319-335-1727 stanley-museum@uiowa.edu
temporary locations
IOWA MEMORIAL UNION
FIGGE ART MUSEUM
STANLEY VISUAL CLASSROOM Room 376 (Richey Ballroom)
225 West Second Street Davenport, IA 52801 563-326-7804
125 North Madison Street Iowa City, IA 52242 319-335-1742 Free admission Hours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursday: 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday: 12–5 p.m.
Free admission for University of Iowa students, faculty, and staff with UI ID cards and SMA members with membership cards. Hours Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursday: 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Sunday: 12–5 p.m.
CLASSIC AL
YOU STAY CLASSICAL, IOWA. 91.7 FM IOWA CITY & STREAMING ONLINE AT IOWAPUBLICRADIO.ORG Editor: Elizabeth M. Wallace Editorial Team: Rebecca Hanssens-Reed and Derek Nnuro Design: Benson & Hepker Design Copyright © 2020
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spring 2020
Cover image Lil Picard Waves, 1957 Oil on canvas Lil Picard Collection, 2012.209
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Calendar of Events
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Director’s Welcome
6 ON VIEW Stanley Visual Classroom 8 COLLECTIONS The Museum Collects: American Artist 10 Looking Forward Construction update How to Move a Collection: Tracking Objects What Can Museums Become?
16 Philanthropy My Museum: Gifts from the Heart 18 PUBLIC PROGRAMS Talks Saturdays at the Stanley Black Curators’ Roundtable 24 EDUCATION Curator of Learning & Engagement Student Success 26 STAFF SPOTLIGHTS Josh Siefken Derek Nnuro 28 EVENTS Campus Council Celebrations My Museum Campaign 31 From the UI Center for Advancement
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STAN L E Y M US EU M .U IOWA.EDU
Stanleymuseumofart EXHIBITIONS
As we prepare to move the museum’s collection to our new home in 2022, all current exhibitions will remain on extended view.
Ongoing
Stanley Visual Classroom, Iowa Memorial Union
Ongoing
Pollinators, Figge Art Museum
PUBLIC PROGRAMS January 3
5:00–7:00 p.m.
First Friday, FilmScene on the Ped Mall
January 26
2:00 p.m.
Music at the Stanley, UI School of Music Faculty Quartet James Dreier, Steve Grismore, Masayoshi Shikawa, and Blake Shaw Stanley Visual Classroom
February 1
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
February 4
7:00 p.m.
TALK “Constructing Narratives” by Tyanna Buie, Grant Wood Fellow in Printmaking, 240 Art Building West
February 7
5:00–7:00 p.m.
First Friday, FilmScene on the Ped Mall
February 8
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
February 20 7:00 p.m.
TALK “Goddess Eye View” by Suzanne Wright, Grant Wood Fellow in Painting & Drawing, 240 Art Building West
March 5
TALK “Drawing from Receptivity” by Tony Orrico, Grant Wood Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance, 240 Art Building West
7:00 p.m.
March 5–7
2020 Obermann Humanities Symposium, “What Can Museums Become?”—https://uimuseumsymposium.com
March 6
5:00–7:00 p.m.
First Friday, FilmScene on the Ped Mall
March 8
2:00 p.m.
Music at the Stanley, UI School of Music Graduate Student Ensemble, Stanley Visual Classroom
March 14
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
March 28
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
April 3
5:00–7:00 p.m.
First Friday, FilmScene on the Ped Mall
April 4
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
April 18
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
May 1
5:00–7:00 p.m.
First Friday, FilmScene on the Ped Mall
May 2
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Saturdays at the Stanley, Stanley Visual Classroom
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Locations FilmScene on the Ped Mall 118 E. College St. Iowa City
Stanley Visual Classroom Third floor Iowa Memorial Union 125 N. Madison St. Iowa City
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr. Iowa City
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Dear Friends, As I write this letter, the temperature is only fifteen degrees in Iowa City and the ground is covered with a brittle crust of ice and snow. Undeterred by the frigid weather, the Russell Construction team is hard at work laying the foundation for our new building. They have drilled into bedrock and formed the rebarreinforced concrete piers that will support the structure. In our much warmer offices on the other side of the Iowa River, the museum’s staff is also hard at work planning our inaugural exhibition, preparing to pack and move our collection, and completing the strategic plan that will guide us over the next five years. Amidst these busy preparations, we are engaging our campus and Iowa City communities with questions about how museums—including the UI Stanley Museum of Art—can serve as incubators of research and new artistic practices, and as sites of cross-disciplinary teaching and community-building. In October, we collaborated with the Center for Afrofuturist Studies to bring a panel of innovative, young black curators to the Iowa City Public Library, where they discussed their work and the future of black curation with an interested audience of faculty, students, and community members. This coming March, Chief Curator Joyce Tsai will co-direct the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies’ Humanities Symposium, where an impressive roster of visiting curators, scholars, and museum directors will raise questions related to the theme “What Can Museums Become?” These important conversations will inform how we will present our collections in our new building.
