UIMA
University of Iowa Museum of Art
Spring 2018
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INSIDE 4
Spring 2018 Calendar of Events
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New Building
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From the Interim Director
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Lectures
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Spring Exhibition
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New Education Staff
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UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom
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Staff Changes
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Legacies for Iowa
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From the UI Center for Advancement
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Conservation
Cover image courtesy of BNIM
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Editor: Elizabeth M. Wallace Design: Pederson Paetz Copyright © 2018
temporary offices OLD MUSEUM OF ART BUILDING
uima.uiowa.edu
150 North Riverside Drive / OMA 100 Iowa City, IA 52242 319-335-1727
temporary locations IOWA MEMORIAL UNION UIMA@IMU VISUAL CLASSROOM BLACK BOX THEATER 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.
FIGGE ART MUSEUM 225 West Second Street Davenport, IA 52801 563-326-7804 Free admission for University of Iowa students, faculty, and staff with UI ID cards and UIMA 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.
a e m o c e B ! y a d o t r e memb JOIN ONLINE uima.uiowa.edu
FALL 2017 CALENDAR
E X H I B IT I O N S February 17– May 16, 2018
Looking Bac: Ferdinand Bac, 1859–1952
Black Box Theater, third floor, Iowa Memorial Union
January 27– June 10, 2018
Dada Futures: Circulating Replicants, Surrogates, and Participants
UIMA@IMU, third floor, Iowa Memorial Union
December 9, 2017– April 1, 2018
Boiled, Baked, and Brewed: Grains in Art
Figge Art Museum Davenport, IA
April 14– August 12, 2018
Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration
Figge Art Museum Davenport, IA
P U B LI C P R O G R A M S
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January 5 5:00–7:00 p.m.
FIRST FRIDAY
FilmScene 118 E. College St., Iowa City
January 29 7:30–8:30 p.m.
EXHIBITION LECTURE Gülru Çakmak, “Parodying the Past in Second Empire Paris: Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Anachronistic Duelists”
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
February 2 5:00–7:00 p.m.
FIRST FRIDAY
FilmScene 118 E. College St., Iowa City
February 12 7:30–8:30 p.m.
TALK Joe Osheroff (Grant Wood Fellow Interdisciplinary Performance), “The Progressive Mask: Exploring the Future of Mask Work in the American Theater”
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
February 16–17 TBD
SYMPOSIUM Dada Futures
Various locations
March 2 5:00–7:00 p.m.
FIRST FRIDAY
FilmScene 118 E. College St., Iowa City
March 12 7:30–8:30 p.m.
TALK Joe DeVera (Grant Wood Fellow Painting & Drawing), “How We Got Here”
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
April 6 5:00–7:00 p.m.
FIRST FRIDAY
FilmScene 118 E. College St., Iowa City
April 9 7:30–8:30 p.m.
TALK Brandon Coley Cox (Grant Wood Fellow Printmaking), “Process and Practice”
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
April 19 7:30–8:30 p.m.
EXHIBITION LECTURE Andrew Shelton, “Coquettes, Lorettes and ‘Les Grandes Horizontales:’ Representations of Sexualized Women in Nineteenth-Century French Visual Culture”
April 26 7:30–9:00 p.m.
INAUGURAL INTERMEDIA RESEARCH INITIATIVE ARTIST LECTURE Adam Pendleton
240 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
May 4 5:00–7:00 p.m.
FIRST FRIDAY
FilmScene 118 E. College St., Iowa City
May 5 8:00–11:00 p.m.
MUSEUM PARTY
Hancher Auditorium
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116 Art Building West 141 N. Riverside Dr., Iowa City
FROM THE INTERIM DIRECTOR
The Birthing of a
New Museum When future generations visit the new museum and see uplifting art from every corner of the world, they also will be witnessing the philanthropic impact of thousands of model citizens who identify with this great heartland university. Standing out is the Stanley family of Muscatine which has committed a $10 million lead gift. Richard (Dick) and Mary Jo Stanley have followed the tradition of Dick’s parents Max and Elizabeth (Betty) Stanley in combining entrepreneurial leadership with philanthropic thoughtfulness. By background, in the wake of World War II and the unleashing of the first atomic age weapons, Max Stanley became an idealist committed to advancing international understanding. Hence in the mid-1950s he established a foundation dedicated to supporting the United Nations and related initiatives. Upon his passing, his son Dick led the family foundation with renewed energy and at the same time helped steward two entrepreneurial initiatives his father founded – Stanley Consultants which is one of our country’s largest international engineering firms and HON Industries (HNI), a public company which manufactures office equipment and furniture.
