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Fourteen Years of TWO x TWO

Published October 17, 2012 Behind-the-Scenes , Dallas , DFW , Fundraising , Special Events Closed
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TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art is an annual contemporary art auction held in the Richard Meier-designed Rachofsky House in Dallas and benefiting two organizations—the Dallas Museum of Art and amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. The event has raised over $34 million in the past thirteen years, enabling the Museum to acquire more than 125  works of art. October 20 marks the fourteenth annual gala and auction, which features Richard Phillips as amfAR’s 2012 Honored Artist. To learn more about the history of TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art, and this year’s events, including the First Look preview party tomorrow evening, visit the TWO x TWO website. Explore past TWO x TWO events below with guests such as Barry Manilow, Alan Cumming, Patti LaBelle, and more.

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Texas Art in a Texas Museum

Published October 10, 2012 American Art , Archive , Behind-the-Scenes , Collections , Curatorial 1 Comment
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I first joined the DMA team in July 2010 as an intern for the Curatorial Department of European and American art. In May 2011 I was hired as the research project coordinator for early Texas art, a two-summer position sponsored by the Texas Fund for Curatorial Research. As an art history graduate student specializing in 18th-century British art, I enjoy switching gears when I am in Dallas for the summer and learning about the history of the local art scene in my hometown. The culmination of my research is an addition to the DMA website that includes both a timeline of all Texas-related exhibitions and a historical text about the evolution of the Dallas art community over the years.

The most valuable resource for my project has been the DMA Archives. When I first started researching the relationship between Dallas art clubs, local artists, and the Museum, I spent many hours perusing exhibition catalogues and photographs from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. I was surprised to learn that women played a central role in the early history of the Museum, and that support for local artists was strong and consistent throughout the decades. I quickly realized that most of my attention would be devoted to the period spanning the 1930s to the 1960s. During this time, the Museum sponsored between five and twenty exhibitions each year that exclusively showcased the work of Texas artists.

Most of these exhibitions were sponsored by local art clubs and were held annually. Examples include the Dallas Allied Arts exhibitions, the Dallas Print and Drawing Society exhibitions, and the Texas Watercolor Society exhibitions. For each exhibition, local artists submitted works for entry, which were then judged by a three-person jury prior to the opening of the show. Top works of art were awarded purchase prizes, which were monetary awards provided by art clubs, private donors, and local businesses. All works that received purchase prizes automatically entered the Museum’s permanent collection.

Here are some of my favorites:

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What surprised me most as I was researching the Museum’s collection of Texas art, and specifically the purchase prizes, is the variety of subject matter, techniques, and artistic styles. As you can see, Texas art is not restricted to panoramic views of the desert or scenes of cowboys at work on the ranch. There is much to be learned about the Museum’s vast and incredibly varied collection of regional art. I think it’s time we all took a closer look. Explore the Texas Art section of the Dallas Museum of Art’s website for additional images and information.

Alexandra Wellington is the former Research Project Coordinator for Early Texas Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Bon Voyage to The Icebergs

Published September 26, 2012 American Art , Behind-the-Scenes , Curatorial 2 Comments
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Considered by some to be the DMA’s Mona Lisa, Frederic Edwin Church’s The Icebergs has been a destination icon for museum visitors ever since it was placed on display in 1979. Measuring slightly over 7 feet high and 11 feet wide in its frame, and weighing a cumbersome 425 pounds, it is the anchor of the American galleries in both a figurative and literal sense. Consequently, its presence is as keenly felt as its absence. Yet, there are times when a museum must make a sacrifice—albeit reluctantly–in the support of new art historical scholarship.

Frederic Edwin Church, “The Icebergs,” 1861, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Norma and Lamar Hunt, 1979.28

The Icebergs is to play a pivotal role in the presentation of the upcoming exhibition The Civil War and American Art, which will open at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Longtime members of the DMA will be pleased to know that this important exhibition has been organized by the DMA’s former curator of American Art Dr. Eleanor Jones Harvey, who has been with the Smithsonian American Art Museum since 2003. The exhibition will feature key works by America’s greatest artists of the era. These works channeled the conflicting emotions of a nation coming to grips with a reality that altered the very fabric of its identity and transformed its once unassailable optimism into dread for the unknown outcomes that lay ahead.