Photo by Avery Tucker
Meanwhile, the Stanley Visual Classroom in the Iowa Memorial Union will be busier than ever this spring as faculty and students in a wide range of UI courses visit to see, discuss, and learn from works of art in the museum’s collection. On the weekends, a new concert series—Music at the Stanley— will offer our audiences a chance to enjoy visual art accompanied by live music, and our successful Saturdays at the Stanley programs will continue to provide entertaining and interactive encounters with art. Exhibitions in the Visual Classroom and at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport underscore the roles played by women as both artists and patrons. In the Visual Classroom, Follow Her Lead: Womanhood in African and Diasporic Arts will remain on view this spring. At the Figge, Pollinators—the most recent Legacies for Iowa exhibition—presents artworks that highlight women’s important work as catalysts to produce modern and contemporary art. As our Legacies for Iowa traveling exhibition program enters its final year, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the Mathew Bucksbaum family’s support in helping us bring the museum’s worldclass collections to communities across Iowa during the decade that we have been without a permanent home. The world tour of Jackson Pollock’s 1943 masterpiece Mural is also coming to an end in 2020, with a final exhibition of the painting opening this March at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. After that exhibition closes in 2021, your next chance to see Mural will be in 2022, when our new building opens. This is an exhilarating time for the UI Stanley Museum of Art. I invite you to visit our programs and exhibitions, become a part of our community, and be transformed with us!
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Spring 2020
The Stanley Visual Classroom
For 2020, the Stanley Visual Classroom (SVC) will feature three exhibitions, each of which is a culmination of the museum’s ongoing collaborations with the broader university community. Follow Her Lead: Womanhood in African and Diasporic Arts will continue at the SVC with new works and will be joined by Fluidity and 20/20.
Follow Her Lead: Womanhood in African and Diasporic Arts, curated by Dr. Cory Gundlach and opened in fall 2019, highlights the strength of our collection of African and Diaspora art through an exploration of women, motherhood, fashion, and leadership across times and cultures. Mumenya, a woman’s Bwami diadem, is one of the new pieces soon to be on display. An example of the small caps worn by female leaders among the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lega people, Mumenya, adorned in colorful buttons, provides the university community a new and unique perspective for teaching and learning.
Democratic Republic of the Congo; Lega artist Mumenya (woman’s Bwami diadem) Fiber, buttons 4 3/4 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. Anonymous gift in honor of Betty Stanley, 1986.77 6
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On View
Fluidity draws upon the rich archival holdings of the University of Iowa as well as the Stanley Museum of Art collection. With fresh water becoming scarce through contamination and climate change, Fluidity explores how water has moved us and the ways in which we have attempted to move water. Through pieces like Hiroshige Ando’s Ishiyana Temple in Lake Biwa in Omi Province, the exhibition presents artists’ approaches to the power and peril of water in motion. Associate Curator Vero Rose Smith designed the exhibit to coincide with the 100th anniversary of IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, a global leader in fluids-related research and education. In addition, the exhibition is a nod to Hancher’s The Big Splash! programming and the University of Iowa Theme Semester, Flow Together, which explores and celebrates water as fundamental to life. s p r in g 2 0 2 0
The third exhibit on view at the SVC will be 20/20, a group of works of intense patterns and optical illusions. Drawn from different times, cultures, and functions, these pieces produce the same dizzying effect. Coined by Jeffrey Steele in the October 23, 1964 issue of TIME magazine, Op Art (Optical Art) is known for clashing colors and vibrating geometric contrasts. Paintings and prints associated with Op Art are carefully calibrated according to the emerging science of optics and borrow the bright hues of Pop Art. Pieces such as the geometric paintings and prints of Tadasky and the subtly shifting illusions of Samia Halaby respond to the messy, emotional works of Abstract Expressionism. This exhibition is co-curated by Manager of Design, Preparation & Installation Steven Erickson and Associate Curator Smith. (Top left) Hiroshige Ando Ishiyana Temple in Lake Biwa in Omi Province, from Rokiyuyoshu meisho zue [Pictures of Famous Places in the 60-odd Provinces], 1853 Woodblock on paper 14 3/8 x 9 5/8 in. Gift of Owen and Leone Elliott, 1968.204 (Top right) Samia Halaby (Palestinian, 1936– ) Untitled, 1972 Lithograph on Copperplate Deluxe 24 3/4 x 24 3/4 in. Gift of Lloyd E. Rigler, 1981.447 7
The museum Collects: In June 2019, the Stanley welcomed American Artist, an interdisciplinary practitioner, for a week-long residency in Iowa City. Through video and visual installations, new media platforms, and writings, American Artist’s work explores dialectics of black social movements embedded in contemporary technologies. Artist, an alum of the Whitney Independent Study program, has received prestigious fellowships from New York’s famed Abrons Art Center, the Queens Museum Jerome Foundation, and EYEBEAM. The co-founder and art director of unbag, an arts-and-politics publication, Artist has shown work at San Francisco’s Museum of African Diaspora, Harlem’s Studio Museum, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and New York’s Koenig & Clinton. Artist has written for The New Inquiry and New Criticals, and has been featured in Artforum, ARTnews, Mousse, and Huffington Post.
Data Server Rack represents a union between analogs of hay baling machines and data serving racks.
