Archive for the 'Second Thursdays with a Twist' Category

Time Travel at the DMA

This week we had a special visitor who traversed through time and space in advance of our November 8 Second Thursdays with a Twist all about Doctor Who. For his tour through the Museum, he said he would like to see some people and places that he’s traveled through time to visit. We were happy to oblige, mostly because we didn’t want him to use his sonic screwdriver on us. As he was walking through the Museum, he also found a few artworks featuring people and places he had not encountered and he wanted to learn more about those too.

The Doctor hadn’t yet met George Washington, so he was eager to see his portrait:

No trip to the DMA is complete without a stop at Frederic Edwin Church’s The Icebergs:

A future iteration of the Doctor met Vincent van Gogh, so naturally we had to show him Sheaves of Wheat:

And here are a few of the other stops he made in our galleries:

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When you visit the DMA on November 8 for our next Second Thursdays with a Twist, you, too, can go back in time to see Winston Churchill, the Aztecs, and many other important historical characters through our scavenger hunt and warp drive tours that’ll have you exploring all that timey wimey stuff!

Katie Cooke is the Manager of Adult Programs at the DMA.

Material Girls (and a Guy)

To make browsing through our online collection easier, there are filters to see smaller samples so you aren’t wading through thousands of artworks. For instance, you can search through culture of origin or look at the period in which an artwork was made—maybe you enjoy 18th-century French, or you want to go back to B.C.E. But one place where you might not normally look is our section labeled “Medium,” which lets you know how each artwork was made and what it is made from. While there are plenty of works made with oil paint, bronze, and marble, there are also those made of neon, bone, and soda cans.

What better time to showcase the interesting materials in our collection than the same week we celebrate the original “Material Girl” herself, Madonna. Second Thursdays with a Twist on September 13 is all about Madonna’s style, music, and the decade she helped shape: the 1980s. Until then, you can learn more about the materials in our collection that, like Madonna herself, are anything but ordinary!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Prostitutes, c. 1893–95, pastel on emery board, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.75

There are unique materials scattered among all the cultures that make up our collection. As you look at the different materials, some might stick out as interesting or odd, but for the artist making that piece it would not have been such a strange choice. This is the case in the pastel work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in which he used emery board, or emery cloth, as the base. This has similar qualities to sandpaper—slightly rough and coarse compared to traditional canvas. Using a delicate medium like pastel on something that will rip apart the creamy texture was a technique he learned from studying 18th-century pastellistes. Lautrec used the technique to create the beautiful, modeled shadows on the woman’s back with the heavier application of pastel. Although today we might think of emery board as an interesting material, at the time the work was created it would have been somewhat traditional for the pastel medium.

Meg Webster, Untitled (Turmeric), date unknown, jade adhesive on arches paper, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Caroline and Michael Van Valkenburgh, 2017.47.3, © Meg Webster

Contemporary artist Meg Webster was influenced by the Land art movement in the 1970s and studied under Michael Heizer. This influence led her to work primarily in sculpture using natural elements like plants. Webster’s untitled work in our collection is not a sculpture but one of her works on paper. These works share the same focus on the earth and connection to nature with her use of materials such as soil, ash, beeswax, and spices. Untitled uses turmeric to create a textured, dyed element on the paper. She uses natural materials in this series, but on a more intimate scale compared to her room-sized works with living plants. Using natural elements to dye or paint isn’t new, but using turmeric in its raw form shows Webster’s ability to create art without changing the natural form of the materials she uses, while also giving the piece a multisensory effect through smell and the visually distinct color.

Deborah Butterfield, Horse #6-82 – Steel, 1982, sheet aluminum, wire, and tar, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Edward S. Marcus Fund, 1982.96.FA, © 1982 Deborah Butterfield, Bozeman, Montana

Artist Deborah Butterfield has been making organic sculptures of horses almost her entire career. She has experimented with many different materials to make the animals to scale. In her early career, she used mostly wood and organic materials. The horse in our collection is made from steel, sheet aluminum, wire, and tar during the period in which Butterfield used mainly found metals to make the horse’s form. Even though the materials are rough, she contrasts them by creating smooth, precise forms, making the inorganic look organic. Butterfield is still working today, and now combines the materials from earlier in her career. She finds wood to create the shape of the horse, and then casts the pieces in bronze and reassembles it, Combining the two mediums to make one sculpture.