Frederic Edwin Church, “Cotopaxi,” 1862, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund, Merrill Fund, Beatrice W. Rogers Fund, and Richard A. Manoogian Fund, Photo courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts

Key to charting the path from America’s loss of faith to its eventual hope of redemption will be four monumental landscapes by Frederic Church: The Icebergs, Cotopaxi, Aurora Borealis, and Rainy Season in the Tropics. The first two works have often been paired in a binary context of arctic and tropics, but, in this presentation, their multiple layers of meaning are to be revealed. In the case of The Icebergs, Church changed its title to The North for its debut just twelve days after the beginning of the war in 1861. He also donated all the ticket proceeds to the Union Red Cross. In his painting of the following year, Cotopaxi, Church depicted paradise rent asunder by the volcanic and explosive forces of nature as a symbolic reflection of the cleaving of a nation. A month before the end of the war, Church exhibited Aurora Borealis, wherein the darkness of the endless arctic winter echoed the weariness that dominated the American psyche. In Rainy Season in the Tropics, presented in 1866 after the close of the war, Church delivered the viewer—and a nation—from its trials and tribulations into a paradise redeemed by a nourishing rain and the promise of a double rainbow.

Frederic Edwin Church, “Aurora Borealis,” 1865, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Eleanor Blodgett, Photo courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum

Frederic Edwin Church, “Rainy Season in the Tropics,” 1866, oil on canvas, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection

For those wanting to bid a fond farewell to The Icebergs before its departure, please be sure to do so before mid-October, when it will be removed from view. If you would like to see the DMA’s masterpiece in the context of the exhibition, it will be at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., November 16, 2012–April 27, 2013, and then in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art May 21–September 2, 2013.

Sue Canterbury is The Pauline Gill Sullivan Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Pick Our Main Stage Act

Published August 27, 2012 Dallas , DFW , Late Nights Closed
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September’s Late Night theme is “iMuseum,” where you can use technology to explore the DMA and participate in new, experimental, and interactive programs. We also want you to pick our September Main Stage Act by voting for your favorite performance from our Be Our Main Stage Act contest. The winner will be announced next week.

And the finalists are (click here to cast your vote):

Daniel Hart

Veronica Lopez
http://youtu.be/LlMfTtstY9o
Jon Meyer

J. D. Whittenburg

Little Birds

Focus on: Nobuo Sekine

Published August 22, 2012 Collections , Contemporary Art , Curatorial , Exhibitions 2 Comments
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For the past few months, Japanese sculptor Nobuo Sekine’s (b. 1942) works have been on view in the Marguerite and Robert Hoffman Galleries. For those of you who haven’t seen them yet, or are still wondering what these works are all about, this blog post is for you.

Phase No. 10 (1968), Phase of Nothingness-Water (1969/2005), and Phase of Nothingness-Cloth and Stone (1970/1994) were originally created in the late 1960s, and what they have in common is the word “phase” in their title. In order to understand these works better, let’s first talk briefly about global art trends in the late 1960s and then explore the idea of “phase” that so interested Sekine.

In the early 1960s, artists such as Richard Serra, Donald Judd, and Robert Morris made a clear shift away from the gestural quality of abstract expressionism (Jackson Pollock) and embraced a more minimal aesthetic. Minimalist art was intended to discard the emotionality of the past along with all non-essential formal elements related to the art object. The resulting work took shape as hard-edge geometric volumes created with industrial materials that showed little-to-no evidence of the artist’s hand in its making. As minimal sculpture evolved, artists in the late 1960s began moving outside the white cube of the gallery and museum space to create large-scale outdoor works that used the earth itself as the medium. Known as Land Art, this movement was closely associated with the work of Robert Smithson, Michael Heitzer, and others. It is within this transitional moment between minimalism and Land Art that the work of Sekine Nobuo and the Mono-ha movement in Japan came into being.

Phase Mother Earth (1968/2012) (Photo courtesy of artspacetokyo.com)

The term Mono-ha (meaning “School of Things”) encompassed a variety of different forms and approaches, but at its core the short-lived movement explored the encounter between natural and industrial objects. Using natural materials such as stone, wood, and cotton in their unadulterated states, in conjunction with wire, light bulbs, glass, and steel plates, the work of Mono-ha artists presented objects “just as they are,” with the hope of bridging the gap between the human mind and the material world.

