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Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture

Published December 17, 2009 works of art 1 Comment
Tags: artworks, Haiti, Jacob Lawrence, Revolution, screen prints

On December 6, Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture opened at the DMA (on view through May 23, 2010). This exhibition of fifteen silkscreen prints illustrates scenes from the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a man who played an important role in the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Born a slave, Toussaint learned to read and write and worked his way up through the ranks to become commander in chief of the revolutionary army. The prints in the exhibition chronicle not only Toussaint’s rise to power, but also the events that led to Haiti becoming the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere.

Jacob Lawrence, General Toussaint L'Ouverture, 1987

Jacob Lawrence began creating this series of prints in 1986, but they were based on a series of paintings that he completed in 1938 when he was just 21 years old. It’s fascinating to me that an artist living and working in the 20th century would be interested in a little-known leader of a revolution that happened in the early 19th century. There is a great quote from Jacob Lawrence that explains why Toussaint was such an important figure to him:

“I’ve always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in public schools…I don’t see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro. I didn’t do it just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today. We don’t have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery. If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we certainly can do the same thing.” (quoted in Jacob Lawrence: The Complete Prints, 1963-2000: a catalog raisonné, edited by Peter T. Nesbitt, p. 16.)

: Jacob Lawrence, The Opener, 1997

We are offering a variety of programs for students and teachers focusing on this exhibition, including a Teacher Workshop on February 6, 2010. We are also offering docent-guided tours of the exhibition; because it is a small focus exhibition, docents will be using three themes–narrative and biography, commemoration, and leaders–to make connections between the screen prints in the exhibition and works of art in our African and American galleries. I hope that you’ll join us to explore The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture!

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Community Connection: Contemporary Art and a Beluga Whale

Published December 15, 2009 Art & Teaching , People , works of art 3 Comments
Tags: Art, Community Connection, Contemporary Art, teacher workshop, The Rachofsky House

Thomas Feulmer is the Director of Educational Programming at The Rachofsky House and is a regular collaborator with the DMA. We always look forward to his fresh ideas and perceptive insights related to works of art and artists.

Describe your work at The Rachofsky House. What is your favorite part of your job?

As Director of Educational Programming, I do anything involving schools or the public having any interaction with the Rachofsky House. My favorite part of my job is being around the works of art and being around original objects. I also like the creative element of having to improvise in front of groups and having to think on your feet.

Thomas talks about a work of art at the 2009 Museum Forum for Teachers.

Tell us about your relationship with the DMA.

I work collaboratively with Molly Kysar on Programs for Teachers based on Contemporary Art. I’ve also worked with Nicole Stutzman on the Travis Academy Program. The UT Southwestern Medical School class “The Art of Observation”, led by DMA docents Margaret Anne Cullum and Joanna Pistenmaa, visit The Rachofsky House once during the semester. I also participate in the development of some programs and exhibitions, in part by talking about artists and artworks that are in both the Rachofsky Collection and the DMA collections or are on loan to the DMA.

If you could take home any work of art from the Rachofsky Collection, what would you choose?

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio, 1964

One of the first things that comes to mind is the Lucio Fontana piece Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio. It’s one of the works that every time I stand in front of it, I think it’s incredible. When I’m looking at that piece, I feel like I’m looking at a real, sincere thing that is about exploring and is about a rich and deep thinking on the artists’s part.

How would you describe your personal work as an artist?

Most of my work looks at relationships: relationships between people, and more recently, relationships between people and animals. It is also about how intimacy is managed and expressed and how desire and attraction are managed and expressed. One of the big themes in my recent show is about my relationship with a beluga whale. I like the notion that most people have a desire to have a pure relationship with an animal and we project a lot of our purist ideas about love and desire onto animals because they seem so unguarded, I guess. I love that we project all those purist things onto animals, but, to have an experience with a beluga whale it had to happen at Sea World, which is a big place. The whale is trained and follows commands, and ultimately the experience is all controlled – which, in a way, is how all interactions are. See Thomas’s recent work at New Work by Rebecca Carter and Thomas Feulmer, open December 5-20, 2009 at 500X.

Does your job have an impact on your own work as an artist?

Yes, because I can come into contact with so much art and I feel like I get such a great sampling of contemporary ideas and contemporary culture. It’s like constant research for how to create meaning or visual culture in the contemporary world.