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Americ While in Iowa City, Artist researched two seemingly unrelated topics: the rise of Midwestern startup culture in the early twenty-first century and the simultaneous legal battles between black farmers and the United States Department of Agriculture. In 2000, young, white-male venture capitalists were starting to abandon Silicon Valley for the Midwest. Building what became known as “Silicon Prairie,” these entrepreneurs funded Midwest-based technology firms and server farms (specialized buildings designed to house data servers). During this period of technology boom, black farmers in the Midwest were suing the Department of Agriculture over unfairly denied farm loans. Artist, fascinated by the concurrent revolutions, melded them in the responsive work, Data Server Rack, a matte-black sculptural piece constructed out of farm objects like consumer-grade plywood and mass-produced hardware. Data Server Rack represents a union between analogs of hay baling machines and data serving racks. Presented during the Anonymous Donor exhibition, the sleek design is a continuation of Artist’s interdisciplinary investigations of black identity, organized labor, and networked virtual life.
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collections
an Artist Now a part of our collection, Data Server Rack expands and enhances themes already present in the Stanley’s objects. Nam June Paik’s Iowa Brother, for example, is connected to Data Server Rack in form and content. In both pieces, the artists respond to their experiences as outsiders in Iowa, making it a point to reference the intersection of personal identity and consumer-grade technologies. Artist’s work is also in conversation with another piece in our collection, Simone Leigh’s 103 (Face Jug Series). Whereas Leigh’s work references the rich ceramic histories of Africa and the African Diaspora (themselves technologies), Artist’s work envisions a future for blackness. Furthermore, both artists make nuanced references to black anonymity in their sculptural forms, a point highlighted in their recent conversation published in Bomb Magazine.
Data Server Rack speaks to the agricultural history of Iowa and the racial strife embedded in that history. While many other objects in the Stanley collection touch on regional and agrarian themes, Data Server Rack broadens the critical context of farming in the Midwest.
American Artist (American, 1989– ) Data Server Rack, 2019 Wood, hardware, paint, hay bailing twine 86 x 26 1/4 x 54 1/8 in. Museum purchase, 44a-b.2019
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Above: Looking north, electrical duct bank installation Right: Southeast corner of building Right, middle: Storm sewer installation along Front Street Far right: Looking east toward main entry from parking level Photos courtesy of Russell Construction Co., Inc.
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looking forward
Construction update Construction began on the new Stanley Museum of Art in early September 2019. The site, adjacent to the UI Main Library and next to Gibson Square Park, has been a hive of activity ever since. The early months of the project focused on site preparation and groundworks. Nine trees were removed from the periphery of the site and relocated to other points on campus where they are thriving. Three are located along the Iowa River directly outside the former museum building. 197,000 cubic feet of dirt has been excavated in preparation for the foundation and lower level parking. A water main and high voltage electrical duct bank were rerouted to make way for the foundations. Underground utility work continued with installation of storm sewer, sanitary sewer, steam piping, and chilled water piping. The installation of sixty-six drilled piers, or caissons, socketed into bedrock will support the three-story building. Structural steel is planned to arrive onsite in February and then the building will begin to come out of the ground.
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trees were removed from the periphery of the site and relocated to other points on campus where they are thriving.
197,000
cubic feet of dirt has been excavated in preparation for the foundation and lower level parking.
Follow along live via the project webcam: https://webcam.iowa.uiowa.edu/sma/
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How to Move a Collection: Tracking Objects
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looking forward
How does one move over 16,000 works of art to a brand-new location? The complex process of moving the museum’s collection starts long before any item is packed. Several stages need to be completed for a museum collection to be successfully and safely moved. This first of a series of articles considers the initial step. We begin by confirming that the documentation for each object is correct. Do we know what we have? Where it is located and if it is identified clearly? And, of course, how large is the artwork? A systematic inventory of the entire collection can answer these questions. During inventory, we discovered that not all objects had legible identification numbers—perhaps the numbers had worn off (some of the art has been in the collection for fifty years) or they were written unclearly. Because we use these numbers to track the location of each object, they are key to a successful move. The next step in the process is relabeling.
There are several archival methods for labeling objects—a common method is to use a neutral sealant to encase a small printed number onto an unobtrusive location on the object. For textiles, a small piece of cotton twill tape is sewn onto the back of the piece. In addition to these labels, we use more visible labels that can be easily seen in storage and then removed during exhibition. For these we use hanging tags that contain the object’s identification number, title, and other relevant information. Once these steps are completed, museum staff can more easily plan the new home of these objects, whether on display or in storage, and the physical act of moving these items will go smoothly!
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march 5–7, 2020
Obermann Humanities symposium
The University of Iowa Museum of Art was evacuated during the flood of 2008. Between that event and 2022, when the UI Stanley Museum of Art is poised to open, our collective sense of what museums are, whom they serve, and what they can enable has shifted enormously. As we look to the future, Joyce Tsai and Jen Buckley will lead the Obermann Humanities Symposium “What Can Museums Become?” from March 5–7, 2020. The symposium is anchored by three keynote speakers. Amelia Jones, who joins us as the Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor, and hails from the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California, where she is Robert A. Day Professor and vice dean of research. As a leading theorist of feminist and queer
The conversations will take place as thematic roundtables that address the power of the object, the relationship between communities and museums, and the roles performance plays in museums.
