Happenings - November 2009
Office Hours: Kim Rorschach talks Picasso, Warhol and art auctions
Friday, November 6
12 PM Live webcast
Nasher Museum Director Kimerly Rorschach will answer questions about modern and contemporary art during a live, online conversation. To submit a question in advance or during the session, send an email to live@duke.edu, post a comment on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook or Tweet (on Twitter.com) with the tag #dukelive.
IMAGE: Photo of Kimerly Rorschach by Duke Photography
Semans Lecture: Fred Wilson
IMAGE: Fred Wilson by Dr. J Caldwell
7:30 PM Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Free and open to the public.
American artist Fred Wilson questions—and asks us to question—how museum curators present history and artistic value, and how cultural institutions express biases. Wilson creates new contexts for the display of art and artifacts found in museum collections, along with wall labels, sound, lighting and non-traditional pairings of objects. In his talk, "The Silent Message of the Museum," he discussed his work in relation to museums as environments of cultural production, and how the museum has shaped his practice as an artist.
Wilson was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1954, and lives and works in New York. He is the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award (1999), the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2003) and the 2009 Cheek Medal. He is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Object, Exhibition and Knowledge at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.
The Annual Semans Lecture is funded by the Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Lecture Series Endowment Fund.
Artist Residency: Satch Hoyt
Satch Hoyt, an internationally acclaimed artist and musician based in Berlin, produced a monumental new sculptural work during his residency with the Nasher Museum. Hoyt and a team of assistants constructed an 18-foot canoe titled "Celestial Vessel," which will be part of the upcoming Nasher Museum exhibition, "The Record" (opening August 19, 2010). Materials for the work include a metal armature and vintage RCA Victor Red Seal 45-rpm records from the 1950s that Hoyt has collected. The work also includes an original soundscape composed by the artist. This project was made possible by a Visiting Artist Grant from the Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost, Duke University. Liberty Arts, 401-B Foster St. Durham's Central Park. See a slide show of the event.
Sculptures by Moore, Picasso and others arrive at Nasher Museum
A bronze sculpture by Henry Moore that once greeted visitors to the Dallas home of the late Raymond D. Nasher has arrived at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, along with six other sculptures on loan from the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.
The loan includes works by European modernists Moore, Gaston Lachaise, Marino Marini and Mimmo Paladino and are on view in the museum's Mary D.B.T. Semans Great Hall. Two sculptures by Pablo Picasso are part of the museum's ongoing exhibition, "Picasso and the Allure of Language."
Since the Nasher Museum opened at Duke in 2005, the Nasher Sculpture Center, founded in 2003 by the late Raymond D. Nasher and his family, has lent more than 100 works to the museum.
"My father and I believed it was important to establish an ongoing relationship between the two institutions to share significant works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection with students, faculty and employees of Duke, as well as residents and visitors to Durham, the Triangle community and North Carolina," said Nancy Nasher, a 1979 graduate of Duke Law School and a member of Duke's Board of Trustees.
IMAGE: Photo by Michelle Cho
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"The Nasher family and the Nasher Sculpture Center have always been very generous with loaning prized works from their collection," said Kimerly Rorschach, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. "Over the last four years, monumental sculptures have rotated throughout the Nasher Museum, exposing our visitors to works not only by much-loved artists, but also emerging artists."
The two loaned works by Pablo Picasso are "Head of a Woman (Tête de femme)" (1931) and "Head of a Woman (Tête de femme)" or "Head of Jacqueline" (1957). They are on view through Jan. 3, 2010.
Gaston Lachaise's "Elevation," also called "Standing Woman," is the artist's first life-size figure and best-known sculptural achievement. Italian artist Marino Marini's "Miracle" depicts a rearing horse and rider as a metaphor for a lack of control in the world. Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure: Angles," a 1979 large-scale bronze, was inspired by an ancient Aztec Chacmool figure. Mimmo Paladino's "The Bread of History (Il Pane della Storia)," takes the form of a wheeled cart bearing expressionistically sculpted bronze heads. These sculptures are on view through June 2010.
The seven recent loans join the large-scale works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection already on view outside the building: Mark di Suvero's "In the Bushes" and Anthony Caro's "Sculpture Three."
Nasher Museum exhibitions and programs are supported by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Mary D.B.T. Semans and the late James H. Semans, The Duke Endowment, the Nancy Hanks Endowment, the K. Brantley and Maxine E. Watson Endowment Fund, the James Hustead Semans Memorial Fund, the Marilyn M. Arthur Fund, the Victor and Lenore Behar Endowment Fund, the George W. and Viola Mitchell Fearnside Endowment Fund, the Sarah Schroth Fund, the Margaret Elizabeth Collett Fund, North Carolina Arts Council, Duke's Offices of the President and the Provost, and the Friends of the Nasher Museum of Art.
The Nasher Museum, at 2001 Campus Drive at Anderson Street on the Duke campus, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday; and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays. Admission, except for "Picasso and the Allure of Language" and other ticketed exhibitions, is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and members of the Duke Alumni Association, $3 for non-Duke students with identification and free for children 15 and younger. Admission is free to all on Thursday nights. Admission is free to Duke students, faculty and staff with Duke ID cards, and to Nasher Museum members.