Meet Thomas during our two-part January Teacher Workshop on Contemporary Art, which takes place at the Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky House.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Learning Partnerships with the Community

Hoffman Galleries Reinstalled

Published December 10, 2009 Museum Insight , works of art 1 Comment
Tags: Contemporary, exhibition, Gregory Crewdson, photograph, The Rachofsky House, workshop

Charlie Wylie, the Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art, recently completed his reinstallation of the Hoffman galleries on the first floor of the museum. The installation addresses narrative in contemporary art, specifically the “continuing ability of art in whatever form to express narratives of what it can feel like to be alive in the present moment,” as the wall text states. The reinstallation features such artists as Peter Doig and Marlene Dumas, both notable for their recent inclusion at TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art, the annual charity auction held at The Rachofsky House benefiting amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) and the Dallas Museum of Art.

In addition to these painters and work by many other artists, the galleries currently contain installations by Tatsuo Miyajima and Erick Swenson, mixed media work by Vernon Fisher, and photographs by Matthew Barney and Gregory Crewdson. Both Barney and Crewdson also have work in All the World’s a Stage, another special exhibition on view at the DMA. Barney’s photographs (and other mixed media works) reference a series of five films of enormous scope called The Cremaster Cycle, quite specifically referencing narrative. Crewdson’s art, on the other hand, centers around the idea of open or false narratives but evokes similar feelings of theatricality. Crewdson himself says, “And what I’m very, very interested in is a moment that hovers between before and after, a moment that is unresolved, that remains a question…”

Untitled (House in the Road)

To achieve this suspended moment, clear in both Untitled (brief encounter) and Untitled (House in the Road), Crewdson literally constructs his scenes, utilizing stage crews and props to form the subject matter which he then photographs. Tension plays a large part in his artwork, both literally for the artist through his chaotic process of realizing these staged spectacles as well as for the viewer stepping into enormously detailed scenes with no frame of reference beyond the image itself.

If you’d like to get a closer look at Gregory Crewdson’s artwork, in addition to the other works on view at the DMA and The Rachofsky House, sign up for our two-part January Teacher Workshop on Contemporary Art!

Logan Acton
McDermott Intern in Teaching Programs

TAG, You're It!

Published December 3, 2009 Art & Teaching , Creativity , works of art Closed
Tags: School Partnership, students

One of the DMA’s longest running partnerships is with Dallas ISD’s Talented and Gifted (TAG) program. For the past 21 years, 4th – 6th grade students explore works of art from all times and places through interactive experiences like dramatic interpretation, debate, writing, and sketching. Since 2000, each visit focuses on a BIG Idea question like “How is a work of art powerful?,” “How is place important?, ”How is perspective used in works of art?,” and “What do works of art tell us about the past, present, and future?” These open-ended questions support a variety of answers which may relate to students’ life experiences and prior knowledge.

Students from Botello Elementary create verb sculptures using words (i.e. symmetry) that Richard Serra may have used to create his sculptures. They looked Richard Serra's "Untitled" for inspiration.

This year, like the many years before, has been fantastic! There are 20 schools participating in this four-visit program with two Museum visits and two classroom visits. Each of these visits lasts for 2 hours and are led by docents and Museum staff. The TAG teachers commit to having the same 20-25 students participate in the program and it is exciting to see the student’s growth with each visit as they think critically and share creative answers to these BIG Idea questions.

The fall semester began in the classroom with “What does it mean to be an art investigator?,” which focused on looking closely and investigating visual clues in portraits and landscapes, creating verb-inspired sculptures using modeling material, and making connections between music and Claude-Joseph Vernet’s painting, Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm.

Students from Reinhardt Elementary used their arms and hands to mimic similar gestures expressed in Jackson Pollock's "Portrait and a Dream" and Franz Kline's "Slate Cross."

During Visit 2, students considered the question “How are emotions and gestures expressed in works of art?” as they posed like figures in works of art featured in the All the World’s a Stage exhibition, explored the expressive and emotive qualities of line and color, and created a sequence of events based on contemporary photography by artists, Charlie White and Gregory Crewdson.

The BIG Ideas for the final two visits are “What are ways cultures can influence each other?” and “What are the connections between art, music, dance, and theater?” Be sure to look for an update about the TAG Museum program when I blog about the visits later in the spring!

Until next time…

Jenny Marvel
Manager of Learning Partnerships with Schools

Francois Boucher Paintings in European Gallery

Published November 19, 2009 works of art Closed
Tags: European Art, Francois Boucher, Mythology

The second floor European gallery was recently reinstalled, and among the new works of art is a series of four mythological paintings by the French court painter Francois Boucher. The paintings are on loan from the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. The works of art included in the installation are Mercury Confiding the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs of Nysa, Boreas Abducting Oreithyia, Venus at Vulcan’s Forge, and Juno Asking Aeolus to Release the Winds. All of these paintings were produced for Jean-Francois Bergeret de Frouville in 1769, the year before Boucher died.