Traveling with her husband five decades ago on an engineering venture in Africa, Betty Stanley became enamored with African sculpture. Max and Betty thus started an African collection and presciently began to tap the advice of eminent art historians at the university such as Roy Sieber and Christopher Roy. Eventually in 1985 Max and Betty decided to donate their entire collection to the museum. Thence with the follow-on enthusiasm of Mary Jo and Dick Stanley, acquisitions continued. Today the Stanley collection is the heart of one of America’s premier holdings of African art, now totaling 2,400 pieces. Few American families encompass such wide-ranging achievements with wider impact philanthropy than the Stanleys of Muscatine. In honor of Dick and Mary Jo Stanley’s humanitarian activism and cultural philanthropy, the university is proud to name the venue that soon will show-case impressive holdings of some of the finest examples of human creativity the Stanley Museum of Art. Respectfully,
James Leach Interim Director
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SPRING EXHIBITION
LOOKING BAC:
FERDINAND BAC, 1859-1952 FEBRUARY 17–MAY 16, 2018 Black Box Theater Iowa Memorial Union
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rtist, writer, and landscape architect, Ferdinand Bac accomplished more in his ninety-three years than most people could in twice that time. Looking Bac: Ferdinand Bac, 1859–1952 brings together Bac’s drawings and prints, generously loaned by Madame Sylviane Jullian, and the UIMA permanent collection. Divided into three sections—biography and nostalgia, women, and World War II—the exhibition examines Bac’s career.
(left) Ferdinand Bac (French, 1859–1952) Europe between her Two Lovers, 1946 Ink on paper Collection of Madame Sylviane Jullian (right) Ferdinand Bac (French, 1859–1952) What are looking for in the sky, crazy old man?, c. 1950 Ink on paper Collection of Madame Sylviane Jullian
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Bac was born in Stuttgart, Germany to Sabrina-Ludovika de Stetten and Charles-Henri Bach, one of Jérôme Bonaparte’s illegitimate sons. Jérôme, brother to Napoléon and king of Westphalia and later prince of Montfort, never formally recognized Charles-Henri, but the Bonapartes accepted Ferdinand in their circle. After his father’s death, Ferdinand went to France for school at age eleven and remained there for most of his life. He even went so far as to change the spelling of his last name from Bach to Bac to make it appear more French. Throughout his life, Bac found himself out of time and place in many ways. To begin with, his parents were both illegitimate. He and his family were also, to some extent, without a country. His parents met and started their family in Germany, but they had strong connections to France. In addition to the familial relationship to Napoléon, the exiled Emperor of France, Bac believed his maternal grandmother to have been an aristocrat who fled during the French Revolution. Lastly, Bac’s artwork and writing reflect on events and people from the past, such as the Grande Armée’s doomed march on Russia under Napoléon’s leadership in 1812 and the Second Empire period in France. Reflecting on the past was an activity in which Bac regularly partook. Some of this was done out of necessity. A fire during WWII destroyed much of his work so Bac recreated some of the lost pieces to preserve his legacy. Astute viewers will notice that many of his drawings have two dates written on them: the date that he originally executed the piece, and a second when he recreated and/or added notes to it. Looking Bac weaves the story of an artist’s life and his rumination on his place in the history of art with objects from the UIMA’s permanent collection. Although it includes drawings and prints from throughout Bac’s career, many of them bear annotations from Bac’s later years. The exhibition therefore not only looks back on Bac’s oeuvre, but it also reveals how Bac looked back on his work to craft a story of himself. Much of Bac’s oeuvre remains in archives and collections in France. Madame Jullian’s loan of Bac’s work and papers to the UIMA marks an unprecedented opportunity for an American audience to see the artist’s drawings and prints, and learn about his contributions to French art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This exhibition is curated by UIMA Assistant Curator of Special Projects Kimberly Musial Datchuk, with translations and research assistance from Natalie J. A. Benson, PhD, Drake University. Ferdinand Bac (French, 1859–1952) Memory of my Childhood, 1946 Ink on paper Collection of Madame Sylviane Jullian
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Looking Bac is generously supported by the Koza Family Fund, the Members Special Exhibition Fund, and the Richard V.M. Corton, M.D. and Janet Y. Corton Exhibition Fund.
SPRING EXHIBITION
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UIMA@IMU
DADA FUTURES: Circulating Replicants, Surrogates, and Participants JANUARY 27–JUNE 10, 2018 UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom • Iowa Memorial Union Born in the tumultuous years of the First World War, Dada began in Zurich and its hold on the public imagination grew as rumors of its provocative activities spread. Its initial members set up shop in major cities like Berlin, New York, and Paris, where they disrupted the normal business of art exhibition, production, and even criticism with their performances, shows, and publications. Against the idea that the solemn contemplation of art might elevate our sensibilities and offer an escape from the pressures of our everyday, Dadaists worked on what’s often considered our basest instincts by inducing revulsion, inappropriate laughter, desire, or even boredom in order to force us to confront the challenges of our present all the more fully. Dada initially emerged in the twentieth century’s second decade, but afterward its artifacts continued to circulate—and they still do—in the form of facsimile editions, and now digital reproductions. Our exhibition attends particularly to Fluxus, which was initially referred to as neo-Dada, as one of the clearest inheritors of the Dadaist legacy, but also includes much more recent members of this willfully dysfunctional family.
