Posts Tagged 'DMA Overnight'

A Year of Launches, Anniversaries, and Free at the DMA

The year 2013 has been an exciting one at the DMA. We’ve welcomed more than 540,000 visitors, launched new programs, and hosted 11 exhibitions. Below are a few of the Uncrated team’s favorite highlights from the past year.

      • Going free!
        We returned to free general admission on January 21 and have loved every minute of opening our doors for free to the North Texas community.
      • Getting more than 41,000 new friends
        In January we launched DMA Friends, the first free museum membership program, and our new friends have been earning points on their visits and redeeming them for unique rewards for almost 12 months!
      • DMA sleepover
        Speaking of unique rewards, we hosted our first DMA Overnight in November. Ten DMA Friends redeemed 100,000 points to spend the night at the Museum with a guest while exploring the galleries after hours, participating in new DMA games and sleeping under the watchful eyes of Tlaloc.
        Overnight Guests
      • C3 got a facelift
        Come by and see new works of art and activities for all ages in the front gallery of the Center for Creative Connections on Level 1.
      • A sky of denim
        The DMA co-organized exhibition Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take (on view through January 12!) is full of beautiful and interesting works of art, but we had the privilege of being the first venue to ever show his denim work Untitled (one day it all comes true). It was amazing getting to witness Jim Hodges viewing his completed work on display for the first time.
        hodges
      • Happy Anniversary!
        This was the year of anniversaries here at the DMA, including the 110th birthday of the DMA, the 80th anniversary of the Dallas Free Public Art Gallery becoming the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the 50th anniversary of the merger of the DMFA and DMCA, the 30th anniversary of the DMA Sculpture Garden opening, the 20th anniversary of the Hamon Building opening (which includes Level 4 and the Atrium), Arturo’s 10th birthday, and the 5th anniversary of C3.
      • From Greece to Dallas
        We had a year of amazing exhibitions, from a celebration of President Kennedy in Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy to the colorful world of Chagall’s sculptures, drawings and costumes in Chagall:Beyond Color, from the famous Discus Thrower from the British Museum in The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece to welcoming the local art community in DallasSITES: Available Space.
      • Art/Arte
        This fall we launched our first-ever bilingual (Spanish and English) guide for visitors, written by members of the Dallas community through a partnership program with AVANCE-Dallas and Make Art With Purpose. Pick one up at the Visitor Services Desk on your next visit.
      • Texas hops and barley
        This summer we had a Texas beer social for Museum staff and sampled brews that come from the Lone Star State. Uncrated team member Melissa Nelson Gonzales out- sipped the competition and won the beer tasting contest!
        beer
      • Eyes of the  Ancestors
        In June we celebrated the publication of our catalogue Eyes of the Ancestors: The Arts of Island Southeast Asia at the Dallas Museum of Art and welcomed special guest Dhalang Purbo Asmoro, who hosted a public gamelan and wayang performance with musicians from Java, Bali and New York. This month, the book was named the winner of the 2013 International Tribal Art Book Prize.
        Indonesian_Celebration_Wayang_Performance_2013_047
      • Creative rest stop
        We launched a new program this year, the Pop-Up Art Spot, taking C3 into the galleries and inviting visitors to enjoy a creative break while exploring the Museum. Over 12,000 visitors of all ages have participated in drawing, writing and other creative activities!
      • New digs
        In 2013 a portion of the south end of the building was under renovation for the new DMA Paintings Conservation Studio (watch the transition here). Visitors can see into the DMA’s Conservation Studio and explore the conservation process in the adjacent gallery for free during Museum hours. A recent conservation project, Daniel Buren’s Sanction of the Museum, hangs in the Concourse and leads the way to the studio.
        conservationburen
      • A Texas-size howdy!
        Our Visitor Services Team, which greets every guest of the DMA when they walk through our doors or visit the galleries, also got a makeover. You may have noticed their friendly smiles and new outfits during your visits this year.
        GA

Thank you for helping us make 2013 a great year. We wish you a very happy new year!

Kimberly Daniell is the manager of communications and public affairs at the DMA.

Sleeping with Art: Not in the Biblical Sense

A year ago, before the launch of DMA Friends, we were brainstorming unique and fun rewards to offer. One idea we all jumped on was to hold a DMA Overnight at the Museum. We decided that this would be the “big reward” for DMA Friends to redeem, worth 100,000 points!

Ten months later, ten DMA Friends had earned enough points to redeem the reward. So on Friday, November 1, we hosted our first DMA Overnight!

The Overnight Crew!

The Overnight Crew!

We started planning for the DMA Overnight late this summer, and the question that we kept asking ourselves was “what are we going to do with our guests this evening?” Could they roam free for hours on end, should we pack the evening with activities, would they even want to sleep at some point or test their endurance by staying awake the entire night?

After researching other museums’ overnight programs, which were mostly nature and science museums, we put together a schedule that included an hour of free time, a curator-led tour, three different gallery activities, a midnight snack, an optional early sleep time, watching a film or playing games, and finally a time for “lights out,” when everyone had to be in their sleeping bags for the night (which ended up being close to 4 a.m.).

Knowing this group had done a lot at the DMA (they did earn 100,000 points after all!), we wanted them to have a new experience in the galleries, so we created a game for the DMA Overnight called Roll with It! This competitive dice game took the guests throughout the Museum as they searched for a work of art that matched the roll of the dice. One die gave a gallery location, one gave a feature that the work needed to include (red, 3D, animals), and one gave an action for the guests to do (pose, sketch, make a sound) in response to their chosen work of art. The team that completed the most rolls in 30 minutes won the game.

DMA Overnight by the numbers:

1,000,000 – points earned by 10 DMA Friends to attend the Overnight

23 – Friends

108 – glow sticks worn

3 – hand-made dice

10 – “art babies” created during the Creativity Challenge

1 – ghost story

5 – Friends who got up early to do yoga in the galleries

4 – average number of hours Friends slept during the DMA Overnight

Lights Out at the DMA

We were also excited to have Luke Darby from the Dallas Observer join us for the DMA Overnight. You can read about his experience here.

Stacey Lizotte is head of adult programming and multimedia services at the DMA, and designated RA of DMA Overnight.


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