What a wonderful sight these paintings are! When I see them in person, I am always amazed at their large scale. Light pinks, greens, and blues express the grandness of eighteenth-century French Rococo art in the hands of Boucher. Each painting was carefully composed by the artist using diagonal lines to form each scene and arranging the mythological figures in the foreground and in the sky. Boucher has given these figures the curves of voluptuous women and muscular men.

Boucher portrays each god or goddess with his or her attributes to tell each story. For instance, in Venus at Vulcan’s Forge, Vulcan is seen leaning forward giving Venus a sword, completely under her powers and submissive to her will. In fact, he is in love with Venus, which Boucher indicates with the doves and putti on his lap. In the lower right corner, a three-eyed figure in Vulcan’s forge is shaping steel to make weapons. Above the main scene the sky is revealed to show putti and other figures looking on at Venus and Vulcan.

To see photographs of these paintings being installed in the European gallery, visit the DMA’s Flickr site.

Amy Wolf
Teaching Programs Coordinator

Artist is the New Astronaut

Published November 17, 2009 Art & Teaching , works of art Closed
Tags: Art of the Lone Star State, Go van Gogh, tag, Texas Art

During the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to visit classrooms throughout the Dallas Independent School District, teaching 1st-6th graders about works of art in the DMA’s collection. Educational outreach programs like Go van Gogh and the museum’s Talented and Gifted (TAG) program reach hundreds of kids each month, and so far I’ve met some great kids with some great art insights. Here are a few stories from my first months at the museum:

Last week I was out in the community visiting David G. Burnet Elementary School. I was teaching a Go van Gogh program called Art of the Lone Star State to a group of excited fourth graders. We had just finished looking at four works of art by Texas artists. To wrap up, I asked, “What was your favorite work of art that you saw today?” One student raised his hand, looked out the window, and pointed to the Go van Gogh van parked in the school parking lot—“THAT!” he said. Is the van art? This budding artist seemed to think so.

"Get Along Little Dogies," from Art of the Lone Star State

Art with Four Legs

Art with Four Wheels

A few days ago I was walking through the hallways of Felix Botello Elementary carrying my Go van Gogh bag, and I heard a student whisper to his friend, “It’s the museum man!” As I passed by, he slapped me a high-five. Walking into the classroom, another student excitedly shouted, “It’s an artist!” As it turns out, they were the artists that day; they made extraordinary model chairs out of ordinary materials like straws and tin foil.

Yesterday I visited James B. Bonham Elementary, teaching a Go van Gogh program called Creative Connections: Ordinary to Extraordinary. I asked one student how his art project was coming along— “This is the best day of my life!” he said. Another student said, “When I grow up, I want to be an artist!” I’m glad to see that artist is the new astronaut.

If you’re a teacher or a parent and I’ve mentioned your school, let us know. We’d love to hear from you. As more stories come in, I’ll keep you updated.

Justin Greenlee

Learning Partnerships Intern

JGreenlee@DallasMuseumofArt.org

New Friday Photo Posts

Published November 13, 2009 Friday Photos , works of art 3 Comments
Tags: Berthe Morisot, corot, Delacroix, Eugène Delacroix, jean baptiste camille corot, lawrence, morisot, thomas lawrence

We have started a new weekly feature: a photo post each Friday. A different staff member will post a few photos each week. This week, my “Friday Photos” are details of a few of my favorite artworks in the gorgeous new reinstallation of our European galleries.

Molly Kysar
Head of Teaching Programs

Detail of The Bath of Diana by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, c. 1855

Detail of Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban by Eugene Delacroix, c. 1827

Detail of Portrait of the Honorable Mrs. Seymour Bathurst by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1828

Detail of Winter (Woman with a Muff) by Berthe Morisot, 1880

Connect: Teachers, Technology, and Art

Published November 10, 2009 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , works of art 4 Comments
Tags: Africa, grant, IMLS, online teaching materials, South Asia, teachers, Technology

Our work on a new grant project, Connect: Teachers, Technology, and Art, has officially begun! Through the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and their Museums for America grant program, the DMA was awarded $150,000 in October 2009 to begin redesigning online teaching materials. Over the course of the next two years, we will work to create five new dynamic, web-based resource units that present the wealth of our collections in African and South Asian art. How will we do it? Thoughtfully, by connecting these three things:

Teachers: Results from a 2007 evaluation with 450 teachers, which focused on how teachers learn and teach with art, will inform the initial selection and organization of artwork images and information. Staff will also collaborate closely with twenty teachers, who will help design and test the new teaching resources in their classrooms. How do you currently use the Museum’s online teaching materials? We welcome your comments!