Katie Cooke is Manager of Adult Programs at the DMA.

As You Wish

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. It has everything a classic fairy tale should—sword fights, castles, intrigue, large rodents, pirates, even (*gasp*) kissing!

Therefore, my excitement knows no bounds as our Second Thursday with a Twist this week is themed As You Wish—a fun night exploring themes between our collection and The Princess Bride.

You’ll be able to watch a fencing demonstration, take a scavenger hunt through the Museum, and listen to actors dramatically read passages from the book.

To prepare you for an inconceivable night, I wanted to share some works of art from our collection that remind me of characters or scenes from the movie:

The Dread Pirate Roberts is swoon-worthy and mysterious—as is Le Captaine.

Debbie Fleming Caffery, Le Captaine, Louisiana, 1995, gelatin silver print, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of DMA Friends of Photography, 1998.127

The Dread Pirate Roberts first appears at the Cliffs of Insanity, and I always imagine that this painting could have inspired them.

Thomas Cole, The Fountain of Vaucluse, 1841, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J. E. R. Chilton, 1992.14

Atop the Cliffs of Insanity, the most epic fencing scene takes place, and every time I walk by this painting I think of Inigo Montoya and automatically say “You killed my father, prepare to die!”

Michael Sweerts, Portrait of a Gentleman, possibly a Member of the Deutz Family, 1648–49, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle Collection, gift of the Hoblitzelle Foundation, 1987.25

For those who love Fezzik, Untitled (big/small figure) features our resident giant.

Tom Friedman, Untitled (big/small figure), 2004, styrofoam and paint, promised gift of the Dallas Museum of Art Board of Trustees to the Dallas Museum of Art in honor of John Eagle; Dallas Museum of Art through the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, © Tom Friedman, 2004.33.a-c

One of Fezzik’s memorable lines is “Anybody want a peanut?” So try not to start a rhyming game when you see this gold weight in the Power of Gold exhibition.

Goldweight, Asante peoples, possibly, mid-20th century, brass and copper alloys, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg, 2000.229.86.FA

The battle of wits between Westley and Vizzini brings us another classic scene: “Are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s?”

Goblet (one of a pair), George B. Sharp for Bailey & Co., c. 1864, silver, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Jo Kurth Jagoda in memory of Constance Owsley Garrett, 1989.20.2

There are three things to fear in the Fire Swamp, and whenever I see this painting I think if I went just beyond the trees I might step on a fire spurt, fall into some quicksand, or encounter an R.O.U.S.

Narcisse–Virgile Diaz de la Peña, Forest of Fontainebleau, 1868, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund, 1991.14.M

Speaking of R.O.U.S.es—while this rat is not an unusual size, it clearly has no problem attacking a human and eating his nose!

Large jar: figure with rat eating the nose, Moche culture, 400–600 CE, ceramic, slip, and paint, Dallas Museum of Art, The Nora and John Wise Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jake L. Hamon, the Eugene McDermott Family, Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, and Mr. and Mrs. John D. Murchison, 1976.W.116

Killer rodents aside, if you are a fan of TRU WUV be sure to join us on Thursday night!

Stacey Lizotte is the DMA League Director of Adult Programs at the DMA.

Ladies Night

For next week’s Second Thursdays with a Twist, we’re celebrating the powerful women who made waves in the art world with Who Run the World? Even though the night will focus on female artists in our collection, we are adding some Beyoncé and other strong women into the night as well. While we love highlighting artists from our collection, like Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, and Mary Cassatt, we thought for a night like this we would show off other amazing artists that you might not know that much about.