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looking forward
art—in particular, performance—Jones has helped establish the conditions under which radical art is interpreted in curatorial, art historical, and political contexts. Michelle Kuo is Marlene Hess Curator at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and a leading theorist of art and technology. During the seven years Kuo served as editor-in-chief at Artforum, she led the contemporary art world’s magazine of record to adopt global perspectives and to diversify its contributors. Johanna Burton is Director of the Wexner Center at The Ohio State University, one of the most important incubators of contemporary art practice in the US. During her time as Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum (New York, NY), Burton curated Simone Leigh’s groundbreaking show The Waiting Room, which highlighted the racial and gender disparities in healthcare. The exhibition at the New Museum was accompanied by programming focused on supporting the health and wellness of Black women. In their work, these keynote speakers have substantively transformed our sense of who and what belongs in museums, and how art might sustain and strengthen communities. Over the course of three days, symposium attendees will hear from other internationally renowned curators, scholars, and activists. LaTanya S. Autry is the curator and activist who spearheaded the movement #museumsarenotneutral, s p r in g 2 0 2 0
which has pushed to make museums spaces of social transformation. Juliet Bellow is a scholar of dance whose current research project addresses live art in museum contexts. Lane Czaplinski is the Wexner Center’s director of performing arts, and has also pioneered the creation of digital platforms to share and sustain live art. Anaïs Duplan, program manager at Recess (Brooklyn, NY) and founder of the Center for Afrofuturist Studies in Iowa City, brings his perspective on the relationship between museums and community art spaces. Lisa Yun Lee is an art historian and executive director of the National Public Housing Museum (Chicago, IL), the only museum dedicated to telling the story of and preserving the legacy of public housing in America. Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN) curator Jill Ahlberg Yohe will share her experience developing Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, co-curated by Teri Greeves, artist and independent curator of the Kiowa Nation. The conversations will take place as thematic roundtables that address the power of the object, the relationship between communities and museums, and the roles performance plays in museums. In addition to these lectures and discussions, Heidi Wiren Bartlett will debut her performance Downriver (2019), which was filmed at the old museum building and other sites in Iowa City.
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My Museum:
Gifts from the Heart
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philantrophy Randee S. Fieselmann (70BA, 72MA, 01PhD) and John F. Fieselmann (68BS, 72MD) believe in giving back—and they have done so generously at the University of Iowa. The Iowa Citians have invested in causes close to their hearts, including medicine and art, and are longtime museum supporters. They recently made a $250,000 gift to the fund for rebuilding the UI Stanley Museum of Art that will help support a new gallery space. Here, the couple explains what inspires their visionary giving to the museum: Q. Why give back to the arts? Randee: We’ve always liked the message from Matthew 6: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, who we really are and what we really care about is directly connected to how we spend our money. One of the first things we discovered that we had in common was the love of art. It was one of the sparks that ignited our love for each other. John: The summer after we married, we took advantage of a university-sponsored charter flight to Europe and spent the summer camping in a tiny tent and cooking on a single burner stove. Our itinerary was planned around the artists whose works we wanted to see, especially Italian and German Renaissance and Dutch masters. We saw London and Paris and traveled throughout Germany, Austria, Italy, and Greece, ending up in Belgium and Amsterdam. We camped for 70 nights. Since that summer, our travel has been mostly directed toward this shared passion, especially Western art of Europe and the United States. If our hearts beat faster because of art, then we want to give to the arts.
Q. How has art shaped your lives? John: Whenever my family visited a city, a first stop was the art museum. My father also was a doctor, and he subscribed to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which always featured a work of art on the cover. It was tradition for him to show my sister and me the featured work and to ask questions and teach us a bit about the artist. Randee: We each grew up exposed to art, although in very different ways. By viewing and thinking about art, John and I came to understand each artist had something to say and a way to communicate his or her viewpoint. This process helped us think about art as an encounter with an artist. And one of the most amazing aspects of this process is that an artist, even hundreds of years after death, can catch our attention and come alive through these encounters. Art has greatly enriched our lives and the lives of others. Q. What do you hope will be the lasting legacy of your gift? John: The legacy is not ours to leave. The legacy has been created by the artists we love and by the dedicated museum staff and Director Lauren Lessing. Randee: We feel so lucky to be able to help showcase works like Max Beckmann’s Karneval, Joan Miró’s Drop of Dew, Grant Wood’s Plaid Sweater, Lyonel Feininger’s In a Village Near Paris, Pablo Picasso’s Flower Vase on a Table, or Henri Matisse’s Blue Interior with Two Girls. These artists have created emotional punch, and the new museum will offer all of us the opportunity to experience that. We can’t wait to re-encounter these works.
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Tyanna Buie February 4, 2020 240 Art Building West Grant Wood Fellow in Printmaking
Constructing Narratives Tyanna Buie will explore the expansive processes of printmaking and print media while focusing on the trajectory of the representational, iconic, and symbolic references present in the works, as well as how the personal becomes political.
[Buie] maintains a connection to the community by hosting printmaking workshops and demonstrations, while participating in Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives through the production of public art created for underserved neighborhoods.