Technology: Digital images, video, and audio, similar to those on DMAtv, will enliven the resources by providing extended information about works of art and cultures. Imagine all of this packaged into custom units that are easy for teachers to access, search, and share with students.

Art: Works of art from Africa and South Asia will be the focus for the five new resource units. The units will reflect recent curatorial scholarship and upcoming catalogue publications for both collections. They will also highlight artworks recently added to the collection, such as the olumeye from Nigeria and the Buddha Sakyamuni from Thailand.

Kneeling female figure with bowl (olumeye)

Buddha Sakyamuni

Grant work to tackle over the next two months includes taking inventory of great images, information, video, and audio content related to the African and South Asian artworks, as well as selecting ten teachers to begin collaborating with staff. If you would like to hear more about the grant, please feel free to email us. Also look for future progress reports on the Connect project here on the blog or delivered via the Educator Newsletter.

Nicole Stutzman
Director of Learning Partnerships with Schools and the Community
nstutzman@DallasMuseumofArt.org

Jenny Marvel
Manager of Learning Partnerships with Schools
jmarvel@DallasMuseumofArt.org

Is it a slug? The letter "j"? A prehistoric sea creature?

Published November 6, 2009 Art & Teaching , Creativity , works of art Closed
Tags: afterschool program, Center for Creative Connections, Dorothea Tanning, Materials and Meanings, Pincushion to Serve as Fetish

Dorothea Tanning’s Pincushion to Serve as Fetish has inspired me to create a soft sculpture project for our afterschool program. All it took was some cool fabric, a stapler, polyester stuffing, and a hot glue gun.

I tested the project first and made an example before introducing it to the students. What does it look like to you?

The students were really excited about their fabric choices.

Pincushion to Serve as Fetish, Dorothea Tanning, 1979

Inspiration for the project. See Pincushion to Serve as Fetish in the Center for Creative Connections.

Artist Spotlight: Yinka Shonibare MBE

Published November 5, 2009 Museum Insight , works of art Closed
Tags: exhibition, performance, Shonibare

One of the Dallas Museum of Art’s most recent and exciting exhibitions, Performance/Art, centers around contemporary works of art. Along with paintings and installations, the exhibition includes two films, one by Eija-Liisa Ahtila and the other by Yinka Shonibare. Shonibare’s film, Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball), is based on an opera by the same name by Giuseppe Verdi and is a visual spectacle that will attract and intrigue visitors.

Un ballo in maschera, Yinka Shonibare MBE

While the story underlying Shonibare’s film is interesting (the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden), so too is the real life of the artist. Shonibare was born in London in 1962 but raised in Nigeria. This duality of experience and identity is explored in much of his work, which extends beyond film and includes sculpture, painting, photography, and installation. As apparent in the brilliant costumes in Un ballo in maschera, Shonibare frequently works with dyed fabrics which complicate issues of history, colonialism, and our global economy.

Shonibare’s art delves into complex ideas, often layered with multiple points of view, and he emphasizes the aesthetic experience in the process. Some works, such as Lady on Unicycle and Hopscotch, both large-scale installations, include mannequins dressed in Dutch wax-printed cotton. Others, like Dorian Gray, are two-dimensional and include less flamboyant imagery, in this case neutral-colored prints.

Since being awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005, Shonibare has taken the honorary title as part of everyday usage of his name. This small action hints at what much of his artwork overtly discusses, specifically the ambiguous and contradictory relationship he has with his nationality and identity. More information about Yinka Shonibare and his artwork can be found online at Art:21.

If you would like to experience Un ballo in maschera as well the other works in Performance/Art and All the World’s a Stage, come to our Teacher Workshop this Saturday, November 7, where we will be going through the exhibitions and talking about performance. To sign up, e-mail teacherprograms@DallasMuseumofArt.org or select the Teacher Programs link on our ticketing Web site to register online.

Logan Acton
McDermott Teaching Programs Intern

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Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

Archive for the 'works of art' Category

Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture

Community Connection: Contemporary Art and a Beluga Whale

Hoffman Galleries Reinstalled

TAG, You're It!

Francois Boucher Paintings in European Gallery

Artist is the New Astronaut

New Friday Photo Posts

Connect: Teachers, Technology, and Art

Is it a slug? The letter "j"? A prehistoric sea creature?

Artist Spotlight: Yinka Shonibare MBE

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