Dada Futures considers the various unruly progeny it spawned and the projects it continues to seed, artistic, scholarly, and otherwise.The show draws upon the remarkable strengths of UI Special Collections and the UIMA to spark conversations across disciplines and specializations. We celebrate past, present, and future collaborative efforts among University of Iowa faculty, the libraries and Museum of Art. Forty years ago, the interdisciplinary symposium and exhibition Dada Artifacts catalyzed the establishment of the Dada Archive and Research Center at the University of Iowa, which profoundly shaped the way we engage Dada and its aftermath.
Marcel Duchamp (French 1887–1968) Boîte-en-valise (Box in a Valise), 1941/1966 Replicas and reproductions of 80 works encased in red leather box Variable measurements Museum purchase with funds from Philip D. Adler Fund, 2001.79a-aa © Association Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2018
For more details on the symposium and related events, see: dadafutures.lib.uiowa.edu
This exhibition is curated by Joyce Tsai, UIMA with Timothy Shipe, UI Libraries, Jennifer Buckley and Stephen Voyce, Department of English. To find out more about the next chapter in its history, please join us at the symposium Dada Futures on February 16–17, where lectures and discussions will be interspersed with film, performances, and outbursts of undignified enthusiasm.
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BOILED, BAKED, AND BREWED: GRAINS IN ART DECEMBER 9, 2017–APRIL 1, 2018 Figge Art Museum
The cultivation, preparation, and consumption of grains are central to culinary traditions around the world. Wheat, corn, and rice form the foundations of diets in India and Africa to the Americas. This exhibition moves from seed to table (or cup), examining the relationship between art and agriculture. Because food preparation and consumption are central expressions of cultural tradition and values, probing the visual culture of grains offers insights into the ways through which food imagery conveys cultural meaning. Works from the University of Iowa Museum of Art permanent collection suggest, at their root, these objects and images demonstrate the importance of grains in life around the world. These objects suggest many points of continuity, giving visual form to works of art that connect peoples across space and time. This exhibition is curated by Lauren Freese, PhD, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of South Dakota.
Lee Allen (American, 1910–2006) No Spiking, 1934 Watercolor on paper, 15 x 21 in. Gift of Lee Allen, reproduced with permission of Lee Allen’s daughters, Mary Lee Hoganson and Elizabeth Williams, 1981.31
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LEGACIES
RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE, AND RESTORATION APRIL 14–AUGUST 12, 2018 Figge Art Museum Catherine McCartney Sunny Morning, 1920–1934 Oil on canvas, 30 1/2 x 33 1/2 in. (77.47 x 85.09 cm) University acquisition, 1937.4
Gardening, agriculture, and other forms of land modification have long defined human interaction with the broader natural world. However, these interactions have radically changed over the past two centuries. The impact of large-scale industrialized agriculture, ever-stricter municipal and neighborhood association ordinances regarding yard maintenance, and the increasing urgency of climate change have fundamentally re-shaped how people view their relationship to landscape. Furthermore, already marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by the deleterious effects of pesticide run-off, dwindling water reserves, and climate change-induced environmental disintegration. In particular, these factors, in combination with systematic injustices perpetrated against Native communities, have pushed indigenous gardening practices in the Upper Midwest to the periphery of environmental sustainability initiatives. Rather than seek “sustainable” solutions that further ostracize and abstract indigenous knowledge of human and plant interactions, we must seek a collaborative stance of resistance, resilience, and restoration.
The capacity to weather a disturbance without loss is defined as resistance, whereas resilience is the capacity to recover from a disturbance after incurring losses, which may be considerable...In restoration, interventions are designed and implemented with the aim of strengthening the resilience, that is, the capacity to recover, of degraded systems. Can this definition by Lake of degraded systems include systems of human interaction, both historical and contemporaneous? After all, inequality rises from systems—social, governmental, and ecological— degraded over time. What does cultural resistance look like? How does resilience form and become visible? Finally, where do the paths to ecological and social restoration cross? This exhibition explores both contemporary historical contexts of landscape visualizations. This exhibition is curated by Vero Rose Smith, Assistant Curator of the Legacies for Iowa Collections-Sharing Project, Supported by the Matthew Bucksbaum Family.