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A Chicago and Milwaukee native, Tyanna Buie earned her BA from Western Illinois University, and her MFA from the University of WisconsinMadison. Buie received an emerging artist Mary L. Nohl Fellowship in 2012, and the 2015 Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the prestigious 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant, and the 2019 Kresge Artist Fellowship/Visual Arts in Detroit, MI. Buie has attended artists-in-residency programs such as the Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans, LA), The Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). She maintains a connection to the community by hosting printmaking workshops and demonstrations, while participating in Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives through the production of public art created for underserved neighborhoods in Wisconsin. Buie’s work has been acquired by major national institutions and private collections and her work has been reviewed on Hyperallergic.com and featured on Essayd.org. Currently, Buie lives and works in Detroit, MI, where she is an assistant professor and section chair of printmaking at the College for Creative Studies.
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Suzanne Wright February 20, 2020 240 Art Building West Grant Wood Fellow in Painting & Drawing
public programs
Goddess Eye View In a recent body of work, Suzanne Wright researched the planning, architecture, and symbology of Washington, DC. Using Google Earth to view the capital city from an aerial perspective, she created an inverted, “feminized” version of the city’s monuments. These works open a dialogue that responds to historically masculine symbols of power, exemplified by her painting of the Washington Monument, Goddess Eye View. Wright will discuss how art, activism, and collectives have profoundly shaped her understanding of the systemic nature of discrimination and oppression, as well as the ways in which art can be a tactic of resistance and has the potential to change habitual perspectives and consciousness.
Wright’s paintings, drawings, and collages propose a contemporary feminist alchemy, forging alternative frames of reference with new perspectives that attempt to lead us to a re-vitalized kind of perception, equality, and empowerment.
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Suzanne Wright is an artist and professor living and working in Los Angeles. She earned her BFA at Cooper Union and MFA at the University of California San Diego; she also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Wright’s paintings, drawings, and collages propose a contemporary feminist alchemy, forging alternative frames of reference with new perspectives that attempt to lead us to a re-vitalized kind of perception, equality, and empowerment. Her most recent solo show Feminist Alchemy was on view at Wilding Cran Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). Other recent exhibitions were at Commonwealth and Council (Los Angeles, CA) called The Rainbow Control Room and Angel’s Gate Cultural Center (San Pedro, CA). She has been included in exhibitions at Stephen Friedman Gallery (London, UK), Stefan Stux (New York, NY), Claire Oliver Gallery (New York, NY), and Monya Rowe (New York, NY). She was awarded the Kraus visiting professorship in Painting and Drawing at Carnegie Mellon and has taught at several universities in New York and Los Angeles. Her work can be seen in publications including Cock, Paper, Scissors; Feminist Landscapes; Strange Attractors; Armpit of the Mole; and Art and Queer Culture (Phaidon, 2013). Wright has been an active member of various AIDS and LGBTQ organizations, including ACT UP/New York from 1989–1998.
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Tony Orrico March 5, 2020 240 Art Building West Grant Wood Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance
Drawing from Receptivity Tony Orrico will discuss how he approaches drawing and object making through performance. He will share the components of his body practice, Suspension, and its influence on his visual work over the past ten years. In Orrico’s early series, Penwald Drawings and Carbon, works meditate on select parameters and permutations of the same materials: body, paper, and graphite. Orrico will describe how he generates movement and momentum from a felt state of consciousness that is hyper-relational, propelled by actual sensation in the body and projections of sensation throughout space. He will share new work in development, Four Hand Draw and A continued gesture towards us, utilizing a methodology that brings other bodies into the fold.
Orrico will describe how he generates movement and momentum from a felt state of consciousness that is hyper-relational, propelled by actual sensation in the body and projections of sensation throughout space.
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Tony Orrico’s work has reached mass circulation for its ingenuity within the intersections of performance and drawing. He has performed/ exhibited his work across the US and internationally in Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. His work is in the permanent collections of The National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, Mexico), as well as prominent private collections. He has presented at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (Spain), Centre Pompidou-Metz (France), The New Museum (New York, NY), and Poptech 2011: The World Rebalancing (Camden, ME). Orrico was one of a select group of artists to re-perform the work of Marina Abramović during her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) in 2010. As a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has performed on renowned stages such as the Sydney Opera House (Australia), Teatro La Fenice (Venice, Italy), New York State Theater (New York, NY), and Theatre du Palais-Royal (Paris, France).