The tenets of Mono-ha are most clearly embodied in Nobuo Sekine’s famous outdoor sculpture Phase Mother Earth (1968/2012). Often cited as the beginning of the Mono-ha movement, Sekine’s sculpture consists of a 2.2 meter-tall cylinder of earth positioned beside a hole of the exact same dimensions. While clearly in dialogue with other American and European Land Art of the time, the modest scale of Sekine’s work invites the viewer to experience the earth simply as earth rather than as a grand artistic gesture writ large across the landscape.

Phase No. 10, Nobuo Sekine, 1968, Steel, lacquer, and paint, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund

Sekine’s Phase-Mother Earth is closely related to the artist’s previous sculptures exploring the mathematical field of topology. Topology is a field of spatial geometry in which space and materials are considered malleable and can undergo countless transformations from one “phase” (state) to another without adding or subtracting from the original form/materials. In Sekine’s words, “a certain form can be transformed continually by methods such as twisting, stretching, condensing, until it is transformed into another.” This idea of manipulating form and space can be seen in Sekine’s work Phase No. 10 (1968) currently on view at the DMA. This wall-mounted sculpture closely resembles a Mobius strip, and when viewed head-on it appears to be a flat, curvilinear design, but when viewed at an angle the sculpture juts out from the wall, creating an optical illusion.

Phase of Nothingness—Water, Nobuo Sekine, 1969/2005, Steel, lacquer, and water, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund

The work Phase of Nothingness—Water (1968) continues Sekine’s engagement with topology. To illustrate these ideas, the artist juxtaposed two equivalent shapes—a cylinder and a rectangle—both containing the same volume of water. At first glance, it doesn’t appear that the shallow rectangular tank and the tall cylindrical tank both hold the exact same amount of water. Similar to his earlier outdoor sculpture Phase—Mother Earth, this work attempts to depict a sense of equivalence and emphasizes the continuity of form and material. These two shapes are not meant to be seen as opposites but as equals. As Sekine explains, “[T]he mass of the universe neither increases nor decreases. This is the universe of eternal sameness. When one becomes aware of this, then the futility of modern concepts of creation can be realized.”

I hope this blog helps explain some of the fascinating (and at times complicated) ideas that inform Sekine’s sculpture. The exhibition closes Sunday, so plan your visit to the DMA before it’s too late!

Gabriel Ritter is The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Caravaggio, Crime, and Conservation

Published July 18, 2012 Arts & Letters Live , Special Events , Staff 1 Comment
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Here at the Dallas Museum of Art, the month of July has turned into a celebration of art conservation.  On July 1, Mark Leonard began his tenure at the DMA as Chief Conservator. Mark began his career as a restorer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before heading west to the J. Paul Getty Museum, where he worked for twenty-six years. This Saturday, in conjunction with an Arts & Letters Live event, Mark will meet visitors in the galleries and discuss upcoming restoration work for Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre’s The Abduction of Europa. At 7:30 p.m., author Daniel Silva will be in conversation with Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the DMA, discussing his new book, The Fallen Angel. Silva is a celebrated “spy fiction ace,” and is known for his hero, Gabriel Allon. Gabriel has a longtime, on-again off-again relationship with Israel’s secret intelligence service, but he also happens to be one of the world’s finest restorers of old master paintings.

Mark Leonard, Chief Conservator at the Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Morning News has said that “in Gabriel Allon, Silva has created a credible secret agent with skills that would make James Bond weep.” Our very own Chief Conservator, Mark Leonard, also has a unique perspective that sets him apart from others in his field: He is an artist as well as a conservator.

Mark, as an artist, do you think you approach your work differently than your contemporaries? How has your work as a conservator affected your work as an artist?
Every artist approaches his work differently. By working with great works of art, from the old masters to contemporary artists, I’ve been able to learn from their work. Not every artist gets this opportunity!