First established by ecologist Phillip S. Lake, the concept of resistance, resilience, and restoration refers to the health of dynamic ecological communities.
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Max Beckmann (German 1884–1950), Karneval (Carnival), 1943, oil on canvas, 74 7/8 x 41 3/8 in., 75 x 33 9/16 in., 74 15/16 x 41 7/16 in. Museum purchase, Mark Ranney Memorial Fund, 1946.1 Š 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Karneval 14
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CONSERVATION
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he University of Iowa Museum of Art is home to one of Max Beckmann’s rare, monumental works, Karneval (1943), painted while the artist was in exile during the Second World War. One of only nine large-scale triptychs, Karneval adapts the format and iconography of traditional Christian art to convey the brutal experience of exile as a modern expulsion from Eden. Branded as a “degenerate artist” by the Nazis, Beckmann fled to Amsterdam where he continued to paint despite dire material shortages. After the war, Beckmann lived in the United States, where he worked to much acclaim until his death in 1950. In 1946 the University of Iowa acquired Karneval just three years after its creation, reflecting the university’s commitment to collecting art relevant to the challenges of its present. Beckmann adopted unconventional supports in his practice out of necessity—this painting, executed under duress, has revealed areas of instability over time, which has limited its ability to travel and be shown. With the generous support of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and La Caixa Foundation, Karneval will be treated by Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC) paintings conservator, Rita Berg, for inclusion in a major Beckmann exhibition organized jointly by the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and Caixaforum in Barcelona in 2018–2019. Working with MACC, UIMA curator Joyce Tsai will develop scholarly publications, as well as public and curricular programming that draws upon the insights revealed over the course of conservation study and treatment.
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NEW BUILDING
ON THE HORIZON
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THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART
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n the ten years since the flood of 2008, the UI campus has endured many trials, none more noted than the displacement of our renowned fine arts collection. Bringing our art collection back home will impact, inspire, and make clear the importance of fine arts in our culture for this, and future generations of UI students and the public. There have been many great partners helping to reach our goal of “coming home.” Our design architect, Rod Kruse, and his team from BNIM are well known to our campus, and an important player in noted and iconic architecture. For years, Rod has represented the forefront of design creativity in our state. His firm, HLKB, was awarded the 2001 American Institute of Architects National Firm Award and while at BNIM, that firm was recognized with the same award in 2011. He has collaborated (as Architectof-Record) with Frank Gehry (Iowa Advanced Technologies Laboratories, 1992), Steven Holl twice (Art Building West, 2006 and the new Visual Arts Building, 2016), and David Chipperfield (Figge Art Museum, 2005), to name a few. Each of these projects have been touted internationally for their designs and each of the recognized “name” architects have noted Rod as a true peer and critical partner in the design. In using “home-grown” and rising star talent, we have the opportunity to maximize the value of achieving design excellence, and put more of every critically needed dollar into the spaces that will host and share our collection. As the design phase continues, we can all look forward to construction efforts that will allow for a 2020 ribbon cutting. Like you, I cannot wait!
Rod Lehnertz Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations & University Architect
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NEW BUILDING
All architectural images courtesy of BNIM
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he Stanley Museum of Art will be situated on the site of the current surface parking lot that is close to the corner of Burlington and Front Streets, adjacent to Gibson Square Park and between the University of Iowa Main Library and the UI Campus Recreation and Wellness Center. 63,000 square feet total with 16,500 square feet of gallery space Our building will exceed the mark for the 500-year flood plain by four feet Construction will begin in 2018, with substantial completion planned for
2019 and a public opening in 2020 Admission will remain free Building features include:
Art lounge Visible storage Three-story light well Visual classroom Underground parking Two outdoor terraces For additional details, please visit http://www.foriowa.org/mymuseum/
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LECTURES
GÜLRU ÇAKMAK 7:30 P.M. MONDAY, JANUARY 29 • 240 ART BUILDING WEST
“Parodying the Past in Second Empire Paris: Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Anachronistic Duelists” The French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1857 Salon blockbuster Duel after the Masquerade epitomizes the nineteenth-century’s obsessive engagement with history. Populated by six masquerade-goers dressed in pseudo-historical costumes and carrying old-fashioned chivalresque swords, the painting offers a tragi-comedy in showing the conclusion to a duel. The costumes and weapons in the painting, as visible markers of historical mores, link the figures to earlier practices and bygone values: these modern Frenchmen cannot come to terms with the changing of the times, trapped as they are in tragi-comical repetitions of the past. The Second Empire no longer offers any meaningful avenues for heroism beyond anachronistic—and often quite fatal— reiterations of history. Created two years before Bac’s birth, the painting’s demonstration of the identity crisis of masculinity as experienced by Gérôme’s duelists expands on the exhibition’s themes, in particular on the notion of nostalgically looking back at the past to craft a story for one’s modern self. Just as Bac re-imagined both his own past and the historical past in his works as he reflected on modernity, so did the figures in Duel after the Masquerade attempt to re-fashion their present after the models of the past. Gülru Çakmak is an assistant professor of nineteenth-century European art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has curated A Very Long Engagement: Nineteenth-Century Statuette and Its Afterlives at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and Polychromies: Surface, Light, and Colour at Leeds Art Gallery and the Henry Moore Institute. Her forthcoming book Jean-Léon Gérôme and the Crisis of History Painting in the 1850s will be published by the Liverpool University Press later this year. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Duel after the Masquerade, 1857 The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland Open Access Image, photograph courtesy of the Walters Art Museum
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Grant Wood Fellow Interdisciplinary Performance
JOE OSHEROFF 7:30 P.M. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12 240 ART BUILDING WEST
The Progressive Mask: Exploring the Future of Mask Work in the American Theatre
Weston Playhouse, Roust Theater Company, and Mettawee River Theater Company, among others. He has appeared in numerous commercials and voice-overs. Television credits include Law and Order and Quantico. He is a Professor of Acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Joe has studied mask performance and mask making at the D’ell Arte School of Physical Theater, as well as with Ralph Lee and Donatto Sartori. He has an MFA in Acting from the University of California at Irvine.