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public programs
Spring 2020
Saturdays at the Stanley Saturdays at the Stanley continue in spring 2020! These casual, fun, interactive, and FREE events each have a theme that looks at our artwork from a different perspective. Visitors can experience a selection of works, stories about the artists and subject matter; and participate in open discussions. We invite visitors of all ages to join in and get (re)acquainted with our collection as we look forward to the opening of our new building. All programs begin at 2:00 p.m. February 1 Hit the Wall A collaboration with the Department of Theatre Arts’ production of Hit the Wall, led by Kimberly Datchuk
Photos by Elizabeth Wallace
February 8 Dancing Shoes In celebration of Dance Marathon Led by Jacqueline Banigan March 14 Japanese Woodblock Process Led by Sarah Luko March 28 Frenemies: Degas & Manet Led by Kimberly Datchuk April 4 It’s Me! Selfies & Self-Portraiture Led by Kimberly Datchuk April 18 Conserving a Masterpiece: Leon Polk Smith Led by Joyce Tsai May 2 May Day—Workers of the World Unite Led by Brady Plunger s p r in g 2 0 2 0
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Black Curators’ Roundtable On a snowy Monday night in October, a standing-room-only crowd gathered in the Iowa City Public Library for the Black Curators’ Roundtable, where Anaïs Duplan, Gee Wesley, and Eileen Isagon Skyers shared their experiences. Moderated by Chief Curator Joyce Tsai, the panel discussed their work as curators. Later in the evening, conversations among panelists and audience members reflected on the expectations of art institutions and the forms of inclusion that enable black artists and curators to work in substantive ways. Duplan is a trans poet, artist, and the founding curator of the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, a program of Public Space One in Iowa City. He opened his remarks by asking the audience to consider the extraordinary art of James Hampton, which only gained recognition after his death. Long considered an outsider artist, Hampton’s elaborate room-sized sculpture, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly (ca. 1950–1964), is now prominently displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Duplan engaged audience members with questions including, what might we learn from the ways the art world delineates insiders and outsiders? How might we create spaces to encourage black artists to take risks and be sustained by their art? Eileen Isagon Skyers, co-founder of HOUSING, an art gallery in Brooklyn, NY, showed her experiments with technology and virtual exhibitions as an artist and curator. She discussed the history of HOUSING, located in the same building where she once lived. HOUSING negotiates the expectations, possibilities, and limits of the art world in order to advance what the gallery 22
describes as “the conditional inclusion of artists of color.” It also explicitly encourages visitors to do business with longstanding establishments in the neighborhood to counter gentrification. Gee Wesley shared his experiences in Philadelphia, PA, as one of the founding members of Ulises, a bookshop, curatorial space, and publisher of artist’s books, as well as his role in the Institute of Contemporary Art’s initiative “I is for Institute,” which engaged artists, curators, and exhibition spaces in Africa. He introduced the concept of ante-institution, a term that might sound like anti-institution but the prefix ante means prior or before. The concept attends to the activities, s tanley m u s e u m o f a rt
public programs
investments, and relationships that must be in place to create sustainable spaces for creative work. Organized by the Center for Afrofuturist Studies and Stanley Museum of Art, with additional support from the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies (OCAS), this event marked the end of the exhibition Anonymous Donor that Duplan curated for the Stanley Museum of Art at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA. This roundtable kicked off a year of activities that explore the future of museums and will conclude with the 2020 OCAS Humanities Symposium, “What can Museums Become?”. s p r in g 2 0 2 0
Eileen Isagon Skyers, Anaïs Duplan, and Gee Wesley with Joyce Tsai at the Iowa City Public Library (left) and the Stanley Visual Classroom (top) Photos by Avery Tucker
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Curator of Learning & Engagement
Kimberly Datchuk envisions the Stanley Museum of Art as “a catalyst for original research, new approaches to pedagogy, and social justice.” She will have the opportunity to expand the reach and potential of her vision in her new role as the museum’s Curator of Learning and Engagement. In addition to overseeing the Department of Learning and Engagement’s Photo by Avery Tucker academic programs and outreach, Datchuk wants to fully integrate the museum into the university through “meaningful collaborations with faculty and staff.” Two projects planned for the spring, she says, “have the potential to be a springboard for deeper and wider-reaching work.” Datchuk and Anna L. Bostwick Flaming, associate director of the Center for Teaching, are planning a faculty learning community (FLC) based on close observation of some of the museum’s objects. “Many studies demonstrate the
“Many studies demonstrate the positive impact spending time looking at art has on [the work of] students and professionals.” Kimberly Datchuk Curator of Learning and Engagement
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positive impact spending time looking at art has on [the work of] students and professionals,” Datchuk says. She is also working with Kari Vogelgesang, director of professional development at the Baker Teacher Leader Center and clinical assistant professor in the College of Education. “Kari is in the process of redesigning the Reading Practicum for preservice teachers in the College of Education,” Datchuck says. During discussions, they realized that “how we learn to look at images is similar to how we learn to read words,” which has sparked their exploration of pedagogical models involving art. Last fall, for the first time, the museum participated in the Examined Life Conference hosted by the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. As part of Datchuk’s collaborative focus, she co-led a workshop about art, medicine, and empathy with Brady Plunger, associate curator of education. Their session at the conference was very well received and she looks forward to “continuing to open people’s eyes to [the great things] the Stanley can do for them.” s tanley m u s e u m o f a rt
education Student Success
Avery Tucker, Nicole Davis, Rielle Jones-Teske, Emma Harker, Jackie Banigan, and Thomas Ho Photo by Avery Tucker
In Spring 2019, the Stanley Museum of Art launched a new partnership with the School of Art and Art History to fund a cohort of undergraduate interns as part of a program to introduce students to the museum profession. Each student is paired with a staff member who mentors them on their work. They conduct valuable research on artworks, their conservation, and institutional history. Others produce social media content based upon collections research. We welcomed our first ever photography intern this fall, who is expanding her experience in marketing and communication as well as object photography. These undergraduate interns joined a group of three graduate fellows supported by the Graduate College. In this internship program, students are gaining a stronger understanding of how their research training in the classroom impacts
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the museum’s approach to interpreting and caring for artworks. Because the students arrive as a cohort, the museum strives to provide regular meetings so they can experience first-hand how different departments within our museum work collaboratively to achieve our aims. One example of the impact this program has had is seen in the success of Dalina Perdomo. She is now Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Arts at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL) and credits her experience at the Stanley Museum of Art for her success. She earned her MA in Cinematic Arts and had not considered a career in museums until she worked as a gallery attendant, and later as a research assistant at the Stanley Museum of Art.