Gabriel Allon is an art restorer by day and a spy and assassin by night. Mark, tell us about your night job as a painter.
For a while in my career, working with a brush in my hand every day, conserving someone else’s work was enough for me. About four or five years ago, I became aware that while I loved restoring paintings, it was really a blank panel that I wanted on my easel. In a series of geometric abstractions, I wanted to explore the theme of love and loss. If you have ever loved, you have experienced loss–the two are interwoven. That’s how I began working on this particular motif. In December of this year, an exhibition of my work inspired by John Constable’s “Cloud Studies” will be on display–side-by-side with the Constables–at the Yale Center for British Art.

Mark Leonard, “Triptych III,” March 2011, gouache and synthetic resin on panel, Private Collection, Austin, Texas

In Silva’s new novel, Gabriel Allon is sent to the Vatican to restore a Caravaggio masterpiece. Mark, in all of your experiences, can you tell us about a particularly challenging project you’ve worked on?
[He chuckles.] That would have to be a Caravaggio I worked on at the Met. “The Musicians” was heavily damaged. It took about six to eight months to bring it back to life. Restoring a painting could take as little as an afternoon to as long as several years.

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), “The Musicians,” c. 1595, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1952, 52.81, Image courtesy metmuseum.org

What are some of your upcoming plans for the DMA’s collection?  Is there any spy work in your near future?
The Museum is very excited about its plans to build a new paintings conservation studio. We are carefully planning for it to include a public space; we want to be able to share the work that we are doing with our visitors. In the meantime, I am planning on spending the next year really getting to know our collection. [He laughs.] I don’t think there is any spy work in my future here. He’ll leave that to Gabriel Allon.

For more information on Saturday’s event with Daniel Silva, please visit our website. For tickets and to register for the tour, call 214-922-1818.

Hayley Dyer is the Audience Relations Coordinator at the Dallas Museum of Art.

We’ve Looked at Clouds

Published June 28, 2012 Behind-the-Scenes , Center for Creative Connections , Education 1 Comment
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If you’ve come into the Center for Creative Connections (C3) within the past month you may have noticed a few changes in our space. Aside from new artworks in our Encountering Space exhibition, we have transformed one area into a Prototyping Station. What does that mean exactly? Well, in this space we use reproductions of works of art to engage our visitors in conversations. These conversations allow us to better understand visitors’ perspectives and inform our thinking in the development of exhibitions. For the past month, we have focused on three works of art from our collection.

We often have so much background information about a work of art that it is difficult to decide how much of it visitors need to know. There is a delicate balance between providing information and allowing visitors to learn through their own observations. While we did these tests, we only provided a minimal amount of information besides the image.

Our dialogues have included both face-to-face conversations and written responses to questions we’ve posed. We have documented these responses and decided to make word clouds to show you what we have received so far. Word clouds, or tag clouds, are a way of visualizing data. You enter text into a computer program, and it generates a visual representation of which words are repeated most often. The words that are used most often appear larger. Take a look at the following word clouds we generated based on visitors’ responses to the following:

“The title of this work of art is The Minotaur. Tell us what you know about the Minotaur.”

“We are looking for descriptive words for this work of art. List what comes to mind when you look at this picture.”

Marcel Dzama, “The Minotaur,” 2008, plaster, gauze, rope, fabric, chair, bucket, and paintbrushes, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, 2008.43.2.a-e, (c) Marcel Dzama

Jerry Bywaters, “Share Cropper,” 1937, oil on Masonite, Dallas Museum of Art, Allied Arts Civic Prize, Eighth Annual Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition, 1937.1

Visitors noticed many things, ranging from objects to emotions.Why is this process important? We want to gather input from visitors. Putting this testing area in the middle of the gallery allows visitors to see the process we use to develop interpretive components for a work of art. It also gives Museum-goers a chance to contribute information and a perspective that may be different from the staff’s, which is an important component of the C3 mission.

The next time you are at the Museum, stop by the C3 and share your responses in our new prototyping area.

Jessica Nelson is the C3 Gallery Coordinator at the Dallas Museum of Art.

An Introduction by Way of Road Trip

Published June 25, 2012 Curatorial , Staff 2 Comments
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As the newest member of the DMA’s curatorial team, I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce myself to the online community. I am from Los Angeles and have been actively engaged with contemporary art in one way or another for the past ten years. While in Los Angeles, I worked as the director of Blum & Poe gallery and then as a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Most recently, I’ve been working on my Ph.D. in art history at UCLA, and for the past year I was a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellow, researching at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. As the new Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, I will be in charge of the ongoing Concentrations series, which organizes exhibitions of work by emerging and under-represented artists.