Grant Wood Fellow Painting and Drawing
JOE DEVERA 7:30 P.M. MONDAY, MARCH 12 240 ART BUILDING WEST
How We Got Here
An interactive discussion that explores the history of the use of mask in society and performance. With an eye on the future of mask theatre, this talk will focus on the question of “What Next?” in terms of theatrical innovation and practice. Joe Osheroff is the Artistic Director of Homunculus Mask Theater (New York, NY). He founded this company in 2010 as a means of presenting original, devised theater that explores contemporary mask work. Since then, Homunculus productions have been recognized with six NY Innovative Theatre Award nominations and three NY Innovative Theatre Awards (Best Director, Best Choreography, Best Design). As an actor, Osheroff recently appeared in the Broadway Tour of the multiple Olivier/Tony Award winning production of War Horse. Regionally and in NYC, he has worked with The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Acting Company, Utah Shakespearean Company,
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A preamble on the autobiographical and historical influences as well as the creative processes in the work of visual artist and Grant Wood Fellow in Painting & Drawing, Joe DeVera. He will address his concerns regarding the possibility of art objects functioning not only as visual informant, but also as cultural provocateur, actively effecting the actions and events of the world at large. Given his past enlistment in the United States Marine Corps from 2001 to 2008 (serving two combat deployments), and in addition to having been born in
LECTURES
the Philippines during a time of political turmoil and violence, Joe DeVera’s works are often attempts to make sense of the absurd theaters of human tragedy; exploring the possible relationships between historiography and art objects, while simultaneously investigating the cultural networks of mass conflict. His exhibition record includes solo and two-person shows in Philadelphia, Connecticut, and Southern California, as well as an inclusion in the publication New American Paintings (Issue 111, April 2014). He has been awarded the Joshua Tree Highlands Art Residency (2015), The Terra American Art Foundation Summer Fellowship (2016), and the Cloud Projects Prize (2016). In addition to his art practice, DeVera also served as the curator for Aftermath, a four-artist exhibition that ran from November 2 to December 5, 2016 in Santa Ana, CA, which examines the resonance of war through the artist as a lived body (Santora Building, Santa Ana, CA). Joe DeVera received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art (2014) and his BFA in Painting from California State University, Fullerton (2011), where he also served as an adjunct lecturer for several years.
Grant Wood Fellow Printmaking
BRANDON COLEY COX
Grant Wood Fellow in Printmaking, Brandon Coley Cox will discuss the ideas within several of his bodies of work and how they have changed over time. His focus on the creation of conceptually driven processes and uses of material as they relate to Western imaging will drive the bulk of the conversation. Brandon Coley Cox is an emerging artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He recently earned his MFA from Yale University and is one the current Grant Wood Fellowship recipients at the University of Iowa. Cox has also been awarded other residencies in the past at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in Times Square and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Cox has work in several permanent collections including The International Print Museum in Southern California and the Museum of Paper and Watermark in Fabriano, Italy. His current studio practice involves creating paper that is various shades of black, embedded with specifically chosen objects. Hammered pieces of metal, meteorites, powdered tires, shredded steel bits, natural crystals, etched copper plates, and royal purple velvet fabrics all combine within one piece to create an unexpected yet intriguing experience that directly relates to being able to perceive a kind of blackness that is not so easily definable.