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Josh Siefken
W
hile a student at the University of Iowa, Josh Siefken joined the Stanley Museum of Art staff as an intern in 2009. As Siefken puts it, “my job during the internship was to design and create a storage and transportation solution for the burgeoning School Programs Collection.” He never looked back. By the time of his graduation (11 BA), he’d already been promoted to the museum’s Lead Gallery Attendant, helping supervise and train other attendants. In addition to that role, he soon returned to his Stanley roots as School Programs Outreach Instructor—“I was visiting Iowa K–12 classrooms, presenting to students and taking care of the expanding artwork collection within school programs.”
Siefken is now in his tenth year and might be referred to as the museum’s nimblest staff member. “I’ve had experience in nearly every department—education, curatiorial, registrarial and Photo by Avery Tucker preparatorial work,” he says. Now an Associate Curator of Education, Siefken has given over 500 presentations to K–12 and university students, senior communities, and community/public programs. He takes pride in the way audiences respond to
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collections—“One thing that we often hear from teachers is that some of their most challenging students are the ones who enthusiastically participate in our programs.” Siefken sees some of his younger self reflected in students excited by art. “I was always interested in art as a kid and teenager,” he says. “When I was looking for a career path as a young adult, I started looking into museum work.” Given the breadth and scale of Siefken’s work, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if he inspires some future museum professionals. The fall is invariably the busiest time of the year for Stanley School Programs. According to him, “outreach and class visits with school programs collections sometimes reach fifteen presentations a week spread over multiple schools in multiple towns.” There are four unique collections going to schools within a fifty-mile radius of Iowa City: sculptures, masks, and textiles mostly from West Africa; Native American pottery and carvings; graphic novels and comics; and masks from African and Native American masking traditions. “These collections,” he says, “will be seen by about 3,500 students this [academic] year.” Looking forward, Siefken intends to take full advantage of the new museum building by giving onsite presentations to university students. He wants to “[show] students how to properly handle and store artwork using school programs collections.” As he notes, “an education collection, as opposed to a permanent collection, can be handled and more closely examined by art history and studio classes.”
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Derek Nnuro
If
you ask Derek Nnuro what his novel-in-progress is about, he might resist offering a quick summary—a superstition that a great novel can’t be summed up so easily. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Nnuro has been treating his novel as a day job for the last three-and-a-half years before joining the Stanley Museum of Art staff. He also has an impressive range of experiences with other kinds of language. This includes authoring sections of a course book for military veterans transitioning to civilian life; fine-tuning the language of a university center’s website and contributing to its weekly public newsletter; and composing essays for the Writing and Language sections of the SATs.
Nnuro will be putting these skills to good use with one of his first projects in his new role as Associate Writer: rewriting the text on the museum website. Photo by Avery Tucker Creating a compelling narrative is his specialty, after all—his novel is a multigenerational family saga set in Ghana, the US, and Vietnam and Laos during the war, entitled What Napoleon Could Not Do (yes, he did finally concede to sharing some details). It engages with a question that’s interested Nnuro for some time: that of what migration does to love, particularly for Ghanaian Americans and Ghanaians who, in one way or another, have been touched by America. He’s also explored this question as co-founder and co-instructor of “The Reclamation Project.” Nnuro and Tameka Cage-Conley, PhD, his collaborator, use literatures of the African Diaspora to demonstrate that African American and African writers have long s p r in g 2 0 2 0
staff spotlight been in conversation. “The Reclamation Project” launched in 2018 with a weekendlong workshop at the Englert, and was featured at the closing of the 2019 Iowa City Book Festival. This adeptness at inhabiting a variety of creative and academic discourses while engaging directly with the community is what has made Nnuro so well-suited for his duties at the Stanley. As Nnuro sees it, the art forms of literature and visual art have always inspired and worked off of one another. In describing his attitude toward his new position, Nnuro cites the writer Lincoln Michel, who says that “an artform is a conversation between artists. Literature is a massive ballroom stretching through time in which authors debate, rebut, woo, and chat with each other.” “I will take Michel’s quote further,” Nnuro says, “and argue that art, in general, is a massive ballroom stretching through time.” And there is great potential, he notes, for further collaborations between artforms. “I see my work here at the Stanley as an extension of this longstanding conversation among artists. Excitingly, instead of keeping the conversation among artists, I will be inviting everyone into the ballroom.” One of the first to step into this ballroom will be Nnuro’s alma mater, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He will be working on a collaborative publication between the Workshop and the Stanley as part of the Stanley’s inaugural installation. The project is still in its fledgling stages, but will feature ekphrastic text by Workshop alumni paired with items from the museum’s collection. This is only one of many innovative projects to emerge from the Stanley’s commitment to meaningful partnerships across campus, and Nnuro is excited to take part in even more of them as the museum looks toward the future in its new building. 27
Campus Council Celebrations
The new Stanley Campus Council chose an ambitious project to introduce themselves to the UI community: four days of pop-up programs to celebrate the museum’s 50th Anniversary. Students on the Council, led by Campus Engagement Coordinator Elly Woods, staged events across campus including at the Pentacrest and the Medical Education and Research Facility from October 28–31. Hundreds of students, staff, and faculty stopped by tables to enjoy a slice of our custom cakes featuring works from the collection and to hear “elevator pitches” from Council members about the new museum building. Some visitors, including Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Rod Lehnertz (above), and the President and Chief Executive Officer of the UI Center for Advancement Lynette Marshall (right), even tried their hand at painting on our community canvas! 28
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events
Top row, left photo and bottom row, second photo by Elizabeth Wallace. All other photos by Avery Tucker.