Gabriel Ritter, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA

Being new to Texas, I thought a cross-country drive would be a great way to familiarize myself with my new surroundings. On our way from Los Angeles to Dallas, my wife and I decided to make a pilgrimage to the city of Marfa in West Texas, which the minimalist artist Donald Judd called home. As many of you know, the city houses both the Judd Foundation, which oversees the artist’s private estate, as well as the Chinati Foundation, which Judd founded as a contemporary art museum that presents large-scale, permanent public art installations by Judd and by artists Judd selected, including Carl Andrea, John Chamberlin, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, and John Wesley, among others. For me, a highlight of our visit was the rare glimpse into Judd’s private life. Seeing his neatly organized studio spaces used for contemplation and his winter bedroom adorned with his collection of Native American jewelry and pottery was a treat. In addition, walking through Donald Judd’s untitled works in mill aluminum (1982-1986) was a transformative experience. Installed in two former artillery sheds, which Judd adapted specifically to house this installation, the work consists of one hundred unique sculptural iterations that utilize the same outer dimension of 41 x 51 x 72 inches. Natural light floods the two sprawling exhibition halls and reflects off the metallic volumes in a way that continues to change as you walk through the space.

Image credit: www.chinati.org

The road to Marfa (and ultimately Dallas) took us through Phoenix, El Paso, Midland, and Abilene. On the way, we stopped by Elmgreen and Dragset’s roadside installation titled Prada Marfa (2005), which feels as if it dropped out of the sky. Literally in the middle of nowhere, with miles and miles of open road to either side, the installation mimics the Italian fashion brand’s posh boutiques but is in fact a nonfunctional storefront. At first we almost missed it and drove right past it, but then I quickly turned around so we could grab a shot of this mirage-like space on the highway. If you ever find yourself on I-90, stop by and check it out.

Prada Marfa (2005)

All-in-all it was a fun road trip and a great way to see the Texas countryside. We also enjoyed some great Tex Mex cuisine and even caught a concert at the local bar in Marfa. Now that I am settled in at the DMA, this will hopefully be the first of many blog posts focusing on contemporary art. I look forward to your comments, and I hope to meet you during your next visit to the Museum.

Gabriel Ritter is The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Summer Art Hopping

Published June 20, 2012 Staff 1 Comment
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With today being the first official day of summer, vacations are on the minds of the DMA staff. As employees of an art museum, we tend to include museums in our travel plans. Below are a few of our favorite museum visits and some we have on our “art bucket lists.”

Stacey Lizotte, Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services
One of my most memorable museum visits was to The Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy. I had always wanted to see Michelangelo’s David and walking towards it, down a hallway that was lined with more of Michelangelo’s uncompleted sculptures, was an amazing and powerful experience.

The museum(s) I am most looking forward to visit are the Tate museums in England (Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St. Ives). If I had to pick just one site to visit to just look at art it would be the Tate Modern, and if I had to pick one to visit for a program it would be Late at Tate Britain when that museum stays open until 10 p.m. the first Friday of every month and offers a variety of programs.

Tate Modern at night

Hillary Bober, Digital Archivist
My favorite museum is the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, for the simple reason that I really love glass. Glass is such a unique medium; you can create incredibly beautiful and delicate pieces or amazingly durable industrial stuff, and the museum covers it all. There are also glass making demonstrations, Make Your Own Glass projects – I made a blown glass bottle and a flameworked bead when I went – and extensive courses for beginner to professional. Of course, there is also a great gift shop – I do love a gift shop – and you can’t beat the Finger Lakes setting in upstate New York.

Along this same vein, a museum that I would really like to go to is the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum in Neenah, Wisconsin which holds a world-renowned collection of glass paperweights and other works in glass. Since my family lives in Wisconsin, a visit is definitely going at the top of my to-do list for my next trip home.