7:30 P.M. MONDAY, APRIL 9 240 ART BUILDING WEST
Process and Practice
The Grant Wood Art Colony seeks to provide a creative home for the next generation of artists and continue Grant Wood’s creative advocacy in the School of Art & Art History and the Division of Performing Arts at The University of Iowa through artist residencies, teaching fellowships, symposia, and community programs.
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ANDREW SHELTON 7:30 P.M. THURSDAY, APRIL 19 • 116 ART BUILDING WEST
Coquettes, Lorettes and “Les Grandes Horizontales”: Representations of Sexualized Women in Nineteenth-Century French Visual Culture This lecture will explore the rich history of representations of sexualized women in nineteenth-century French print media, focusing on the work of one of the earliest specialists in this theme, the Romantic-era lithographer Achille Devéria (1800–1857). While much of this imagery was blatantly objectifying and served ultimately to advance the rapidly solidifying codification of contemporary femininity into the binary of harlot/housewife, a careful examination of Devéria’s images and the varied perspectives of those who originally consumed them provides the basis for more complex and nuanced readings of representations of women in nineteenth-century French art. Andrew Shelton is a professor of Art History at The Ohio State University. He has written extensively on J.A.D. Ingres and gender and fashion in eighteenthand nineteenth-century France. His current project is a book titled Achille Devéria: Art, Identity, and Commerce in Early Nineteenth-Century Paris.
Achille Devéria Le Corset/The Bodice, 1831 Lithograph Open source image, courtesy of Bibliothèque national de France 24
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Inaugural Intermedia Research Initiative Artist Lecture
ADAM PENDLETON 7:30 P.M. THURSDAY, APRIL 26 • 240 ART BUILDING WEST
In 2016 Hans and Barbara Breder generously supported the creation of the Intermedia Research Initiative (IRI), which treats the museum itself as a living laboratory, capable of fostering cross-disciplinary modes of creative inquiry. In memory of Hans Breder’s transformative legacy as the founder of the Intermedia MFA program, the IRI seeks to bring the thought and practice of a number of different fields into productive collision. In that spirit, the UIMA is proud to announce that Adam Pendleton will deliver the Inaugural IRI Lecture. Pendleton is an internationally renowned conceptual artist whose multi-disciplinary practice moves fluidly across painting, publishing, photographic collage, video, and performance. He is also author of Black Dada Reader (2017), which elucidates his broad conceptualization of blackness. Pendleton’s lecture will engage with the themes of the exhibition Dada Futures at the UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom, which considers the varied horizons of possibilities the movement might enable in contemporary art and politics. In addition to the IRI and the UIMA, Pendleton’s lecture is made possible through the generosity of co-sponsors that include the School of Art and Art History, Afro House, Department of English, The Iowa Review, Performance Studies Working Group, and Obermann Center for Advanced Study, with supplemental contributions from the Diversity Committee of the College of Education, Department of Communication Studies, and Department of Cinematic Arts. The African American Studies Program, Center for Afro-Futurism, and Prairie Lights Books are our promotional partners. The broad basis of support for this talk speaks to the continued vitality of cross-disciplinary cooperation that the Intermedia Research Initiative seeks to continue and newly enable.
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What were you doing before you came to the UIMA? Why did you go into museum work? Most recently I was working on the public programs team at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas and prior to that I had held teaching fellowships at the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, and the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin (where I earned my Masters in Art History in 2015). I was lucky to grow up going to museums of all types with my family. Then, during my undergraduate years at Tulane University, I began to consider museums as a career path after I took a surprise turn from studying international relations to studying art history. My love for art and museums has only continued to grow as I’ve seen first-hand the power of the “ah-ha” moment, when a visitor connects with a work of art. I feel privileged to play a role in making moments like this possible, and that’s what gets me out of bed and to the museum every morning.
What is your average workday like? What makes you excited about the work you do here?
BRADY PLUNGER Assistant Curator of Education
As cliché as it might sound, I wouldn’t say there’s ever an “average day” in the life of a museum professional. And, I’d say that this is especially true for museum educators. We’re on the front lines working with the public and you truly never know what’s going to happen when you mix people together with extraordinary works of art. That said, much of my day-to-day role centers on coordinating our renowned K–12 classroom visit program that sends art into classrooms all around Iowa. Alongside those duties I am going to be spearheading new projects designed to re-engage the UIMA with the campus community and bring us to the epicenter of student life as we prepare for our fiftieth anniversary and new building in 2020. Working in tandem with K–12 and university audiences is invigorating, and I can’t wait to see how these projects develop!