Mellon Grant allows more work with faculty and students
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000 four-year grant to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The grant will enable the Nasher Museum to collaborate further with students and faculty from a wide variety of disciplines in teaching, exhibitions and research.
Recent faculty collaborations include "The Past is Present: Classical Antiquities at the Nasher Museum" (on view), with Carla Antonaccio, chair of the Department of Clasical Studies, and Sheila Dillon, professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. The exhibition meets the Association of Art Museum Directors' guidelines for acquiring ancient antiquities (revised 2008).
Learn what students think about "The Past is Present: Classical Antiquities at the Nasher Museum" by listening to student-created podcasts. "We are all excited and very grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their support of our efforts to involve Duke faculty--the brain trust of the university," said Kimerly Rorschach, the Mary D.B.T and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. Hear more 'From the Director' about the Mellon Grant and how it will benefit Duke students and museum visitors alike.
New work at the Nasher Museum
Dario Robleto, Lamb of Man/ Atom and Eve/ Americana Materia Medica(detail), 2006-2007. Colored paper, cardboard, ribbon, foamcore, glue, willow. Collection the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
One bright spot in the sour economy is that some museums are able to shop for art. Most museums have funds that are restricted to the purchase of art, and now their money goes a lot farther than before, says Nasher Museum Director Kimerly Rorschach.
"Art dealers seem more willing to negotiate," Rorschach says. "We are seeing less of the wild speculation that drove up art prices in recent years."
Although budgets are tight, the Nasher Museum has recently made several noteworthy acquisitions for the permanent collection. The works-by artists Dario Robleto, Hank Willis Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems-reflect the Nasher Museum's focus on modern and contemporary art. These are significant works by international artists and represent a variety of media: sculpture, mixed-media, video and photography.
The museum has also received several important gifts of art, including a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and a portfolio of photographs by Andy Warhol.
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Recent gifts
The museum received a major gift from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts: 107 original Polaroid photographs and 53 gelatin silver prints produced by the artist from 1969 to 1986. The gift was made in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.
Although many of the photographs in the gift are of unidentified individuals, others are of popular figures, alone or pictured with other people, including Farrah Fawcett, Grace Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Sue Mengers, Ryan O'Neal and Steve Rubell. The Polaroids represent an important dimension of Warhol's process of creating his famous large-scale portraits. It was Warhol's habit to take Polaroids of his sitters first; he then enlarged and converted them into silkscreen templates that he printed on canvas and painted over. The Polaroid studies are significant works of portraiture, and provide insight into this artist who sought to capture the world like a camera and who proclaimed that everyone would have "15 minutes of fame."
"A wealth of information about Warhol's process and his interactions with his sitters is revealed in these images," said Jenny Moore, curator of the Photographic Legacy Program.
Another recent gift to the museum is a sculpture by Pop artist Claes Oldenberg depicting an inverted fudge Popsicle with a large bite removed. The work is a model for a monument intended for New York City's Park Avenue, where it would have towered among skyscrapers. The space left by the "bite" in the Popsicle would have allowed cars to drive under the artwork. It is part of a series called "Proposals for Monuments and Buildings." The work is a gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill.
Museum purchases
In Dario Robleto's triptych, "Lamb of Man/ Atom and Eve/ Americana Materia Medica," the artist imagines his own musical groups, their sounds and aesthetics, and gives them life through fictive album covers. The artist painstakingly and laboriously cut paper and old album covers for the work; all of the text and titles are his own. Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of contemporary art, calls the work "smart, complex, beautiful and powerful." The work will be part of the "The Record," a group show organized by Schoonmaker and opening August 2010. The work was purchased by the Nasher Museum's fund for acquisitions with additional funds provided by Dr. Peter H. Klopfer, the children of Marilyn M. Segal in her honor, and the bequest of Viola Mitchell Fearnside, by exchange.
Another acquisition is an early and important work by Carrie Mae Weems, "Ode to Affirmative Action." The work, a silver print with a vinyl record and label, is also part of "The Record" exhibition. In it, the artist moves between portrait photography and conceptualism; the fake album, gone gold, simultaneously functions as theatrical prop, social critique and cultural reference. The work was produced at the height of identity politics in contemporary art. The museum purchased the work from its fund for acquisitions.
"Winter in America," a stop-motion animation video by Hank Willis Thomas, is one of the artist's most important works. The video depicts the 2002 robbery and murder of his cousin, Songha Thomas Willis, outside Club Evolutions in Philadelphia. Thomas collaborated with artist Kambui Olujimi to reenact the tragic story with G.I. Joe action figures, using eye-witness accounts to the crime. The result is chilling and powerful, a dramatic statement about violence in African American communities and also a critique of violence in our culture and children's toys. The work was purchased by the Nasher Museum's fund for acquisitions with additional funds provided by William and Ruth True.
