S L O W Invitational Exhibit

Gallery 307 in Lamar Dodd School of Art is currently full of works that make up the exhibition: S L O W. On view from Sept. 23 through Oct. 17, 2011, the S L O W 2011 Invitational exhibit features Stefan Chinov (photography), Brian Dettmer (book arts/sculpture), Dawn Gavin (mixed media installation), Claire Hairstans (printmaking), Zack Mory (drawing) and Annie Strader (sculpture, video, installation).

According to the Lamar Dodd website, the six featured artists are "exploring the idea of time through various media and conceptual approaches." Each work captures the intricacies of a moment in varying mediums such as graphite drawings, pinhole photographs, prints, sculptural books, video installations and installations in other media.

The gallery is open Mon. through Fri. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is curated by assistant professor of art at Lamar Dodd Jon Swindler, Dr. Nell Andrew and Gallery Director Jeffrey Whittle.

Lewandowski at Work

We just found this great short film on YouTube that shows Edmund Lewandowski, subject of our current exhibition "Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond," at work on a mural of the S.S. President Van Buren. It's silent but in color, and titles announce the different sections: preparatory drawing, squaring, underdrawing (by far the longest section) and finally painting in of the mural. Lewandowski also holds a pipe in his teeth for much of the process.

Paul Manoguerra, in-house curator of the exhibition, which was organized by the Flint Institute of Arts, also put together this slideshow of images from its installation in our galleries.

GMOA welcomes Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print

Join us tomorrow from 5:30–7 in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium for a lecture with Jim Sherraden, manager, curator and chief designer of Nashville's Hatch Show Print.

In conjunction with GMOA's current exhibition, "American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print," Sherraden will speak about Hatch's new and vintage works, as well as the future of printmaking and letterpress.

Hatch has been in the poster-making business since the 1870s, and was recently admitted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Sheryl Crowe, Dave Matthews Band, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and Wynonna Judd are only a few members of Hatch's prestigious client list.

"American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print" will be on display through Nov. 6, 2011.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Thanks to R.E.M.

Every Athenian and music lover is well aware that R.E.M. has decided to call it quits after playing together for 31 years. The alternative rock band has donated endless time and nods to Athens in its long career, and we at the Georgia Museum of Art could not be more thankful.

Here at GMOA, R.E.M. has continued its support throughout the years with donations and sponsorships and by showcasing the permanent collection. In 1991, R.E.M. used three paintings from the Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection in its video for “Low,” including “La Confidence” by Elizabeth Jane Gardner. The paintings were intertwined with real models and editing technology to enliven the images and helped to attract a new audience to the museum.

Among numerous Elegant Salute events at the museum, the band also sponsored several exhibitions over the years: “Lord Love You: Works by R.A. Miller from the Mullis Collection” in 2009, “Weaving His Art on Golden Looms: Paintings and Drawings by Art Rosenbaum” in 2006 and “Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State” in 2003.

To Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Mike Mills and Peter Buck, thank you for years of support and artistic interpretations of this beautiful town of Athens.

Here is a last look at the "Low" music video including images from the Georgia Museum's permanent collection.

GMOA Images on the Move

It's not just the Paolo Schiavo that's out seeing the greater world. Several other of our images are on the road. Art Rosenbaum's "McIntosh County Shouters," last seen on the GMOA billboard pictured somewhat blurrily above, is currently at the Morris Museum of Art, in Augusta, Ga. The exhibition "Down South: Paintings by Art Rosenbaum, Photographs by Margo Newmark Rosenbaum" is on display there through Nov. 6. Our Romare Bearden, usually on display in the new permanent collection galleries, is temporarily out of the building too. It's appearing in "Romare Bearden: Southern Reflections," a centennial celebration of the artist, at the Mint Museum of Art, in Charlotte, N.C.

Willem de Kooning Retrospective at MOMA

The Museum of Modern Art recently opened a retrospective exhibition that will last through Jan. 9th on the life and works of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), an infamous modern artist who swept his frantic paint strokes across canvases throughout the 20th century.