What have you accomplished since you began at the UIMA? What are your goals for the museum? Well, at this moment I would say I am still quite new to the museum. However, in the time that I have been here I’ve managed to stir up some real excitement amongst the UIMA team with my ideas for reconnecting to the student body and to our campus. Let’s call that the first of what I hope will be many accomplishments for me here. As far as goals go, I would say my biggest priority is to produce innovative work that incorporates the best elements of museum education theory and practice, along with responsible scholarly interpretation of our collections to help position the museum amongst the leading campus art museums in the country. We have a stellar collection, a parent university with a genuine commitment to the arts and creativity, and a brilliant staff; we can’t lose!
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EDUCATION
What were you doing before you came to the UIMA? Why did you go into museum work? I have spent the majority of my career working in the entertainment and literary industries in various capacities in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. I started as a production assistant on film and television sets and last year moved back to my hometown of Iowa City after working as a talent agent representing actors in Los Angeles. Museums have always been a big part of my travels and bucket lists. My creative outlet is writing, so when I go to an art museum I’m always amazed at what I see and learn. When the SLC Program Coordinator position presented itself, I was thrilled. The job combines my love of art, education, and community involvement—I educate myself on a period of art, an artist or craft, and then share that knowledge with the residents. It ends with a wonderful dialogue about art, life, and so much more.
What is your average workday like? What makes you excited about the work you do here? My days vary from week to week. I spend some weeks presenting at SLC’s and other weeks I’m researching and preparing for the next month’s programming. I try to pick topics that I would like to know more about, in hopes that the residents will feel the same. The best part of my month is seeing the residents’ faces light up when they see a piece of art they recognize in my presentation or have a story to tell us about what we’re discussing. I learn something new daily while researching and presenting the programs, and that’s both exciting and rewarding to me.
What have you accomplished since you began at the UIMA? What are your goals for the museum? I’ve continued the success of the SLC program and expanded the programming in Johnson and Iowa Counties, and now Linn County. My overall goal is to continue to grow the program in Eastern Iowa and create more unique programming for the residents to enjoy.
AMANDA LENSING Senior Living Communities Program Coordinator
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KATHY EDWARDS “Retiring ain’t for sissies,” exclaimed UIMA Senior Curator Kathy Edwards, who retired at the end of 2017. After almost twenty years at the UIMA, Kathy is ready for new work and adventures. “President Harreld told me I should write a book. Though I probably won’t, my experiences and projects at UIMA have certainly kept me engaged and busy.” Arriving in Iowa City from Philadelphia, where she was director of The Print Center for nine years, Kathy’s first UIMA position was Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. During this period, The Print and Drawing Study Club was active, with Kathy leading efforts to encourage collecting and learning, as she acquired many works on paper for the UIMA collection, including Elizabeth Catlett’s seminal Sharecropper, and works by other masters such as Blake, Canaletto, Duchamp, Durer, Johns, and Nolde, as well as contemporary works by Tara Donovan, Inka Eisenhigh, William Kentridge, Thomas Nozkowski, Toyin Odutola, Miriam Schapiro, and Kiki Smith, among many others. Kathy also stewarded major gifts of focused collections including the Deborah Lee collection of prints from the European and American Etching Revivals, the Alden Lowell Doud Collection, the Ehrenhaft Collection of Chiaroscuro Prints, the Sommers Family gift of Tamarind prints, the Waswo X. Waswo Collection of Indian Prints, and the Virginia A. Myers collection. Exhibitions were also a focus of her work at UIMA. Promoted to curator of European and American art, then Chief Curator, Kathy organized over fifty exhibitions and collection installations for the museum, including the traveling exhibitions Lil Picard and Counterculture New York and Acting Out: Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography. Acting Out was reviewed by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith. Other exhibitions and projects of note were New Forms: The Avant-Garde Meets the American Scene, Subject Matters: The Alan and Ann January
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Kathy Edwards with Elizabeth Catlett, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2006. Photo: Emma Amos
Collection of American Prints and Drawings, and Art is Life/Life is Art: The Graphic Work of Dieter Roth. Kathy’s chapter on Elizabeth Catlett in Invisible Hawkeyes, and her acquisition of twenty-three prints for the UIMA collection directly from Catlett in Cuernavaca, were contributions to the impetus to name the new UI Elizabeth Catlett Residence Hall. Kathy’s final project, the October 21, 2017 symposium Philip Guston and Iowa, generated important new research to be published in the near future. As her final UIMA legacy, Kathy and her husband, Michael Hayslett, are creating a new endowed acquisition fund: Kathleen A. Edwards Purchase Fund for Contemporary Art by American Women. For information on how to contribute to this fund, please contact Susan Horan.