Anne Vallayer-Coster, Bouquet of Flowers in a Blue Porcelain Vase, 1776, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund and gift of Michael L. Rosenberg, 1998.52.FA

Anne Vallayer-Coster was born into an artistic family; her mother made miniatures and her father was a goldsmith to many wealthy patrons. When she was 26 years old, she was unanimously voted into the Académie Royale in Paris. This was an enormous accomplishment because they only allowed four women in at a time. In 1780 she was named as the portrait painter for Marie Antoinette and became very popular in the court; she was known to be a confidant to the queen. In the period leading up to the French Revolution, she was critiqued harshly after an exhibition and from that point forward only painted still lifes. She mastered decadent bouquets and created beautiful, detailed works like those in the DMA’s collection.

Alice Kent Stoddard, Fisherman’s Little Sister, 1915, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1917.4

Alice Kent Stoddard focused mainly on portraits, landscapes, and seascapes. Stoddard studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, after which she studied under William Merritt Chase and Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She was a member of the Plastic Club, which was the first all-women’s art group in the United States. During World War I, Stoddard depicted the US regiments and French refugees to garner support for the war effort back in the states. That wasn’t the end of her wartime career: during World War II, she continued to serve her country the best way she could. She began working as a mechanical draftsperson for the Budd Company, a leading manufacturer of airplanes. Stoddard also served as a combat painter on the European front. She was one of the most prominent portrait painters of her time and was the first female artist to be named in Who’s Who in American Art.

Henrietta Mary Shore, Waterfall, c. 1922, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Boeckman Mayer Family Fund of the Foundation for the Arts, 2015.24.FA

Henrietta Shore was born in Canada and had an early interest in art. She also had a deep connection with nature, which ended up being the focus of her work. Shore moved to New York in her twenties to continue her studies in painting under Robert Henri. She eventually moved to California and painted in an artist colony in Carmel. She was able to sell paintings and gained acclaim while there, but she became increasingly frustrated with critics. They would try to connect her sexuality with her abstracted paintings of nature, even though she had not intended those connections. She said that she painted a semi-abstracted “life rhythm” and did not want to be placed in any “school” or “ism.” She did not want to be defined. Her masterful simplification of natural forms makes her one of the best artists of her time that you have probably never heard of.

If you want to know more about these and other amazing artists in our collection, come out to Second Thursdays with a Twist on November 9 from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. You can find the full schedule of events here.

Katie Cooke is Manager of Adult Programming at the DMA.

Second Thursdays with a Twist

Does your typical Thursday night have the dance moves of Michael Jackson, a “potions” class for adults, a tour about beautiful backsides, live covers of the best 80s music, and storm troopers? Would you like it to? If your answer is yes, then you’re going to love our new line-up for Second Thursdays with a Twist!

All year round, every Second Thursday of the month, we are looking at our collection with a pop culture twist. If this program sounds familiar, it’s because this program is The Artist Formerly Known as Off the Wall. We thought we would change up the name, but keep the same day, same time and same fun! We are kicking off the new name and new season of themes this Thursday with Don’t You Forget About Me. The night will have all the 1980’s nostalgia you can handle, a photo booth, a Ferris Bueller themed tour and more.

We hope you all will come out and enjoy Second Thursdays with a Twist, we had so much fun coming up with ideas for these themes and we hope that you will have even more fun experiencing them!

August 10: Don’t You Forget About Me

Geoff Winningham, High School Prom, negative 1973, print 1976, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Prestonwood National Bank, 1981.36.11

September 14: Smooth Criminal

Ralph Gibson, Untitled, 1972, gelatin silver print, Dallas Museum of Art, Polaroid Foundation grant, 1977.79

October 12: Mischief Managed

Owl effigy, Arts of the Americas, 20th century, ceramic, slip, and paint, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bywaters, 1963.179

November 9: Who Run the World?

Anna Hyatt Huntington, Joan of Arc, modeled, 1910; cast c. 1915, bronze, Dallas Museum of Art, Kiest Memorial Fund, 1924.3

December 14: In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Dan Flavin, alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd), March 2, 1964, daylight and cool white fluorescent tubing, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Janie C. Lee, 1976.74.A-G

January 11: Ice Ice Baby

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

Katie Cooke is Manager of Adult Programming at the DMA

 

 

 


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