The exhibition takes up the entire 6th floor of the Museum of Modern Art filling seven galleries with seven decades of work. “Most usefully the show lets de Kooning be complicated: it presents his art as a bifurcated yet unitary phenomenon,” wrote Holland Cotter, New York Times art critic.

More than 200 works including paintings, drawings and sculptures span de Kooning’s lengthy career. The show begins with a still-life painting that de Kooning finished at age 12 when he was still living in his hometown of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and continues well into the late 20th century.

The exhibition, among many others, includes several landmark paintings such as “Pink Angels,” “Excavation” and the “Woman” series.

More Kress Project Entries

As of this morning, we've hit 40 entries in the Kress Project. Mary Padgelek sent in a whole series of Madonna paintings (see above for one example), and we finally got our first audio entry, "Awake to the Terror," by Brian Connell. Browse through the entries so far and get inspired.

Unfortunately for our in-person visitors, our Paolo Schiavo is traveling to the Allentown Art Museum, which is about to reopen following its own major renovation and expansion. The Schiavo will be featured in an exhibition titled “Shared Treasure: The Legacy of Samuel H. Kress,” on view October 16, 2011 – January 15, 2012. Kress grew up in Cherryville, very near Allentown, and made one of his largest gifts to that museum. The exhibition will feature 40 key selections from its permanent collection as well as 30 additional works on loan from Kress Collections around the country. The Allentown Art Museum will reciprocate with a loan from its Kress Collection. If you're looking to get inspired by that painting specifically, you can still download a high-resolution image from the Kress Project site, or if you happen to be in the Allentown area, please visit it there.

Watch the "Horizons"

The weather is changing outside and grey skies spread eerie shadows over the cast-iron figures in the Georgia Museum of Art’s “Horizons” exhibition. Twelve life-size sculptures have held their gaze over the sculpture garden and around the museum since last January, but the exhibition will close this November 30th.

Fall skies provide a perfect time to catch the glow of the rusted iron and inset glass. Steinunn Thorarinsdottir is an Icelandic artist who studied sculpture in England and Italy, but now lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland. Her stoic depictions of the human form in “Horizons” have appeared in fields, forests and gardens since 2007 before arriving at their sixth destination, the Georgia Museum of Art.

Another outdoor exhibition of Thoraarinsdottir’s recently closed in New York City’s Hammarskjold Plaza, a dynamic area of the city known for its political energy and as a rally local. Thorarinsdottir told the Wall Street Journal, “Often the figures have become silent witnesses and participants in deeply serious demonstrations as well as more light-hearted festivals.”

The Georgia Museum of Art’s sculpture garden on the other hand has afforded “Horizons” a calm place to land. However, with events coming up such as the High Falutin’ Hootenanny, a celebration with live music, barbeque and beer, these sculptures may get a little more action.

Come enjoy the cooler weather and true colors of the “Horizons” exhibition before the end of November. A list of exhibitions and events such as the High Falutin’ Hootenanny can be found on our website.

Happy Workers

How do we raise funds when we have a fundraiser? One way we do so is by recruiting staff and volunteers to assemble invitations and stuff envelopes. These happy folks helped us get the invitations for A Highfalutin' Hootenanny out the door unbelievably fast last week, and they should have arrived in your mailboxes by now.

For more information about the event, click here to read the full press release.

GMOA Employees Forklift Certified

As of Wednesday, GMOA's own Todd Rivers, Chief Preparator, and Larry Forte, Art Handler, are certified forklift drivers.

"We got certified to help provide the skills needed to load off large art shipments that arrive in crates," said Rivers.

The museum most recently received a sizable load from Nashville, TN containing the materials for "The Art of Hatch Show Print" exhibition, which runs through Nov. 6, 2011.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opens Parisian exhibition

François Boucher, (French, 1703–1770), Lady Fastening Her Garter (also known as La Toilette), 1742. Oil on canvas. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. (Via Art Daily).

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston was recently featured in Art Daily for the opening of their newest exhibition: Life and Luxury: The Art of Living in Eighteenth-Century Paris.

The exhibition allows viewers a glimpse of the day-to-day activities of elite 18^th century Parisians, including dressing, writing, collecting and evening entertaining.