Wendi Kavanaugh, Member Outreach Manager
One of my favorite museums to visit outside of Dallas is the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The PMA is one of the largest Museums in the US with over 200 galleries. It’s easy to get lost in the PMA and end up in a room full of medieval armor – which I have done on one than one occasion.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

I would most like to visit the Musée National du Moyen Âge (National Museum of the Middle Ages) in Paris, France. A professor recently shared that this is his favorite museum in Paris, as someone that spent most of their life in the city – he’s one to trust.  After spending an hour (or so) on their website, it’s easy to see why you should visit.

National Museum of the Middle Ages by Giraud Patrick (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hayley Dyer, Audience Relations Coordinator
I had a great experience at the SFMOMA. The summer before my senior year of college I lived in San Francisco working for a jewelry designer.  As it was my first time in the city, I spent most of my free time exploring my temporary home.  One weekend I stopped by the SFMOMA and saw exhibitions of photography from Robert Frank and Richard Avedon; what a treat!  After I soaked up all the art inside the Museum, I headed up to the rooftop garden where I got an espresso from the coffee bar and read a book.  I think I treasure this experience because I was visiting the Museum alone.  I was able to have a personal connection with the artwork, the environment, and the city, and it wasn’t something that I had to share with anyone.

SFMOMA

The Museum I would like to visit is the Magritte Museum. Located in Brussels, Belgium, the Magritte Museum is the home of Belgium’s Royal Museums of Fine Arts’ collection of works by René Magritte.  Widely known as the painter of The Son of Man, aka The Guy in the Bowler Hat with an Apple on His Face, René Magritte is my favorite surrealist painter.  His colorful paintings feature his wonderful sense of humor.  Check out the Museum on YouTube.

Magritte Museum

Brent Mitchell, Registrar, Loans & Exhibitions
My favorite museum is the Museo Nacional Del Prado in Madrid. I had the pleasure of visiting on my first trip abroad, and I make sure to stop by every time I find myself in the city. My initial aim was to see the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, but with so many stellar works throughout the museum, every gallery holds special promise for visitors. I remember turning around after viewing a Botticelli painting and finding myself in front of the rather remarkable painting Dead Christ held up by an Angel by Antonella de Messina. It has become one of my favorite depictions of Christ.

Bosch in the Prado

If I’m ever fortunate enough to find myself in Italy, I will head to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It would be great to see Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Titian’s Venus of Urbino.

Uffizi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Martha MacLeod, Curatorial Administrative Assistant/European and American Art Department
Visiting the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was on my “must visit” list for a very long time.  The old building is a fabulous piece of architecture and houses works by many of my favorite American artists.  Three years ago, I received a research grant to go there.  When I took a break from my work to wander through the building, I came upon a large studio filled with many plaster casts.  Suddenly it struck me that I may well have been standing in the same space where Thomas Eakins once taught life-drawing classes over 140 years ago.

Another place on my “must visit” list is not a museum per se, but I want to go to the Boston Public Library to see John Singer Sargent’s mural cycle The Triumph of Religion.  I have wanted to see it firsthand ever since I wrote a paper about it when I was in graduate school.  Until I make a trek there, the poster on my office wall of Frieze of the Prophets, which is part of the mural cycle, will have to suffice.

Martha’s private Boston Public Library

Kimberly Daniell, PR Specialist
My favorite Museum in the entire world is Musée de l’Orangerie, I have to visit every time I am in Paris. The museum is located in the beautiful Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre and Seine, how could you go wrong? I fell in love with Monet in elementary school and experiencing a room filled with his large Nymphéas paintings is amazing. I think it may be one of the most peaceful galleries I have ever been to.

Monet in the Musée de l’Orangerie

The Museum I desperately want to visit is Museo Nacional Del Prado. Other than being located in Madrid, I have to see Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez’s Las Meninas (The Family of Felipe IV). Luckily the Prado already has a three hour tour, with Las Meninas as a stop, ready for me!

Las Meninas (Photo Credit: Museo Nacional Del Prado)

South Dallas Cultural Center in the C3 House

Published May 30, 2012 Behind-the-Scenes , Center for Creative Connections 1 Comment
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If you have stopped by the DMA’s Center for Creative Connections recently, you might have noticed our fourth Community Partner Response Installation near the Space Bar. The South Dallas Cultural Center (SDCC) created Free Association, a 12-foot-tall multimedia, interactive installation that includes a music composition station and a choreography instructional video. You can experience the installation through October.

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