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We were thrilled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the art museum on the University of Iowa campus by witnessing the start of construction on the new museum building. Generous gifts of art from Owen and Leone Elliot, Max and Betty Stanley, Hope and Gerry Solomons, Jerry and Sandra Eskin, Joan Mannheimer, and others serve as the core of the museum’s holdings. During the 1960s, the people of Iowa donated funds to construct the first museum building to house this collection. Today, we are challenged to raise $25 million to help with the construction costs of the new building, and with your help we will meet this goal. In 2017, Richard and Mary Jo Stanley made the lead gift to the My Museum building campaign, and the museum is now named in their honor. Now is the time for all of us to show our support for the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art through a financial commitment to the My Museum building campaign. We chose to donate to the building campaign because since the 2008 flood more than 80,000 students new to the University of Iowa have been denied access to a campus art museum experience. Most of the Stanley’s extensive collection has not been shown in Iowa City in over a decade. More than two million people have viewed the museum’s most acclaimed work, Jackson Pollock’s Mural—in other museums in the US and Europe. With your help, the Stanley Museum of Art will open in 2022 and Iowans will once again be able to enjoy their art collection. The Stanley Museum of Art is a treasure trove. It provides an opportunity for visitors to explore the artistic imagination—to be challenged, to question, and to consider their worldview. Each of us is proud to say “The Stanley” is my museum. It is your museum. It is everyone’s museum. Thank you, H. Dee Hoover My Museum Building Campaign Co-Chair Myrene Hoover My Museum Building Campaign Co-Chair and Development Committee Co-Chair Alan Swanson Development Committee Co-Chair 30
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from the ui center for advancement Last summer I went on a quest to learn more about the history of the Stanley Museum of Art. As we celebrated our 50th anniversary I realized there was so much about its history that I was unfamiliar with. This adventure to learn more about the museum took me to the Department of Special Collections at University of Iowa Libraries. There, I was able to look through the Museum of Art archives. I worked my way through old exhibition catalogs and event invitations, read the minutes of the Friend’s Development Council meetings, and discovered many other historical artifacts saved over the years. The archives also contained the various iterations of this magazine, published over the course of the last fifty years. Sometimes it was a multipage newsletter on brightly colored paper, stapled and trifold; other times it was a bound Bulletin in which the foreward contained an apology for delayed delivery—the staff were too busy documenting acquisitions from generous donors to get it published on time.
Photo by Avery Tucker
As I read, I saw familiar names and faces. I saw you enjoying exhibitions and programs, leading tours, and participating in events. Decade after decade, museum members, donors, volunteers, and students brought life and passion to the museum. The archives told the story of you—our loyal museum friends. Last year, we celebrated more than fifty years on campus: we celebrated fifty years of you, your stories, and your support of the museum. As we turn towards the future in our new space, we look forward to welcoming more people and their stories into the museum. And, when we celebrate again at seventy-five and at one hundred years, we will also be celebrating those who supported the My Museum campaign to make our new home possible. Myrene and H. Dee Hoover and Alan Swanson of our Advisory Board have provided both guidance and financial support to the My Museum campaign. Longtime members like John and Randee Fieselmann, profiled in this issue, have joined them in donating to this campaign. I invite you to join us as we build a museum for the next fifty years. Please consider making a gift to the My Museum campaign and be a part of our future.
Susan Horan, Associate Director of Development The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art The University of Iowa Center for Advancement susan.horan@foriowa.org • 319-467-3408 or 800-648-6973 s p r in g 2 0 2 0
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University of Iowa
Stanley Museum of Art 150 NORTH RIVERSIDE DRIVE / OMA 100 IOWA CITY, IA 52242 319-335-1727 stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu
“ART ADDS MEANING TO LIFE. IT’S MORE THAN US; IT’S THE UNIVERSE.
”
HELP US BUILD A NEW HOME FOR I N S P I R AT I O N .
MY MUSEUM T H E B U I L D I N G C A M PA I G N FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA S TA N L E Y M U S E U M O F A R T foriowa.org/mymuseum
RAMON LIM, MD, PHD, AND VICTORIA LIM, MD
G I V E T O D AY !
UI PROFESSORS EMERITI | UI STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART SUPPORTERS The University of Iowa Center for Advancement is an operational name for the State University of Iowa Foundation. The State University of Iowa Foundation, Iowa Law School Foundation, and Iowa Scholarship Fund, Inc. are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of The University of Iowa and are registered to solicit charitable contributions with the appropriate governing authorities in all states requiring registration. The organizations may be contacted at One West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52242 or (800) 648-6973. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your gift. If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington,sor West Virginia, tanley m u splease e u msee o fthea full rt 32 disclosure statement at http://www.foriowa.org/about/disclosures/.