Made up of nearly 160 objects, half on loan from 26 museums and private collections, the exhibition contains a wide range of paintings, sculpture, applied arts, drawings, metalwork, furniture, architectural fittings, lighting and hearth fixtures, scientific and musical instruments, clocks and watches, textiles and dress, books, and maps.

Click here to read the full article about this exhibition in Art Daily.

Evening for Educators

This Thursday, September 22, GMOA will host Evening for Educators for K-12 educators. A wine and cheese reception will be provided as well as a performance from the Monsignor Donovan High School jazz band. Exhibitions will be available for preview with curators and docents. Educators are also invited to sign up for guided tours and new teaching packets.

Lewandowski the Precisionist

Now open at the Georgia Museum of Art (GMOA) is a traveling exhibition--Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond--organized by the Flint Institute of Arts. The exhibition has already been on display at Flint, at the Winthrop University Art Galleries, and the Mobile Museum of Art. For a nice, detailed definition of "Precisionism," see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's history of art timeline [here].

A few images from the exhibition at GMOA:



Of Polish ancestry, Lewandowski (1914-1998) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and remained a truly Midwestern artist throughout his career. The display features 44 works by Lewandowski ranging from the 1930s to the 1990s. Among the 44 images are two paintings from the permanent collection at the GMOA that return home to Athens after having toured with the exhibition since last summer:

Devil's Gateway, 1935-43, watercolor on paper, 15 1/2 x 21 inches
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Transferred from the University of Georgia Department of Art
GMOA 1961.184

Third Avenue N.Y.C., 1941, gouache on paper, 22 1/16 x 29 15/16 inches
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of the Friends of the Museum
GMOA 1990.1

After studying at the Layton School of Art, Lewandowski worked for the Federal Art Project and earned the notice of Edith Halpert, founder of Downtown Gallery in New York. Halpert added him to her stable of artists, which included Charles Sheeler. Lewandowski would visit Manhattan (where he painted Third Avenue N.Y.C.) to see Halpert and Downtown Gallery, but she continually insisted that he refrain from leaving the Midwest, emphasizing him as a regional and "American" painter.

His watercolor Fishermen's Village, featuring a Wisconsin town, is in this exhibition at GMOA. It was once exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1938, was seen there by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and was subsequently acquired for the Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park.

Fishermen's Village, 1937, watercolor and gouache over pencil on paper, 26 5/8 x 31 1/2 inches.
Collection of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York

Although he taught for a time at Florida State University, and spent the last years of his life living in South Carolina, Lewandowski throughout his career focused on the Great Lakes coastline, towns, farms, and industry. Ore boats re-appeared in his work from the 1940s to the 1980s. One of his most important nautical series began as a commission to paint the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1958. In 1975, the ship famously sank in Lake Superior in a horrible, sudden November storm. Lewandowski revisited the ship as subject several times after the sinking, including in this 1987 oil painting from a private collection:


The ship was memorialized in popular culture by Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."



Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond will be open at GMOA until December 3.

UGA Student Day this Thursday

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will present a Student Day this Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011. Throughout the day, UGA students are invited to learn about the Student Association of the Georgia Museum of Art and participate in many events starting at 1 p.m. Bring your UGA student ID and receive a free gourmet popsicle from Hip Pops.

GMOA Student Day Itinerary

1 p.m. – Behind-the-scenes Tour

Visit the areas of the Georgia Museum of Art you never get to see. Attendees should meet in the museum lobby.

2 p.m. – Panel Discussion

Meet some of GMOA’s staff and find out more about working in an art museum. The panel discussion will take place in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium.

3 p.m. – Behind-the-Scenes Tour

Meet in the museum lobby.

3:30 p.m. – Student-docent-led Tour

Learn about works in the collection from fellow UGA students. Meet in the museum lobby.

4 p.m. – Gallery Talk

Join GMOA director of communications Hillary Brown and chief preparator Todd Rivers as they discuss two new exhibitions, “Hot Metal and Cool Paper: The Black Art of Making Books” and “American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print.” Meet in the museum lobby.