STAFF CHANGES
BETTY BREAZEALE In 1987, after five years serving elsewhere in the university, Betty Breazeale joined the University of Iowa Museum of Art as secretary. She served under nine directors, survived three floods and eight office moves, and gracefully managed all the administrative duties, technological changes, and organizational transformations that come with a three-decade tenure. While she is too modest to take due credit for her work, Betty was the glue that kept the UIMA together and the true heart of our staff, past and present. The UIMA thanks Betty for her long and dedicated tenure. She is a valued colleague and friend. We wish her the best in her retirement—and in her new role as a lifetime UIMA supporter.
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Thank You to our magazine sponsors!
John R. Menninger Ellen M. Widiss
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) Woman Reading, 1634, printed later Etching 4 7/8 x 4 in. Gift of Owen and Leone Elliott, 1968.86
UIMA extends a sincere thank-you to our First Friday Sponsors John R. Menninger H. Dee & Myrene R. Hoover John S. & Patricia C. Koza
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CENTER FOR ADVANCEMENT
Create a UIMA Legacy When Owen and Leone Elliott offered their art collection to the University of Iowa in 1962, it came with the stipulation that the university build an art museum—and that the collection be available to the community, specifically to students and young people. Led by Darrell Wyrick, who was president of the former University of Iowa Foundation, the UI embarked on a campaign to raise $1.5 million to build a museum. It was the foundation’s first capital campaign, and support came in from near and far. UI faculty and staff contributed $200,000, and the Iowa City business community matched that support. Regional corporate donors sent large gifts, and schoolchildren collected nickels in cans to help build a museum. Thanks, in large part, to such efforts, the University of Iowa Museum of Art opened its doors in 1969 and soon became a center of arts and culture in Iowa City. Since its inception, the museum has embraced the idea that the university’s art collection should be available to all, and the community has responded with generous private support. From Roy and Lucille Carver, who built a wing for additional gallery space in the 1970s, to education partners who provided annual support for school programs during the post-flood years, visionary benefactors have helped keep the museum’s collection accessible for nearly 50 years.
The University of Iowa and the UI Center for Advancement are committed to keeping their 1962 promise to Owen and Leone by building a new museum now, and we need your help. In the tradition of keeping the university’s art collection accessible to all Iowans, we have launched the Building Campaign for the University of Iowa Museum of Art. I invite you to join this important campaign by making a gift to the Fund for Rebuilding the Museum of Art. With your help, we can build a physical museum that is worthy of our collections—that will foster new collaborations and community connections— and that will make all Iowans proud to declare, “The UI Museum of Art is my museum.” For information about recognition or naming opportunities within this important campaign, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you!
Susan Horan Associate Director of Development University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Foundation susan.horan@foriowa.org 319-467-3407 or 800-648-6973
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University of Iowa Museum of Art 150 NORTH RIVERSIDE DRIVE / OMA 100 IOWA CITY, IA 52242 319-335-1727
uima.uiowa.edu
“THE UI MUSEUM OF ART IS MY MUSEUM BECAUSE ITS WORLD-CLASS COLLECTIONS FEED MY CURIOSITY AND OPEN MY MIND.
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HELP US BUILD A NEW HOME FOR I N S P I R AT I O N .
MY
MUSEUM THE BUILDING CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA MUSEUM OF ART
foriowa.org/mymuseum JAMIE BOLING
G I V E T O D AY !
ARTIST | MUSEUM PARTY CO-CHAIR | UI MUSEUM OF ART MEMBERS COUNCIL The State University of Iowa Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of The University of Iowa. The organization is located at One West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52244; its telephone number is (800) 648-6973. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your gift. If you are a resident of the following states, please review the applicable, required disclosure statement. GEORGIA: A full and fair description of the charitable programs and activities and a financial statement is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above. MARYLAND: A copy of the current financial statement is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above. For the cost of copies and postage, documents and information submitted under the Maryland Solicitations Act are available from the Secretary of State, 16 Francis Street, Annapolis, MD 21401, 410-974-5521. NEW JERSEY: INFORMATION FILED WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL CONCERNING THIS CHARITABLE SOLICITATION AND THE PERCENTAGE OF CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED BY THE CHARITY DURING THE LAST REPORTING PERIOD THAT WERE DEDICATED TO THE CHARITABLE PURPOSE MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BY CALLING 973-504-6215 AND IS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET AT http://www.state.nj.us/lps/ca/charfrm.htm. REGISTRATION WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT. NEW YORK: A copy of the last financial report filed with the Attorney General is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above, or from the Office of the Attorney General, Department of Law, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. PENNSYLVANIA: The official registration and financial information of the State University of Iowa Foundation may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll free, within Pennsylvania, (800)732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement. WASHINGTON: Financial disclosure information is available upon request from the Secretary of State, Charities Program, by calling (800) 332-4483. WEST VIRGINIA: West Virginia residents may obtain a summary of the registration and financial documents from the Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, West Virginia 25305. Registration does not imply endorsement.