4:30 p.m. – Student-docent-led Tour

Meet in the museum lobby.

5:30 p.m. – Hispanic Heritage Month Film Festival: Immigration and Transnational Experiences

Join us for the first film in this year’s annual Latin American Film Festival and meet the directors. Precious Knowledge (2010) – In this documentary directed by Ari Palos and Eren McGinnis, disenfranchised high school seniors become academic warriors and community leaders in Tucson, Arizona’s embattled ethnic studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program. Special guests Palos and McGinnis will speak about the film at 5:30 p.m. with the screening at 6:30 p.m. (75 minutes, NR).

This film festival is supported in part by the President’s Venture fund through generous gifts by the University of Georgia’s Partners, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, the department of Romance languages, the College of Education, the Georgia Museum of Art, UGA Parents and Families Association, and the Office of Inclusion and Diversity.

Playlist

If you've been wondering if that really was A Tribe Called Quest you heard while browsing our exhibition "American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print," you've got a good ear. As part of the exhibition installation, we have music playing by many of the artists whose posters the show features. Here's a list of what's streaming.

Lamar Dodd Gallery

Nine Inch Nails, “The Fragile” & “Into The Void”
The Strokes, “Is This It?”
Squirrel Nut Zippers, “St Louis Cemetery Blues”
Beastie Boys, “Paul Revere” & “No Sleep till Brooklyn”
Pearl Jam, “Supersonic” & “Man Of The Hour” (Big Fish)
The Legendary Shack Shakers, “Swampblood”
A Tribe Called Quest, “Excursions” & “Rap Romoter”
Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the Wind” & “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
The Rolling Stones, “Paint It, Black” & “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
Beck, “Loser”
The Everly Brothers, “Run Around Sue” & “All I Have To Do Is Dream”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Sweet Home Alabama”
Lucinda Williams, “Righteously” & “Howlin’ At Midnight”
Bob Marley & The Wailers, “No Woman No Cry” & “Rebel Music”
Rod Stewart, “Maggie May”
Mark Knopfler, “True Love Will Never Fade” & “Boom, Like That”
Etta James, “All I Could Do Was Cry” & “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”
Elvis Costello & The Attractions, “Alison” & “Everyday I Write The Book”
The Shins, “Know Your Opinion!” & “The Past And Pending”
Wilco, “Heavy Metal Drummer” & “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”
Weezer, “Island In The Sun”
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “Free Fallin’ ”
Motely Crue, “Home Sweet Home” & “Smoking in the Boys Room”
The Jon Spenser Blues Explosion, “Bellbottoms” & “Cowboy”
The Roots, “What They Do”
Ben Folds Five, “Battle of Who Could Care Less”
Tragically Hip, “Love is a First”
My Morning Jacket, “Off the Record” & “Lay Low”
Sigur Ros “Untitled 3” & “Untitled 4” (NOTE*: These songs may have a title but when they were sent to Lynn the title may not have been labeled on that person’s ipod…?)

Alfred Heber Holbrook Gallery

Bill Monroe & his Blue Grass Boys, “Toy Heart” & “Wicked Path of Sin” & “Blue Grass Breakdown”
Ernest Tubb, “You Nearly Lose Your Miind” & “Waltz Across Texas”
Eddie Arnold “Cool Water” & “Cattle Call”
Elvis Presley, “All Shook Up” & “Mystery Train” & “Love Me Tender”
George Jones, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” & “Wine Colored Roses”
Waylon Jennings “Bob Wills Is Still The King” “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean”
The Original Crickets, “That’ll Be The Day” & “Rave On”
Buddy Holly, “Everyday”
Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, “Holding On To Nothing” & “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me”
Merle Haggard, “Make-up and Faded Blue Jeans” & “Worning Mans Blues”
Tammy Wynette & her Country Gentlemen, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” & “Stand By Your Man”
Willie Nelson & the Recordmen, “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” & “Red Headed Stranger”
James Brown, “The Big Payback” & “Papas Got A Brand New Bag”
The Carter Family, “Single Girl, Married Girl” & “I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes”
Loretta Lynn, “Don’t Come Home A Drinkin” & “Coal Miner’s Daughter” & “High On A Mountain” & “Van Lear Rose”
Kitty Wells, “Makin’ Believe”
Johnnie and Jack, “(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely” & “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight”
Emmylou Harris, “Red Dirt Girl”
Tony Bennett, “Rags To Riches”
Townes van Zandt, “Ain’t Leavin’ Your Love”
Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues” & “I Walk The Line” & “Ring of Fire”
Duke Ellington, “Mood Indigo” & “Take the A Train”
Louis Armstrong, “What A Wonderful World” & “La Vie en Rose”
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Chicago” & “Love The One You’re With”

Lecture Tonight

Looking for something to do this late afternoon/early evening? Interested in a potential preview of an upcoming GMOA exhibition? Check out Dr. Asen Kirin's lecture "Exuberance of Meaning: The Art Patronage of Catherine the Great," which he will give as part of the Visual Culture Colloquium (VCC) Lectures at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, in room S150 of the Dodd, at 5 p.m. today (Thursday, Sept. 8). A description follows:

The lecture introduces an exhibition project the work on which has already commenced. This exhibition intends to make a contribution to the current knowledge of patronage in eighteenth-century Russia and to our understanding of the perception of Byzantine culture in the era of neo-Classicism. The plan of the curator is to accomplish this goal with a relatively limited number of objects—loans from a small number of museums in the U.S.A.

The exhibition will illustrate the complex dynamic between the collection of historical art and the commissioning of new works of art during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-96). The focus of the exhibition is on the particular manner in which Catherine applied not only her knowledge of ancient and medieval glyptic art but also her collection of carved gems to new works of art that she commissioned. This was a deliberate continuation of the centuries-old tradition of placing pagan, Greek, and Roman carved stones onto sacred Christian liturgical and devotional objects. The empress not only shared the Enlightenment sentiment that carved gems were essential material vestiges from the past, but she was also fully cognizant of the cultural meanings associated with the practice of collecting cameos. Accordingly, she addressed these cultural meanings in her art patronage.

The title “Exuberance of Meaning” refers to a crucial characteristic that distinguishes Catherine the Great’s endeavors in the arts. Her innumerable projects—whether a new city, a church, a liturgical vessel, or a dinner set—were conceived in a manner allowing for multiple yet complementary interpretations covering a wide spectrum of meanings. Some of these meanings and references remained relevant only within a Russian context, thus forming unique aspects of this country’s neo-Classicism. This multiplicity of meaning is the direct outcome of the empress’s wish to assert her empire’s status as a key participant in the Project of the Enlightenment whose aim was to reform society and advance knowledge. The empress believed that accomplishing this goal in Russia necessitated not only knowledge of classical mythology, literature, and art, but also of Russia’s heritage of Byzantine theology, political ideology, as well as history. Catherine strove to add a neo-Classical stratum to Russia’s material culture and with it to expand the system of cultural references in her empire. The most ambitious trait of her ideological creativity consists of constructing an environment in which a learned audience would understand works of art, architecture, and literature through proficiency in the “languages” of both classical and medieval culture.

Dr. Kirin has worked with the museum before, perhaps most notably on the exhibition "Sacred Art, Secular Context," which examined Byzantine works of art from the collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Hot Metal in motion

"Hot Metal and Cool Paper: The Black Art of Making Books" is up in the Boone and George-Ann Knox I Gallery, leading into "American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print," through Nov. 6. Here are a couple of short videos to give you a taste for the exhibition.

This one shows the printing of the rack cards that will soon be in the gallery, on a printing press owned by Todd Rivers, co-curator of the exhibition.

This one goes briefly through the gallery to show what the exhibition actually looks like. You can't read any of the text very well, though, so make sure to come see it in person.

Kress Project entries keep on coming

We're up to 20 entries now for the Kress Project, and they're starting to arrive more quickly now. We have a video entry on the way, for example, and three new poems just went up on the site today. To see all the new entries since our last update, click here and keep clicking through to the next entry at the bottom of the page.

Remember, you can enter as many times as you like, and there is no fee.